Caste Discrimination Tamil Christian Society

About 70 to 80 percent of Indian Christians are Dalits. In India, whatever be the religion, caste is the defining ingredient. Many westerners and even Indians assume that caste is an irrelevant non-entity in Indian Christianity. But the Dalit Christian experience informs us that in India caste can be neither ducked nor side-stepped; it is knit into the Indian social fabric. Whenever be the core philosophy of a religion, caste is inescapable. It may not be theologically sanctioned but ispervasive, invisible and influential.
There is an elementary and undeniable difference between the spread of Christianity in Europe and its appeal in India. In the latter, it was often considered an emancipatory escape from the oppressive caste system. However, time has proved in India that caste is first, and Christ next.
Fr. Pooranam De Mel’s book confirms and explains how caste operates subtly, and if necessary, violently, in various forms in Indian Christianity. The book is the outcome of his extensive and in-depth study of the Dalit Christian experience in two villages in Tamilnadu.

The book’s authenticity and the author’s commitment to the Dalit cause in India should be an eye opener to all those who continue to deny the presence of caste in Indian Christianity but acquiesce with it in innumerable ways.