Five events in the last few months point to the same conclusion, that maintenance of the caste system is a vested interest of the dominant classes and that conversion is often a search for freedom from it. The first event is the threat of 200 Dalit families at Jind in Haryana to become Christians. The second is a covering letter to the president of the NCCI accompanying a scurrilous pamphlet. The third is the threat of 300 high caste Gaonkars in a Goan village to revert to Hinduism if Dalits are admitted to the parish councils and the fourth, the attack on a group of students near Bangalore. The fifth is the uproar created by the Pope's call to conversion.

... The scurrilous pamphlet in which Christians are declared a danger to the nation ... the writer adds that people oppose conversion because "the total rejection by the converted villagers of one's family heritage, traditions, village festivals, dead disposal, family marriage etc. is horrible and intolerable in any country." That is the crux of the problem.

The high castes need the Dalits to beat the drum at marriages and funerals, to dispose of the dead and to perform other "impure" functions. These functions also symbolise their subjugation and are essential to maintain an unequal system. So their conversion is a threat to those whose riches and power depend on their poverty.

The habitual Christian-baiters ... have taken the (Pope's) call out of context instead of seeing it as an integral part of the Synod document "Church in Asia".

The theme of the Synod from which this document emanates was "Jesus Christ the Saviour and his mission of love and service in Asia" ...

... The Deep Darshan High School at Ahwa in Gujarat was attacked by alleged Sangh Parivar activists on Christmas 1998. As the report of the Independent Commission ... states, the reason for it is not conversion.

Most of its students are tribals, only 10 per cent of them Christians.

The real crime of the management is that they teach the students the forest laws and what they are to do when the police arrest their parents. So this education is a threat to the vested interests. They use religious conversion as a bogey to prevent the tribals from being exposed to secular education.

These are the vested interests behind the uproar against the call ... They take it out of context in order to create an opinion against any move that can lead to equality. Caste has to be maintained and the poor have to be suppressed in order to maintain a minority in power ... (Source: The Hindu, 4 January, 2000)