CHRISTIAN NEWS MAGAZINE FOR KERALA MALAYALEE CHRISTIANS FROM INDIA AROUND THE WORLD
JANUARY 2008 WORLD NEWS & EVENTS
VOL:07 ISSUE:01

INDIANS HAIL ASSURANCES ON ENDING CHRISTIAN DALIT'S DISCRIMINATION


ENI-07-0990
By Anto Akkara

Bangalore, India, 20 December (ENI)--Church groups and activists have welcomed assurances from the Indian government that discrimination will be ended against Christian Dalits that does not affect their Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh counterparts. "The entire Christian community will be grateful if the government acts swiftly in the coming months," said the National Coordination Committee for Dalit Christians in a 17 December statement.

India's home affairs minister Shivraj Patil is reported to have told Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil, president of the Catholic Bishops' Council of Kerala state, that the government was initiating steps to end the discrimination against Christian Dalits and others. The Dalit Christians' national coordination committee is a forum of the mainly Anglican, Orthodox and Protestant National Council of Churches in India and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.

Dalit (meaning "trampled upon" in Sanskrit) refers to low castes treated as untouchables under the caste system in India that enjoins them to carry out degrading and often dehumanising jobs. Hindu Dalits were made eligible in 1950 for free education and reserved government jobs to improve their social status. Such benefits were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and then to Buddhist Dalits in 1990. However, Christian Dalits who account for two thirds of some 27 million Christians in India, as well as Muslim Dalits, are denied these rights. A decade-old Christian campaign to end what has been labelled an apartheid system has not yet succeeded.

"Caste is the primary identity of all Indians. Caste has affected all peoples and all communities in India. Indian Christianity and Islam have caste discrimination within them," the Dalit Christians' committee pointed out in welcoming the federal minister's assurances. "We hope the government will fulfil the promise this time," the Rev. Cosmon Arokiaraj, the convenor of the ecumenical group and executive secretary of the Dalit Commission of the Catholic Church, told Ecumenical News International on 19 December.

Successive Indian governments had in the past promised to end this form of discrimination against Christian Dalits, but opposition from Hindu groups was seen as making the government dither in passing the necessary constitutional amendment. Some Hindu nationalists, led by upper castes, were believed to have feared mass conversion to Christianity if the statutory rights given to Hindu Dalits were extended to Christian Dalits.

Franklin Caesar, a Dalit Christian lawyer, whose petition challenging the "undeclared apartheid" against his group is currently being heard in the federal supreme court, said discrimination against Christian Dalits is "a constitutional fraud". More than 4 million Christian Dalits have reconverted to Hinduism, he said, as a result of Christian Dalits being denied access to free education and reserved government jobs because of their beliefs. [452 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Back Home Top
EmailEmail this Link to a Friend FeedbackSend Your Feedback

CLIMATE CHANGE COULD DEVASTATE INDIA, CHURCH REPORT STATES


ENI-07-0984
By Callie Long

New Delhi, 19 December (ENI)--India, along with China, has not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol to limit climate change-inducing gas emissions, but the country's churches are warning that global warming will have potentially devastating effects in the world's second most populous nation. "We have increasingly seen the overwhelmingly huge impact that climate change will have especially on poor people," said Sushant Agrawal, director of the Church's Auxiliary for Social Action, an organization grouping 24 Protestant and Orthodox churches in India.

CASA was originally established in 1947 to support people affected by the partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan at the end of British rule. It marked its 60th anniversary in November with a meeting on climate change, which it believes to be one of the biggest challenges now facing humanity. "It is especially the marginalised and poor who are affected and their voices need to be heard in the debate," Agrawal noted. He said it is vital for all of "humanity to take the issue seriously, with huge responsibility resting with the global bodies, governments and civil society to act urgently".

In a report, "Dossier on Climate Change", published to coincide with the anniversary, CASA warned that climate change can have potentially devastating impacts on India, with its huge and growing population, a long low-lying and densely populated coastline and an economy that is closely tied to its natural resource base. The most dramatic changes will be seen in agriculture and forestry, with profound implications for livelihoods and food security, the report stated.

"Climate change is a threat to creation and God made us in his image. In doing so he made us custodians of the earth," Agrawal said. But, he added, "We are now contributing to a threat to creation." Delhi's Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had opened the consultation on 13 November, saying that no government could tackle the challenges brought on by climate change without civil society organisations such as CASA. The alarming situation brought on by climate change poses serious challenges today, Dikshit noted. She said, "We have vandalised the world for our own comfort." :: Callie Long is the communications officer for ACT International. [373 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Back Home Top
EmailEmail this Link to a Friend FeedbackSend Your Feedback

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY URGES 'MORAL VISION' ON CLIMATE CHANGE


ENI-07-0958
By Vanya Walker-Leigh

Nusa Dua, Indonesia, 11 December (ENI)--The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in a message to participants at United Nations climate change talks in Indonesia has said a clear moral vision is needed to deal with the challenge of global warming. "Ultimately the control of climate change, ultimately the welfare of the environment is an issue of survival for everybody," Williams said in a 10-minute video statement relayed to an 11 December ecumenical meeting during talks being held at Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali.

"It is not a question that can be addressed by one society alone, by one religious tradition alone, by one State alone. Its something that demands collaboration," said Williams, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion in his message for the meeting on the fringes of the international gathering. Describing God's justice as timeless, he warned that giving priority to the interests of present generations over those of the future generations was an unjust act, which God would judge.

Government negotiators at the 3-14 December UN conference are working to frame a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which contains binding targets for some nations to reduce climate change-inducing gas emissions, but it is set to expire in 2012. Williams urged faith communities to hold up a "clear moral vision" to governments and societies.

"This will mean real challenges to developed and prosperous societies, real challenges to let go of some of their security, and some of their prosperity," said Williams. "We should be under no illusion that this will be an easy task." Negotiators for the United States were reported to have insisted on removing firm targets for reducing carbon dioxide from the "road map" being drawn up at the Bali talks.

China's emissions are not covered by Kyoto, and the world's most populous nation is for its part resisting a call for developing countries to cut emissions. At best, China says, developing countries can only slow their growth. "The biggest challenge that faces us in terms of global policy is how we are to find ways of reducing and controlling climate change without eating into the economic aspirations, the proper aspirations of our poorer societies, towards prosperity, respect and dignity," said Williams.

The Anglican leader's message appeared on screen after an ecumenical service organized by the World Council of Churches. Such services have been a regular feature of the annual UN conferences on climate change that have taken place since 1995. [422 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Back Home Top
EmailEmail this Link to a Friend FeedbackSend Your Feedback

INDIAN CHRISTIANS PROTEST PLAN TO TURN LAND INTO TECHNOLOGY CENTRE


ENI-07-0949
By Anto Akkara

Bangalore, India, 7 December (ENI)--Christians and environmentalists in India's northeastern state of Manipur are fighting plans by the government to take over 120 hectares of land where four churches and a synagogue are located, to set up a technology institute. "They seem to be using the acquisition as a tool to drive out the Christians and tribals from the area," said Kim Gangte, a former member of the Indian parliament who belongs to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and heads an action committee against the acquisition.

Many of the Christians who account for more than 30 percent of Manipur's 2.5 million people belong to two tribal groups, the Kuki and the Naga, who became Christians after the arrival of 19th century British missionaries. Sixty-five per cent of Manipur's population belongs to a Hindu caste group called the Meitei. Many Christians in Manipur are said to believe the government has chosen the institute's site because the building plans will affect the minority rather than the majority community.

Of the 120 hectares earmarked in a suburb of the state capital Imphal as the proposed site for constructing the National Institute of Technology, about half belongs to 3000 families, almost all of them belonging to mixed ethnic tribal communities. "There is a hidden agenda behind acquiring this thickly populated area ignoring the widespread protests," Gangte told Ecumenical News International. "The fact that the government is adamant on this area and is not interested in alternate sites different groups have proposed hints to a conspiracy."

Gangte was interviewed in advance of 5 December actions in Imphal that saw shops and offices closed in protest at the plans. The All India Christian Council has warned the government of a backlash if it goes ahead with the forced evictions and acquisitions of the places of worship. "The continued protests have evoked no positive response so far," Madhu Chandra, the council's regional secretary, told ENI.

A national fact-finding team is to visit the area on 19 December. The following day a non-governmental-organized "people's tribunal" is to be held to highlight the protests about the construction plans. [364 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Back Home Top
EmailEmail this Link to a Friend FeedbackSend Your Feedback
INDIAN CHRISTIAN WEB DIRECTORY [LINKS]
[ ECUMENICAL ] [ ORTHODOX ] [ MARTHOMA ] [ JACOBITE ] [ CATHOLIC ] [ CSI ] [ ORGANIZATIONS ] [ NEWS ] [ MALAYALAM ]
THE CHRISTIAN
LIGHT OF LIFE
PUBLISHED ON FIRST DAY OF EVERY MONTH