wfn.org | LWI 2009-029 FEATURE: She Could Not Share Dogs' Water

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>FEATURE: She Could Not Share Dogs' Water
>Education Helps Dalit Woman Find Her Strength

BANGKOK, Thailand/GENEVA, 15 April 2009 (LWI) - Rama Devi
Hansraj comes from Bhubaneshwar, the capital of India's
northeastern state of Orissa. She may not have experienced
removing human excrement from dry toilets with bare hands, a task
assigned to Dalits like her, who were once called "untouchables".

But Hansraj, aged 28, says she knows what it means to be
considered below India's caste system. Growing up as a child of
Hindu parents, she had to remember not to drink water from a
tumbler reserved for upper caste children. The penalty was to
face beatings from upper-caste teachers. 

Hansraj learned early on that cattle, dogs and pigs could bathe
in a pond intended exclusively for kallars (non-Dalits). But a
Dalit like her could not bathe in the same water.

She was one of 95 representatives of churches and other
organizations worldwide who participated in a 21-24 March
conference in Bangkok, Thailand, organized by the World Council
of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, and hosted by the
Christian Conference of Asia.

The conference aimed to raise awareness of caste-based
discrimination ahead of the 20 to 24 April United Nations' Durban
Review Conference, to be convened in Geneva, to review the
implementation of the Plan of Action adopted by the 2001 World
Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. In Bangkok,
delegates urged governments taking part in the Durban review
conference to "accept the inclusion of caste-based
discrimination" in their discussions.

>Practical Reasons

Despite facing such discrimination at home, Hansraj remained a
Hindu for some time due to practical reasons. "As a Hindu, I
could avail myself of the government’s affirmative action
programs," she said in an interview with this writer during the
ecumenical conference.

In 1950, India's Hindu Dalits were made eligible 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.

Through the affirmative action programs, Hansraj received an
education and eventually qualified for an international
fellowship at the University of London, United Kingdom, where she
took a master’s degree in human rights.

>Globalizing Opportunities

Subsequently Hansraj converted to Buddhism. Since 2006, she has
been working for the aid organization Catholic Relief Services in
India, where she has collaborated with Christian churches in
Dalit rights’ advocacy. 

As an aid worker, Hansraj has helped in rebuilding the lives of
Dalit Christians in India’s troubled Orissa state, where
thousands of Christians were attacked by Hindu extremists in
2008.

"Besides helping build homes, we are also helping
psychologically and spiritually rehabilitate the people,
especially the children who have remained traumatized by the
violence in Orissa," she said. 

To Hansraj, a mother of two and the wife of a Baptist minister,
also a Dalit, education represents a major step in the journey to
Dalit liberation. She stressed that amid the Dalits' difficulties
and suffering, education could help empower them and turn their
position of "victimhood" into one of strength.

She currently attends evening classes at a law school in
Chennai, southeastern India, where she is a first-year student.
"My human rights education and law background would help me in my
advocacy for Dalit justice and rights," she said. "Besides
education, globalization  -  not in the sense of globalizing
markets but in globalizing opportunities - can one day help make
caste-based discrimination a thing of the past," she added. (605
words)

(Adapted from Maurice Malanes' feature article for the
Geneva-based Ecumenical News International) 

*        *          *

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