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THE Indian society has always suffered from ironical contradictions. Otherwise, how does one explain the high place enjoyed by Valmiki, his birth in a low caste notwithstanding, the pride that his followers take in being his followers and the continued state of Dalitness of those who adhere by him? Not surprisingly, a large number of conversions to Islam took place from those sections of society that were condemned as outcasts in the hope of attaining freedom from Dalitness. The advent of Sikhism, too, had briefly held out hope for the vast numbers coming from these classes and when Christian missionaries discovered these souls waiting for "salvation", they took it upon themselves not only to save them but also improve their socio-economic status.
It believed that the application of liberation theology to India should reflect the struggle of the Dalits who make up about 70 per cent of the Christians in India. It shares a number of themes with liberation theology, including self-identity. Dalit theology sees hope in the "Nazareth Manifesto" of Luke 4, where Jesus speaks of preaching "good news to the poor ... freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind" and of releasing "the oppressed". A major proponent of Dalit theology was Arvind P. Nirmal (1936–95), a Dalit Christian at the Church of North India. Nirmal drew on the concept of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 to identify Jesus himself as a Dalit — "a waiter, a dhobi, and bhangi". Subsequently, Dalit theologians have also seen passages in the gospels, such as Jesus’ sharing a common drinking vessel with the Samaritan woman in John 4, as indicating his embracing of Dalitness. The parable of the Good Samaritan is also seen as significant, providing a "life-giving message to the marginalised Dalits and a challenging message to the non-Dalits". The discerning will notice that this assertion of Dalitness and the determined interpretation of the life of Christ in the light of contemporary experiences in India coincide with the emergence of a new and confident India after the 1980s. Dalit Theology in the Twenty-first Century is, by its own assertion, "collaborative effort of many serious scholars bound together by a common commitment to stir and steer academia, Church, and the Indian society `85". In doing so, it has touched many a contentious issues, including the need to transform the tribal society. The contributing scholars of the book find numerous examples from the past and the contemporary world that bear uncanny resemblance to the stories and parables from the Old Testament. The theme of fallen woman is liberally drawn upon, though one might add that the persecution then and now, and indeed, in future, too, would continue to take place as only the vulnerable and the weak are subjected to such fate. Another scholar has used the heinous crime of Haryana where an upper caste girl, pregnant Sunita, and a lower caste boy, Jasbir Singh, were brutally killed by the girl’s blood relations as punishment. The deaths of the about-to-be mother and the unborn child have been used to suggest the resurrection, with the womb being the tomb! Dalit theologians have also focused on the tribal India. How the Church or the Bajrang Dalis have appropriated the right to decide that the tribal societies need morality and ethics, as they know them to be, and also the "salvation" and "mukti", in accordance with their theological philosophies, we do not know. But the faith in the respective religions has wreaked havoc and has aggravated socio-economic divides is a matter of fact. Dalit theologians, dare
one say, like the Bahujan Samaj Party, has found a strident voice that
wishes to dominate the Indian Christianity because it has the numbers.
In doing so, it has the support of Dalit theologians, like M. E.
Prabhakar, who expanded on the Dalitness of Jesus, stating that
"the God of the Dalits ... does not create others to do servile
work, but does servile work Himself". He also suggested that Jesus
experienced human, and especially the Dalit, brokenness in his
crucifixion.
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However, like other
conversions, Christianity, too, failed to break the shackles that the
Brahimical order had put on the Indian society. It is a reaction to this
Brahminical dominance of Christian theology in India that Dalit
theology, as a branch of Christian theology, emerged among the Dalits
caste in India in the 1980s.