Lausanne World Pulse – Dalit Education Centers: Delivering Emancipation and Building Leaders
By Joseph D’Souza
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Looking deep into 8-year-old Susmita’s eyes, anyone can tell that hers is a difficult life. The clothing on her back is ripped, dirty and worn. Her slightly jaundiced face reflects the illness caused by a lack of medical care. She has learned to live with the constant toothache she has had since she was six. She sits in front of her small hut, made from grass, broken bricks and scraps of heavy plastic, and watches as children in her village make their way each morning to school. She admires their clean, pressed uniforms and wonders what it must be like to attend such a great institution of learning. However, Susmita knows she may never darken the doorway of a school. She may never carry a backpack filled with books. As a tear rolls down her face, Susmita realizes hers is a life unlike those of other children. It is a life of despair, poverty and injustice. It is the life of a Dalit.
The Dalit people of India are victims of centuries-long, socially-sanctioned bigotry. Nearly three hundred million people fall into this lowest caste of the Hindu caste system. Because of the Dalit’s low social standing, affluent parts of society deny them basic human rights. Unable to access education, and because of the social stigma of “untouchability,” society forces Dalits to take low-paying jobs that provide inadequate income. They cannot afford food, clothing, shelter, medical care or education. Society denies Dalits human rights and shackles them to a social and religious system that removes personal freedom.
Dalit Leaders and the Christian Church Join Together
However, after centuries of caste-based oppression, Dalit leaders are asserting themselves. Often this assertion is met with violent hostility. Yet the Dalit leadership across the nation is committed to the abolishment of caste and to an end of inhumane discrimination. In 2001 many of India’s Dalit leaders entered into an alliance with Christian leaders for the emancipation of Dalits. The Christian Church in India is nearly eighty percent Dalit/Tribal and so it was natural that this movement of solidarity began.
Dalit leadership invited Indian Christians to give their children an English education which included a biblical worldview that touched on the dignity of men and women, creation, salvation and union with God. This historic decision to educate Dalit children in the English medium—the language of the ruling elite—was the culmination of more than fifty years of intense struggle. Dalits insist that the best way to change lives, achieve measurable results in the community and escape the plight of oppression is through education that serves the whole person and includes community and spiritual development. Indian Christians enthusiastically accepted this invitation, pledging their solidarity with the Dalits. Christians agreed to provide this education, knowing that it would result in a life-changing transformation in the Dalit people.
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