Free the Dalit...

I've gotten an education lately, thanks to a great album from Caedmon's Call called Share the Well. The album is about the only thing that I've listened to for the past month. And through the songs and liner notes I've learned about the Dalit people of India. They are the people that are below even the lowest caste in India. The untouchables.

Beneath the four main castes is a fifth group, the Scheduled Caste. They literally have no caste. They are the untouchables, the Dalits, which means oppressed, downtrodden and exploited social group.

A Dalit is not considered to be part of the human society, but something which is beyond that. The Dalits perform the most menial and degrading jobs. Sometimes Dalits perform important jobs, but this is mostly not socially recognized. Dalits are seen as polluting for higher caste people. If a higher caste Hindu is touched by an untouchable or even had a Dalit's shadow across them, they consider themselves to be polluted and have to go through a rigorous series of rituals to be cleansed.

In India there are approximately 250 million Dalits. This means that 25% of the population is Dalit. It also means that in a country, where everybody is supposed to have equal rights and opportunities, 1 out of 4 persons is condemned to be untouchable. (From the Dalit Freedom Network)

It's impossible for me to tell you all that I'm learning. But I think that it's stuff that more people need to know. So I encourage you to check out Share the Well and The Dalit Freedom Network. You should probably start out with this. But let me warn you, you're going to meet some people here that Jesus wants to love through you. It might even cost you something.