The Historiographies On The Dalit Movement : The Historiographical Approaches of Selected Historians.

The dalits[1] are considered outcaste for a long time. They are not included in the four fold caste structure. In this societal setting, they went through socio-economic and political suppression and are at the point of losing their humanity. However, today, the history of the dalits, and the term dalit itself has more positive connotation with the appearance of several church historians and theologians. In order to reveal their true identity, scholars employ historiography which is from dalit context and situation, and from dalit’s point of view.

James Massey
            In the view of James Massey, there is no definite dalit historiography on the basis of which one can make any proven statement about the subject till now. But, what one can do and must do is to create ideas, locate facts and information to construct a possible history of the dalits. Like all other communities, the dalit community also must have history.[2] The root of dalit goes back to 3500 years ago. Definitely, they had a beginning similar to every human being. The most concern of Massey is the movement in history when today’s dalit present life as degraded human beings. He said that to understand the present conditions of the dalit, one has to look into the past history[3] and re-read with dalit own eyes. According to him, the centuries of old silence imposed upon the dalit by the caste structured society have now broken. They now became ‘subject’ from the erstwhile ‘object,’ and recognized themselves as fuller human beings, a subject of their history.[4] He spells out the significance of dalit historiography in this way.

Maasey challenges Indian church historians and those who are involved in the process of re-reading the historical data of Indian Christians to take the dalit community response to the Gospel seriously. This will help not only in re-constructing the church history, but also in laying the foundation of Indian theology and missiology.[5] According to him, the dalit issue is not an isolated concern, but the concern of total mission of God and the church.[6] Therefore, he pointed out rightly in order to develop a dalit history which will be based on the history, contexts of the living stories of the dalits.[7] He believed that, at one point of history, the dalits, indigenous people and roaming communities were one or formed one community. Restoration of the past as one community is a part of his main objective and he tries to makes it acceptable both at national and global levels.[8] In this way, he is trying to reconstruct the history of the dalit.

Massey describes the term dalit as preferred by the dalit themselves, not just a name or title but an expression of hope in recovering their past identity. It is not a pejorative term anymore but a positive symbol of identity for them that solve the position of their origin, roots and history.[9] This doesn’t mean that they are free from all kinds of discriminations. In relative terms, according to Woba James, there have been some improvement, but in totality, they are still what they were.[10] This is largely because of the traditional Indian brahmanical theology that failed to address the dalit issue or ignore it. Therefore, Massey, not by rejecting the known theology, but proposed another expression of Indian Christian theology which will be relevant to the living situation of vast majority of the dalit people. This can be done only by re-reading the dalit history based on dalit experiences.[11]
One must remember that dalit historiography cannot be written or change overnight, it has to process progressively by taking root from the reality of life of the million dalits. History from below and history from self is the historiographical approach of James Massey for dalit movement.
             
D. Arthur Jeyakumar
            With regards to the dalit movement, D. Arthur Jeyakumar mostly deals with mass conversion or mass movement among the oppressed or outcaste communities.[12] According to him, the group conversion movement takes place predominantly among the oppressed and outcaste (dalit) communities.[13] The result was that the Indian church grew not by individuals but by group conversion of people from the lower strata of society.[14]

In one of his article, Jeyakumar traced the group conversion movement among the Shanars[15] of Tirunelvelly from the first movement in the close of 18th century (1795) upto the later movement in the close of 19th century (1880). He opines that among the variety of motives in these group conversion movements, the spiritual motive was the most crucial factor that turns the Shanars into Christians. The desire to be freed from the fear of devils and evil spirits, and the belief that Jesus Christ would liberate them from such fears and dangers is considered by Jeyakumar as spiritual motive behind Shanars mass conversion.[16]

Further, Jeyakumar expounded that the desire for social change, to break the shackles of Hindu society such as caste discrimination and de-humanizing practices enabled the lower caste to embrace Christianity. For the dalit, Christianity is liberative in character and substance. This doesn’t mean that he did not see many negative aspects in dalit movement.[17] But still, it can be said that the lower caste movement is join together with anticipation for better religio-social order.

Jeyakumar is church historian who writes dalit movement from the viewpoint of church history. Can we say as recording the chronological events? Since he was influenced by Ziegenbalg, he also emphasized on pietism.[18] To furnish this, for him, spiritual motive is the push factor behind dalit conversion movement. This is how he presents dalit movement in history of Christianity in India.

John C.B. Webster
            In the view of John C.B. Webster, the dalits form the vast minority of Christians in India, and occupy the center rather than the margins of Indian Christian community. Dalit theology that stands in sharp contrast to other forms of Indian Christian theology is also not a new thing in the history of Indian Christianity, but sought to shape Indian Christian identity in a different and contradictory ways.[19] In his venture to Indian Christian identity, for Webster as a historian, the best one can do is try to discern Christian identity through the continuities and change in the history of Christianity India.[20]

            In some of his works where Webster concentrated on dalit Christian history,[21] he set the history of dalit Christians in a context of wider dalit movement. He categorized dalit history into three stages. Here he traced how the dalit Christians were ignored by other historians of dalit movement characterized by mass conversion in the first stage; how politics replaced conversion in the second stage (1920s-1930s) in which the dalit Christians became a victim of changes; and how the dalit Christians were push farther apart and discriminated in the third and post-independence period.[22] According to him, the psychological and religious dimension of the dalit Christian past and present well hold the most important key to their future.[23] Dalit new identity in Christianity, and the embrace of their dalitness from the liberation in Christ are the accurate label to study their history for John C.B. Webster.[24]

            Webster summed up differing approaches to the dalit history by various authors. He concluded that three interrelated type of knowledge help in writing the dalit history viz. source materials, context and historiography. These three types of knowledge, according to him, interact with others and contribute to the process of writing dalit history.[25] He suggests that it is not necessary for local dalit Christian history to be intellectually derivative from or totally dependent upon regional and national history. It is true that what has been written on the dalit subject so far is regional rather than local history. For him, regional and even national developments will be understood, as local realities are studied in greater abundance and depth.[26]
It can be seen that Webster separate dalit Christian history from a wider dalit movement and studied correspondingly. He considers and view dalit history mostly from local viewpoint. Dalit Christian history is not a history to be ashamed of but a history in which dalit Christians can take legitimate pride.[27] Webster approached dalit Christian movement as a legitimate and autonomous branch of study in its own right, not as auxiliary to other aspects of history. In this way, dalit Christian movement can become a source of confidence, and a basis of hope and action for their future by giving importance to local dalit congregations.

George Oommen
            According to George Oommen, the history of the dalit and their conversion to Christianity was largely ignored and relegated to the margin in the history of Christianity in India[28] for quite some time. The development in historiography shift focus to the vast majority of Christians in which the dalits were the shapers of mass conversion movement who played a major role in history. The result was that the dalits found a significant voice within the mainstream historical discourse in the history of Christianity in India in an unprecedented way.[29] Oomen add that the British colonial studies and modern Indian socio-religio reform movement perceived dalit history as significant formative factors. Since then most of the studies viewed dalit conversion movement as movement seeking self-dignity with a process of humanization in their conversion experience.[30] This is the positive outcome of subaltern study.

            Oommen, seeing the traditional-cultural values and heritage, expounded that re-reading of the dalit mass movement needs to recapture pre-existing belief which intermingled with Christian ideas. In the case of Malayarians (of Kerala) conversion to Christianity, their pre-existing religious ideas played a significant role. Historians cannot presume a smooth transition when they left behind time honored worldview and embraced new faith.[31] This doesn’t mean that replacing old system of belief with a whole new system, but appropriating self to deal with the changing worldview. What is very interesting in Oommen’s approach, apart from upholding cultural heritage is that, he appreciates the missionaries and placed them on high pedestal as liberative agents. While many historians were critical to the Christian missionary works within colonial system, he considered it as noteworthy.[32]
            Since exploitation, disparities and humiliation were note mere theories but day-to-day experiences for the dalits. Not only in religious realm but also in political realm that they favored mass movement and welcomed the communist with open arms[33] especially in southern India.[34] Thus, one can say that Ooommen approached dalit movement as a type of history in which the subjectivity of dalit Christian experience has been unraveled in an unprecedented manner.

V.V. Thomas
            V.V. Thomas can be said as a champion in subaltern study on dalit movements. He explicated that the history of the dalit movement remained incomplete, incoherent and just fragmented records until recent past. The dalits, their culture and religious movements, etc. have not received sufficient emphasis. Of late, historians have now come to realize that history will be incomplete if the common people are ignored.[35] Attempt has been made by the subaltern historians to make the dalits speak and the rest listen to them. VV’s historiographical approach on the dalit movement can be said as such approach as he ‘informed, equipped, energized and empowered’ the dalit. It also means making meaning available to them in their seeking for justice and truth.[36]

            According to him, when it comes to Christian conversion studies in India, historiography did not give the dalit a proper place in history. Therefore, he felt an urgent need to re-write and re-read dalit history from subaltern perspective. For him, history needs to be seen and interpreted as that of the common people. History of Christianity in India must also be seen as history of the people themselves. The subjectivity of the common people like the dalits must be given sufficient attention and only this approach will make history that of the people.[37]

            VV also elucidated that the need of the time in India today is that writing history in such a way that it is relevant to the context and based on the experience of those who experienced history not as the objects but as the very subjects. From this understanding, the history of dalit Christianity needs to be interpreted as participatory history of the people of the land, and not as an exclusive history of a section of the people of a country. With this perspective, there is now a need for more regional and particular perspective.[38] Therefore, for VV, dalit history has to be written from the perspective of non-elitist who suffered oppression and marginalization in the society.

Conclusion
            Although there have been people writing about the dalits and their struggles for years, a real change began to appear from the 1980’s with regards to the dalit literature. Reports of many dalit movements began to emerge from this period onwards.[39] However, the approach of the five selected historians is somewhat different because they studied not just what is recorded but studied the dalit people themselves. Their attempt in dalit historiography gives the dalit people their right place in the history of Christianity in India.


[1] The term ‘dalit’ is derived from Sanskrit which means to crack, open, split, scatter, stretch out to be dissected, broken, torn, destroyed and trodden down. Its Semitic root word ‘dal’ is used to mean the needy ones, the poor and the humbled and hence, it refers to those people who are oppressed at all levels. Hence the term ‘dalit’ is especially being used for those people who, on the basis of caste distinction, have been considered outcaste. Other names like Schedule Caste, Harijans, depressed class, untouchables, etc. are also used to referred to the dalit [ref. Woba James, Major Issues in the History of Christianity in India (Mokokchung: TDCC, 2013), 14 & 15].
[2] James Massey, “Historical Roots,” in Indigenous People, edited by James Massey (Delhi: ISPCK, 1994), 7.
[3] James Massey, “History and Dalit Identity,” in Dalit Solidarity, edited by Bhagwan Das & James Massey (Delhi: ISPCK, 1995), 15.
[4] James Massey, History and Dalit Identity…, 24-29..
[5] James Massey, “Christianity among the Dalits in North India with Special Reference to Punjab,” in Christianity in India: A Search for Liberation and Identity, reprint, edited by F. Hrangkhuma (CMS/Delhi: ISPCK, 2000), 13.
[6] James Massey, “Ingredients of Dalit Theology,” in A Reader in Dalit Theology, edited by A.P. Nirmal (Madras: GLTC & RI, n/d), 145.
[7] James Massey, “Elements of Dalit Theology,” in Towards a Dalit Theology, edited by James Massey (Delhi: ISPCK, 1989), 59.
[8] James Massey, History and Dalit Identity…, 32 & 33.
[9] James Massey, Indigenous People: Dalits…, 6
[10] Woba James, Major Issues in the History of Christianity in India…, 14.
[11] James Massey, Ingredients of Dalit Theology…, 147.
[12] Cf. D. Arthur Jeyakumar, “Christianity among the Nadars of Tirunelvelly,” in Christianity in India: A Search for Liberation and Identity, reprint, edited by F. Hrangkhuma (CMS/Delhi: ISPCK, 2000), and D. Arthur Jeyakumar, “Group Conversion Movement to Christianity,” in History of Christianity in India: Selected Themes (Madurai: The Author, 2007).
[13] D. Arthur Jeyakumar, History of Christianity in India…, 88.
[14] D. Arthur Jeyakumar, Christianity among the Nadars of Tirunelvelly…, 125 & 126.
[15] The Shanars (also called Nadars) were the most numerous class in Tirunelvelly, especially in south-eastern parts. They were supposed to have migrated from Sri Lanka. They were Hindu and occupied middle position in the caste structure, but they were considered polluted and were deprived of many social rights [See D. Arthur Jeyakumar, Christianity among the Nadars of Tirunelvelly…, 126 & 127].
[16] D. Arthur Jeyakumar, Christianity among the Nadars of Tirunelvelly…, 131 & 132.
[17] Twice oppression, being denied of economic benefit, suffered observance of caste practice in the church, negligence of personal faith, groupism, identity and cultural crisis [See D. Arthur Jeyakumar, History of Christianity in India…, 85-90].
[18] D. Arthur Jeyakumar, “Pietism and its Impacts on Ziegenbalg and Francke,” in Gurukul Journal of Theological Studies (XVII/2): 58-61.
[19] John C.B. Webster, “The Identity of Indian Christians,” in Church in Context, edited by Francis Kanichikattil (Bangalore: Dharmaram Publication, 1996), 65 & 66.
[20] John C.B. Webster, The Identity of Indian Christians…, 71.
[21] John C.B. Webster, The Dalit Christians: A History, reprint (Delhi: ISPCK, 1996). See also John C.B. Webster, “Writing Local Dalit Christian History,” in Local Dalit Christian History, edited by George Oommen & John C.B. Webster (Delhi: ISPCK, 2002).
[22] John C.B. Webster, The Dalit Christians…, x & xi.
[23] John C.B. Webster, The Dalit Christians…, xi.
[24] John C.B. Webster, The Dalit Christians…, xii.
[25] John C.B. Webster, Writing Local Dalit Christian History…, 131 & 132.
[26] John C.B. Webster, Writing Local Dalit Christian History…, 142 & 145.
[27] John C.B. Webster, Writing Local Dalit Christian History…, 146.
[28] The works of C.B. Firth, E. Meersman, T.V. Philip, and M. Kuriakose centered on the conversion of the dalits and largely ignored their subsequent history. These books are seen as standard textbooks on Indian Church History and are still in use [See George Oommen, “Introduction,” in Local Dalit Christian History, edited by George Oommen & John C.B. Webster (Delhi: ISPCK, 2002), 2 & 3].
[29] George Oommen, Introduction…, 1 & 2.
[30] George Oommen, Introduction…, 2 & 3.
[31] George Oommen, “Christianity among the Malayarians of Kerala: 1848-1900,” in Christianity in India: A Search for Liberation and Identity, reprint, edited by F. Hrangkhuma (Delhi: CMS/ISPCK, 2000), 138, 139 & 145.
[32] George Oommen, Introduction…, 3.
[33] George Oommen, “Communist Influence on Dalit Christians – The Kerala Experience,” in Church in Context, edited by Francis Kanichikattil (Bangalore: Dharmaram Publication, 1996), 55.
[34] M.M. Thomas was also deeply influenced by Marxist-communist ideology. His participation at all levels and his formulation of theology was also shaped by his conviction to the ideology.
[35] V.V. Thomas, Understanding Subaltern History: Theoretical Tools, reprint (Bangalore: BTESSC, 2014), xiii & xiv.
[36] V.V. Thomas, Dalit and Tribal Christians of India: Issues and Challenges (Malapuram, Kerala: Focus India Trust, 2014), 67 & 69.
[37] V.V. Thomas, Understanding Subaltern History…, xx & xxii.
[38] V.V. Thomas, Dalit and Tribal Christians of India…, 67.
[39] V.V. Thomas, Dalit and Tribal Christians of India…, 71.




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