Identity In Choice: The Problem Caste In Christianity

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

The Centrality of Identity in Choice

People deny that their identity dictates their behavior. Except when we foolishly fall in love, nearly all of us in our marriage and political choices use identity. Advertising by people with customer-identity encourages brand recall and exposure strategies with targeted customers. In my course Ethics for Professionals, I used to teach how we make choices, using electoral decisions. North, Shaw, Grossmann and Lipsitz (2015), identify five factors influencing how voters choose, four of the five coming down to how important identity is. These are in order:

1. Social identity (class, religion, ethnicity and, often for us, caste).

2. Voters’party identification. This is akin to social identification;

3. The national economy. The state of the national economy is a reflection of incumbent performance, and voters respond accordingly—rewarding incumbents when the country prospers, and punishing when not. This is the only factor free of social identity except when policy assumes importance as in whether this is a Buddhist country. Wickremesinghe promises developing Tamil areas when Tamils’ countervailing experience is that such development usually brings in Sinhalese colonists and employees to Tamil areas;

4. Policy issues. These are not as important as the aforementioned three factors, but certain voters will also make electoral choices based on specific policy choices like whether a factory will be built for them;

5. Candidate Traits like looks: Usually a voter votes for a candidate whose looks he admires. This is why politicians who usually wear western clothes dress up in ethnic costumes perhaps to look like our grandparents. Similarly, the Sinhalese vote for actors and actresses. (Tamils here have no cinema industry).

Caste as Integral to Identity

Our caste is integral to our identity. The caste label is a red light on the road telling how people think and decide so that we would ignore it at our peril. Those in the caste system deny there is caste because it is such a backward institution setting us in bad light and has its roots in Hindu law. We project modernity by denying our guilt. We therefore look elsewhere, to America, for how caste is indeed a factor.

Silicon Valley is staffed by many software engineers from India. They have carried the caste system to the US. Taking from the US news outlet Slate, in June 2020, the US registered its first-ever caste-discrimination lawsuit when the state of California sued Cisco Systems under the 1964 Civil Rights Act after some of its employees discriminated against lower-caste Indian American employees based on caste. CISCO dominates the network market ahead of HP and Nokia, and leads the ethernet switch market with 44% share.

Thenmozhi Sounderarajan is the executive director of Equality Labs, a civil rights organization with focus on caste in tech. She was scheduled to give a talk at Google News for Dalit History Month. As reported in Washington Post, Google employees threatened Thenmozhi with violence. She and family moved to a safehouse.

Caste has now entered the American public discourse and consciousness. There are numerous allegations of caste discrimination fostered by South Asian workers and executives, and emerging scholarship on casteism’s worldwide presence. Anti-caste-discrimination policies have been adopted at great universities like  University of Michigan and Rutgers, while a Seattle City Council ordinance bans casteist discrimination.

A California Bill banning discrimination based on caste passed with huge majorities. Brahmins with the means to emigrate and travel make up the bulk of Indian Americans. They are so influential in the US that American media buy their nonsense without any fact-checking. Slate lists even the Wall Street Journal as letting the head of a Hindutva organization write an op-ed calling the legislation anti-Hindu.

With that kind of pressure, early in October, California Governor Gary Newsom, vetoed the bill saying it was unnecessary because it was already covered by existing laws. Coward!

Newsom, despite being a Democrat, ignored the red light of caste. Thinking he is on the side of Hindu rights earning him votes, he has transgressed the rights of the weak. He chose what he thinks is profitable over what is principled.

As the Republican primaries move on, the Ron DeSantis campaign singled out Vivek Ramaswamy’s high-caste background as a potential attack line! Ramaswamy himself is aligning himself with Christian rightists!!

Caste in the Selection of MPS

The Sri Lanka press will never touch the topic of caste because the press is bankrolled by rich high caste folk and sustained by an educated (i.e. high-caste) readership.

It is no secret that caste is a factor in awarding party nominations. A person familiar with the workings of the UNP says that when one asks for the nomination from the UNP, one of the questions from the interviewer is “What is your caste?” The justification is that when who wins between the UNP and the SLFP is a matter of a small fraction of the vote, say 5%, no risk can be taken with those who look into caste when voting. However small, they would make the difference between winning and losing.

The Telegraph (India), notes that when Gotabaya was swept in, many new faces came into Parliament but there was no change in the caste composition of Parliament – “the results of the 2020 elections confirm that Sri Lankan democracy is neither casteless nor caste-blind, but is demonstrably casteist. We may deny it, but we ooze caste from every pore.

In the North, all Federal Party MPs have been Vellalas. An exception was Cyrillus X. Martyn. Though he was of the fisher-caste, the party on principle gave him the nomination in 1970 and expelled him the next year for crossing over to Srimavo Bandaranaike. Remember that even the Communist Party chose the Vellala Ponnampalam Kandiah as its candidate who was ultimately successful. I believe if he had been non-Vellala in arch-conservative Point Pedro in that period, he would not have been elected despite his Oxbridge academic background.

Caste and Identity in the Anglican Church of Ceylon

As if attracted by the inexorable force of identity, we who are reborn are pulled back to our primitive roots. Christianity has been a bold experiment on principle, but identity as if a centrifugal force, pulls us back to our ways of the old man.

The Anglican Church with more Tamils than Sinhalese has had a string of fisher-caste Sinhalese Bishops, but only two Tamil bishops (both untouchable) and just two Agricultural Sinhalese. That caste should not be used in choices is a good principle. Quality should be used. A less studied phenomenon is how Colombo (including Moratuwa) dominates the Church. Using caste or ethnicity or Colombo-ness has allowed the church to be taken over.

The Sinhalese Bishops have advanced lower caste Christians but are accused of discriminating against Tamils, and of not intervening when the depressed caste do wrong. As one example of neglecting Tamil rights, Fr. N.J. Gnanankaruniyan has openly accused the church in Council of abandoning him when he was arrested under the PTA. Another is a Bishop’s support for standardization. As for advocacy for caste-rights, at St. John’s when an aspirant for principal was from Kopai Vadakku, a low-caste area, he was appointed over some objections. Ultimately, he lived in Colombo getting the Vice Principal to run things while he used St. John’s to advance his company (as the Vice Principal and 2 teachers separately alleged). These choices by the Bishops are consistent with identity theories.

In 2001 when Bishop Duleep de Chickera stood for election against two Tamil priests, I heard a group of Tamil priests, taking de Chickera to be a Tamil-Parava name, gloating thus: “Let anyone win. All three are our people” – nammadai aakkal. That is Identity politics even in the church.

A New Social Fabric

After the Vellalas abandoned Jaffna, Bishop Subramaniam Jebanesan says, “We are now a Dalit Church.” Among the Sinhalese too the church is now led by a Parava Bishop. Paravas (who go as Sinhalese here) are identified by Prof. Robert Frykenberg from University of Wisconsin (South Asia specialist who grew up in India), as a mixed bag of so-called lower caste (including fishing-caste) of Tamils converted by the Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier on the West Coast of India.

With these changes, does identity shape the church more now? It seems so. At the Urumpirai Anglican Church, the priest was Vellala (an increasingly rare phenomenon) but the parish has become largely depressed-caste. A low-caste Warden married into the Anglican leadership teamed up with a lower caste person and went to hit the priest (both abusing him in filth) at a Wardens’ Meeting. They accused him of stealing.

The Archdeacon (S.P. Selvan) and Bishop Rodrigo as reports say have asked the priest not to conduct services. The Wardens who used obscene language in church have not been punished. The inquiry will be by Selvan whose own St. James’ inventories are missing says the Warden who inventoried St. James,’ and says the Archdeacon untruthfully certified to the Bishop that his inventory is in order.

A fisher-caste man who bought a doctorate, has been given the task of writing the St. James’ history as the Bishop wanted to celebrate 2 centuries of the church. It is full of language and factual mistakes.

St. John’s celebrated a questionable 200 year-history with the Bishop thanking God in church for 200 years of God’s blessings. God must have wondered when he showered such blessings for 200 years. The quality of 200 years of Johnian heritage is brought out by the following school notice recently:

“~SHARAN. +94 76 543 3334 Tomorrow band at service time Pls don’t were slippers or bata only shoes.”

As the church searches for unqualified people for appointment who will be grateful and obediently coverup mismanagement, James Jeyaratnam (of Holy Trinity Wellawatte) says he retained a lawyer whom he thought great because several bishops have appointed her as their advisor; but he was invoiced for case-dates not reflected in court records.

With good people having mostly left, and only crooks in charge here who are unwilling to appoint the few good folk remaining, the Church seems to have little choice but to self-destruct.

When a large section of the St. James’ cemetery was taken over by a neighboring low-caste Palla in 2005, the priest and his Warden, both depressed caste, legalized the encroachment by doing a new survey. Lack of Education? Collusion? Laziness? The Archdeacon is unwilling to reopen the matter, although the original plan has been produced.

St. James’ in May spent Rs. 285,000 repairing its piano. The repairers gave five years’ warranty and two free services a year. By September the church got a new donation of Rs. 450,000 and chose to spend it on a new piano. The repaired piano is idling. The church is presently crying for funds for termite treatment when the new piano funds could have been used for that. Two quotations were received for termite treatment, approximately Rs. 490,000 and Rs. 365,000. The Archdeacon and his unqualified Wardens are now raising Rs. 490,000 without saying why the offer for Rs. 365,000 is unacceptable.

When I gave US$5000 for renovating the St. James’ Mission House where I had lived, it appeared in the books as Rs. 5000. It took two meeting to correct it. One Royce Arasaratnam also, I am told, gave a large sum. The Mission House is still unlivable. When the Dutch Government agreed to redo the same building (which had been the Governor’s Residence) when they rebuilt the Fort, it was turned down by the Vicar saying the vicarage is too big to maintain. Then he himself got a parishioner in Britain to support a separate and larger vicarage! Those in charge like to build buildings they pay for.

The Bishop accepts unaudited accounts from St. James’ violating the diocesan constitution. He does not reply when parishioners raise legitimate questions on these transactions.

An Anglican who saw the ignored mismanagement by the Bishop remarked, “How can Bishop Dushantha Rodrigo, being so deaf and blind to this thieving and mismanagement, run two schools for the deaf and blind?”

Certification as Wardens by the Bishop must be patient and require some years of active church-life. Uneducated, unqualified appointments have dragged the church down, exactly as happened to Sri Lanka. Lack of quality in appointments may sound safe in hiding lawless administration and corruption, but is never safe for a corrupt church administration.

I have for over a year now shifted all my giving to the Roman Catholic Church since they have constitutional governance. The Jaffna Christian Union Carol Service (on 8 Dec.) had many more choristers and priests than others. At the Anglican Deaf and Blind School’s Science Exhibition the same day, all were offered Siva’s ash in front of the chapel. Subramaniam Yogadeva, presumably an old boy of St. John’s, citing the just released dismal O. Level Results, publicly asked for St. John’s to be taken over and renamed The Chundikuli National School.

The insidious poison of the theology of “All Religions are True” (as preached by the Archdeacon, Bishop Rodrigo’s Jaffna agent) is spreading. Under this theology the crimes of the gods are acceptable for us to emulate. These include pillage, lying, rape, incest, seduction, adultery, murder, homosexuality, polygamy, etc.

I was invited to an inter-religious service where all religions are equal. Despite that the Buddhist Monk had a special seat with a white cover and was the only one allowed to speak seated. The Hindu priest came from the high caste. A low-caste person cannot aspire to be a Hindu priest.

The church is forcing us to accept a theology of inequality while proclaiming all are born equal. Caste is an evil that needs open discussion for its solution through its extirpation and annihilation. Is the Bishop fiddling as the church is looted and its theology incinerated, and Protestant Christianity is dying?

The post Identity In Choice: The Problem Caste In Christianity appeared first on Colombo Telegraph.