Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s decision to seek Schedule Caste status to Dalit Christians in the state has triggered a controversy with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongly opposing the move and calling it unconstitutional. The Cabinet unanimously passed the resolution and sent it to the Union government seeking to amend the Constitution. The BJP has now approached Andhra Pradesh Governor Abdul Nazeer asking him to stall the process.
On March 24, Jagan Mohan Reddy made two crucial decisions in the Assembly: Passing a resolution to give Scheduled Tribes status to the Boya community and also resolution to provide Scheduled Caste (SC) status to Dalit Christians. While making the announcement, the Chief Minister said, “Earlier, when the state was undivided, under the leadership of my father (YS Rajasekhara Reddy), we had passed a resolution to provide Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians. Today, we are again making the same decision and passing the resolution.”
In 2009, as the Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhara Reddy adopted a resolution appealing the Union Government to amend the Constitution and award Scheduled Caste (SC) status to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims.
Justifying the reason for providing SC status to Dalit Christians, Jagan said, “The reason we are stressing for SC status to Dalit Christians is, just because a Dalit converting to some other religion would not change his social or economic status, or their livelihood. This is the truth which everyone is aware of,” he argued.
Jagan said that religion is a relationship between God and humans, which is a private affair. “What if a person changes his religion? Whom is he harming by doing so? Just because they changed their religion, denying them the rights and benefits as SCs is injustice,” the Chief Minister said.
According to Para 3 0f the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, only Dalits of Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh faiths can be categorised as SCs. There have been several petitions seeking the inclusion of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims into SC category in the Supreme Court.
Responding to one of the Public Interest Litigations, the Union Government last year opposed their inclusion by stating that Christianity is an “egalitarian” religion which does not have a caste system.
“One of the reasons for which people from Scheduled Castes have been converting to religions like Islam and Christianity is that they can come out of the oppressive system of untouchability, which is not prevalent at all in Christianity and Islam. Therefore, once they have come out and ameliorated their social status by converting themselves to Christianity or Islam they cannot claim to be backward since backwardness based on untouchability is only prevalent in the Hindu society or its branches and not in any other religion,” the Union government said in its affidavit.
In their pursuit to deny reservation and benefits to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims, the Union government had also dubbed the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities report (2007) as “flawed”. The Commission had recommended SC status to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims.
Dismissing the report’s findings, the government said “It was written within the four walls of a room. There was no field study done… The Commission (Misra) took a myopic view of the social milieu in India.”
The Union government has however formed a three-member commission to study the inclusion.
Inclusion of Dalit Christians in SC category has been a long-standing demand by the community. Last year, in August, Dalit Christians in the state, led by AP Federation of Churches and Vijayawada Dalit Christian Associations observed a Black Day for denying SC status to Christians but extending the same to Buddhists and Sikhs.
However, Right-Wing organisations and the BJP believe that Dalits would abandon Hinduism and convert to other religions if the SC benefits were extended to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims. In 2009, BJP leader Kishan Reddy, who is presently the Union Minister for Tourism, opposed the resolution passed by the Andhra Pradesh cabinet saying that it “would lure SCs to convert to Christianity and promote missionary activities.”
Opposing Jagan’s decision, Andhra BJP chief Somu Veerraju however claimed that the decision will affect the “real Dalits” from benefiting from the rights reserved for SCs.
According to political theorist Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, Jagan’s move will not materialise as he anticipates opposition from within Dalit groups, who identify as Hindus.
“Dalit groups might oppose the decision arguing that Dalit Christians are taking over their benefits because the number of people seeking reservation will increase but the quota will remain the same. Particularly in Andhra Pradesh there is a prevailing notion that Malas who have converted to Christianity are better-off than the Madigas economically. So, this will create a rift.”
Ilaiah says that Jagan is fully aware of the opposition from the BJP or the Dalit groups. “The Supreme Court will not make a decision on this issue anytime soon. Amidst opposition from other groups, he might just say that he tried. This is a move to increase his electoral base by reaching out to the Dalit Christian community.”
Talking about the BJP’s opposition to the inclusion, he says, “BJP will naturally oppose anything that benefits Christians or Muslims. But the other aspect of it is that it will make the process of conversion very easy. Many already practise a different religion but register themselves as Scheduled Caste during the census fearing that they would lose benefits.”