Catholics, caste and citizenship: Engagements in civil society

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article is part of a wider study, which included a clutch of associations. However, here only two associations in Mumbai are referred to.

2 Dalits are castes at the lowest end of the caste hierarchy and were earlier considered untouchable. As ‘impure’ and untouchable, they were avarna (that is, falling outside of the four savarna categories of the Hindu social and moral order – Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra). While there are thousands of castes across the regions of India, they are perceived as belonging to one or other of the four varnas, or else falling outside of that hierarchy. The distinction is treated as one between those who are within the caste/varna order (‘have caste’) albeit with varying degrees of ‘purity’, and those who are effectively ‘casteless’. Dalit Catholics in southern India are largely descendants of late nineteenth and early twentieth century converts said to belong to the avarna category and ‘caste’ Catholics are descendants of converts from the savarna castes. Untouchability was abolished in independent India and a number of laws passed to prevent discrimination against Dalits and enhance opportunities for them. However, they continue to face stigma due to their caste origins, despite legal provisions and, as in this case, conversion to Catholicism.

3 A First Information Report (FIR) is a written document prepared by the police on the basis of a complaint lodged by someone who has suffered due to the commission of a cognizable offence. Ekta Kapoor is a well-known film and television producer in India.

4 The reference is to a case filed by AoCC against Ekta Kapoor in 2012 for objectionable scenes in her film named Kya super kool hain hum [How super cool we are]. The scenes included one with a priest pouring holy water on the wedding of two dogs and a line refers to water emerging from three places – thereby equating holy water with urine and sperm.

5 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed’ (Luke 4: 18). Also, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound’ (Isaiah 61: 1).

6 While this article focuses more on caste manifestations within the church itself, the reader may refer to Robinson (2019) for an examination of more diffuse forms of social discrimination and exclusion.

7 This is corroborated by well-known Dalit Catholic activist and Jesuit Fr Yesumarian who said that when the DCYM which merged with the DCLM started in the early 1990s, though over 70% of the Tamil Catholics were Dalits, there was not even one bishop from that community. At present, four out of 18 bishops are Dalits.

8 This is the foundation of the argument framed by the plaintiffs in WP 180/04 currently being heard in the Supreme Court in which the Catholic church has impleaded itself along with the petitioners.