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Archbishop Concessao said that if the government did not address the Christian grievance, the churches would launch a "mass movement of Dalits of all faiths" to protest against the denial of their identity.

The archbishop said the question in the census violated "the fundamental freedom to profess, practice and propagate the religion of one's choice" under the Indian constitution.

"The hidden agenda behind this is that Christians will have to wait for another 10 years to record their [Dalit] percentage in government records," a prominent Dalit activist and CNI pastor, James Massey, told the press conference.

Massey, who is general secretary of Dalit Solidarity Peoples (DSP), told ENI: "They [the government] are trying to isolate Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist Dalits from Christian and Muslim Dalits."

This attempt, Massey said, was based on the Hindu fundamentalists' argument that Christianity and Islam were "foreign religions" which did not approve of the caste system in India.

However, Massey said, "caste is not a problem confined to any religion. It is a social reality. Whatever your religion may be, a Dalit always remains a Dalit."

Father S. Lourduswamy, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribals, told ENI that the manipulation of the census "is a step in declaring that India is a Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] country to keep all Dalits under the Hindu clutches."

In an article published in several magazines, John Dayal, a leading campaigner for Christian rights, declared that "the great Indian census has turned into a Great Identity Theft as tens of millions of Dalits and Tribals are forced into religious identities dictated neither by law nor by statute, but purely by the bigotry of a partisan government and the cultural illiteracy of a pliant bureaucracy."

However, the Christian appeals to India's Census Commissioner "to suspend the census until proper amendment is made" fell on deaf ears.

The NCCI executive committee will hold an emergency meeting in New Delhi late this month to plan the churches' response to the census "manipulation."

Copyright © 2001 ENI.

Other media coverage of the controversy and other India census issues includes:

Bishops allege 'ulteriour motives' in Census — The Times of India (Feb. 25, 2001)

Counting on Complications In Tally of India's 1 Billion | Illiteracy, provincialism hinder census takers — The Washington Post (Feb. 25, 2001)

Census: Tough task for enumerators — The Times of India( Feb. 22, 2001)

Indian census could produce 'the most complicated lies' — Asia Times (Feb. 21, 2001)

Past Christianity Today articles about India's Dalits include:

Justice Delayed for Dalits | Christian untouchable is murdered, but police stall investigation. (Oct. 19, 2000)

Study of Indian Clergy Exposes Inequalities in Church Leadership | Many low-caste and rural Indians are Christians, but few have positions of influence within the church. (Oct. 9, 2000)

Thousands Mourn Death of 'India's Father' | Evangelist Bakht Singh led a fruitful life of teaching and founding churches (Sept. 22, 2000)

India's First Dalit Archbishop Holds 'No Grudge' Over Predecessor's Attack | Once "untouchable" Dalits make up bulk of country's Christians (May 11, 2000)

Hindu 'Untouchables' Threaten Mass Conversion in December | Two hundred families using Christianity as political pressure tactic (Dec. 1, 1999)

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February (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45