Religion, development and the rights of subordinated people: Christianity and Dalit social action in India.

印度种姓制度通常被理解为基于印度教的宗教思想（纯洁和污染）。虽然这种种姓的观点已经被最近的学术界（重新纳入权力，政治和殖民影响）大大修改，但宗教仍然是抗议和要求平等的战略的核心。从历史上看，反对种姓从属的宗教行动采取的形式是皈依非印度教，特别是基督教。今天，印度2500万基督徒中有很大一部分是前贱民或贱民，许多人生活在印度南部各州。这项研究问的问题是：今天是什么意义的宗教身份在印度南部的达利特人，什么是基督教（其思想家，社会活动家，运动领袖，和国际网络）的作用，在替代达利特身份的衔接和新形式的社会政治动员？这个问题需要考察三个相互关联的过程：（1）基督教教会的“dalitization”，（2）印度教民族主义的兴起，（3）国际人权话语的传播。对这些意识形态的调查（神学）、机构和社会运动，同时对普通人参与其中的村级进程以及种姓歧视的主观经历进行实地研究，达利特牧师和宗教人士的宗教使命和社会活动（1）基督教会的人口统计花了几十年的时间达利特人（占大多数的达利特人）在神学和制度上没有得到表达;但从20世纪80年代后期开始，基督教成为阐明达利特人权利的背景，这是一种新的宗教政治和达利特人神学，它尊重“贱民文化”。这项合作研究探讨了教会如何产生达利特人的抗议，并为社会变革产生文化资源-神学，艺术，政治意识形态或社会运动-这对更广泛的达利特人政治产生了重要影响。它侧重于天主教会和耶稣会士，他们是泰米尔社会400年来创新和反应的源泉。(2)基督教达利特激进主义发生在一个以印度教为主的社会中，印度教民族主义的兴起将基督教少数民族诋毁为殖民地，外国和反民族，将来自边缘（来自达利特或部落）的抵抗解释为国际计划的改宗所产生的“基督教侵略”。教会在从属团体中肯定其社会基础（和政治支持）是对这种威胁的回应吗？教会和世俗的达利特政治之间的关系是什么（在不同的解释中）？(3)使教会成为达利特人也使达利特人问题国际化，将种姓歧视与联合国关于种族主义和人权的讨论联系起来。这就提出了关于达利特人人权的新论述（以及基于权利的不利处境办法）在重新将宗教与发展联系起来方面的影响的问题。随着达利特基督徒将解放神学转变为达利特神学，欧洲捐助的非政府组织开始从达利特人权利的角度重新制定发展目标。本研究探讨的后果，非政府组织提请种姓和宗教的身份政治到developmentThe达利特政治，印度民族主义和非政府组织的话语人权的联系过程走到一起，在泰米尔村庄的日常经验。利用重访的多种姓宗教多元的地方，是现场研究在1982年至1984年，宗教和种姓身份（及其相互作用）的变化进行了检查超过25年;问如何暴力极化的人的种姓和宗教的基础上，是在当地社会和宗教分裂的社区扩散的潜力。

The Indian caste system is commonly understood as based upon Hindu religious ideas (purity and pollution). While this view of caste has been significantly revised by recent scholarship (reincorporating power, politics and colonial influences), religion is still central to strategies of protest and claims to equality. Historically, religious action against caste subordination took the form of conversion to non-Hindu religions, especially Christianity. Today, a large proportion of India's 25 million Christians are ex-untouchables or Dalits, many living in India's southern states. The question this research asks is: what today is the significance of religious identity among south Indian Dalits, and what is the role of Christianity (its thinkers, social activists, movement leaders, and international networks) in the articulation of alternative Dalit identities and in new forms of socio-political mobilisation?This question requires the examination of three interrelated processes: (1) the 'dalitization' of the Christian churches, (2) the rise of Hindu nationalism, and (3) the spread of international human rights discourse. Investigation into these ideologies (theologies), institutions and social movements is matched by field research into the village-level processes through which ordinary people engage with them, and on the subjective experience of caste discrimination, religious vocation and social activism among Dalit priests and the religious(1) It took decades for the demographics of the Christian churches (a large Dalit majority) to be expressed theologically and institutionally; but from the late-1980s, Christianity was a context for articulating Dalit rights, a new religious politics and Dalit theology, which honoured an 'outcaste culture'. This collaborative research examines how the churches generated Dalit protest and produced cultural resources for social change -- theologies, arts, political ideologies, or social movements -- which have had an important influence on wider Dalit politics. It focuses on the Catholic Church and Jesuits who have been a source of innovation and reaction in Tamil society for 400 years. (2) Christian Dalit activism takes place in a largely Hindu society and amidst the rise of Hindu nationalism which vilifies the Christian minority as colonial, foreign and anti-national, interpreting resistance from the margins (from Dalits or tribals) as 'Christian aggression' arising from internationally planned proselytism. Is the Church's affirmation of its social base (and political support) in subordinated groups a response to this threat? What (in different interpretations) is the relationship between the church and secular Dalit politics?(3) Making the church Dalit also internationalised Dalit issues, linking caste discrimination to a UN discourse on racism and human rights. This raises questions about the effect of a new discourse of Dalit human rights (and rights-based approaches to disadvantage) in re-connecting religion and development. As Dalit Christians turned Liberation Theology into Dalit Theology, European donor NGOs began to re-frame development objectives in terms of Dalit rights. This research examines the consequence of NGOs drawing the identity politics of caste and religion into developmentThe linked processes of Dalit politics, Hindu nationalism, and NGO discourse on human rights come together in the everyday experience of Tamil villages. Taking advantage of a re-visit to the multi-caste religiously plural locality that was the site of field research in 1982-4, changes in religious and caste identities (and their interaction) are examined over 25 years; asking how the potential for violent polarization of people on the basis of caste and religion is locally diffused in socially and religiously divided communities.