PATNA, India (ACN News): An archbishop in northern India has praised the Government for not bowing to pressure to curb Christian outreach to a huge underclass community urgently in need of basic education and health care.
Archbishop William D’Souza of Patna stressed the vital work of Church groups providing urgent help for hundreds of thousands of Dalits – many of them non-Christians – who live in extreme poverty, often largely cut off from the rest of society.
His comments, made in an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, come after a surge in anti-Christian sentiment across key parts of India, spread by hardline Hindu nationalist groups who controversially claim that the Church’s work with the poor is motivated by a hidden agenda of mass conversion.
Archbishop D’Souza made clear, however, that the Bihar state coalition government has long accepted the Church’s work with the Dalits, also known as Scheduled Castes.
Describing his diocese as “predominantly a Church of the Dalits”, Archbishop D’Souza said: “There is no direct opposition from the Government so far. The Government appreciates what we are doing.”
He underlined that, while promotion of Christian values made up a crucial part of the outreach work, its primary objective was to raise people out of abject poverty by making them aware of their rights and providing training aimed at giving job opportunities.
Pointing out that Dalits made up 45,000 of the 65,000 Catholics in the diocese, Archbishop D’Souza said: “The people we help are very poor and we don’t have the resources to give them all that they need.
“All we are trying to do is to give them a ray of hope for the future – through health and education and teaching them Christian values.”
Dalits work as manual labourers, cleaning latrines and sewers, and clearing away rubbish.
Although in urban areas, discrimination against them has declined dramatically, reports from rural areas indicate that partly for religious reasons and also because of the nature of their work, Dalits are seen as unclean and are barred from access from Hindu temples, eating places, schools and water sources.
In Patna archdiocese, the Church – both diocesan and religious communities – have responded by setting up a vast support network.
There are 3000 self-help groups – with up to 15 members each – with programs on human rights, women empowerment, home economics and organisational skill development.
Dalits are taught skills such as making soup and basket making, in initiatives intended to create jobs and provide income.
There are youth groups across the diocese where thousands of young people are given training and are taught human rights and Christian values.
Although the archbishop described the diocese as a “100 per cent missionary Church”, he said adult baptisms had fallen having peaked in the 1950s and 1960s.
