Dalits Must Be Dialogue Partners

The Bible calls us to do justice; to "hold fast to justice", to "establish justice." Consider the famous words of Amos: "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowering stream."

In doing justice we imitate the God we worship, "who works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed." Doing justice, struggling against injustice, stands at the very core of Christian faith. To know God is to do justice.

Justice is justice for the poor; God's justice includes compassion for those who suffer. By making Dalits dialogue partners we make space within ourselves for their views, creating room for voices silenced within our own tradition.

Initial suspicion against the views of the powerful is necessary. Not because the powerless are innocent, but because the powerful have the means to impose their views by argument and propaganda, and support the imposition of both with the attractiveness of their "glory" and with the display of their might.

Often, the only resource of the powerless is the power of their desperate cry.

If justice is what we are after, then we will interrupt the powerful rhetoric of the smooth-tongued and strain our ear to hear the feeble and fractured voice of "those who cannot speak". The stammering of the needy is the eloquent testimony to their violated rights ; the spellbinding oratory of the powerful may well speak of their bad conscience.

The groans of the powerless should disturb the serenity of the comforting ideology of the powerful. Shouldn't Dalits also be part of the formulation of the Jan Lokpal Bill ?

Justice sees all human beings as worthy of equal treatment on the basis of their common humanity.