The place of worship had been filled with tension for months. Members of the lower Vaishya (merchant) castes were forced to remain in the back while members of the Brahmin (priestly) castes took the front locations for the worship time. Eventually the Vaishya left to build their own place of worship, where they could stand in the front. The new facility is a mosque. The Vaishyas who built it had never practiced Hinduism; nor had their fathers or their grandfathers. Yet, everyone knew which caste each family had been converted out of, and many of the social distinctions remain?..

A single woman newly arrived in London from India was seeking a place to live. One of her British co-workers secured a room for her with another Indian family. When she arrived to take up occupancy of the room, the family reconsidered, and decided to withdraw their offer based on the fact that the single woman was from a relatively low cast background. The family had been in London for twenty years, and were Christians?..

A man had been invited by the Indian government to dedicate a statue at Benares Hindu University. He eventually gave up and left because high caste students flung sandals and insults at him. The man (at that time Defense Minister), Jagivan Ram had just finished overseeing the 1971 military defeat of Pakistan. He was an untouchable. After he left, the students purified the area with water from the Ganges River?..

Caste is perhaps the most important and difficult issue to grapple with in missions to India today. What is it? Is it religious, or simply social? Must it be renounced by an Indian converting to Christianity, or is it possible to simply reinterpret it? Can a Hindu become a Christian and remain part of his caste?

India is a collage of different social groups. The Indian community is divided (stratified) into caste groupings that are often associated with occupation. Some groups are on the top, are privileged, and are viewed with great respect. Others are in the middle, are socially accepted and treated quite well. Still others are near the bottom, are barely tolerated and are often mistreated. Then there are those underneath - the untouchables. Their presence is often not tolerated and they are the most despised.

However, caste is only one of the dividing factors in Indian society. Race is also a factor. Dravidians tend to isolate themselves from Bengalis, Bengalis from Aryans, and Aryans from Dravidians. Language barriers also exist. India has 14 "national" languages and thousands of other languages and dialects exist across the sub-continent.

The effect of all this is to create hundreds of thousands of social communities: Tamil speaking Dravidian Brahmins, Untouchable Bengalis, Hindi speaking Aryan farmers, and Telegu speaking Dravidian Jewelers. In many ways these groups act as fraternal organizations (brotherhoods), where it is expected that one member will help another when he can.

Besides caste, language, and race, India is also divided by religion. Sadly, the caste system is more Indian than it is Hindu. The idea of caste impacts Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians in India. Outside of India (on Bali for example) caste has little if any impact even among the Hindu.

Among non Hindus, the effect of caste is often weakened. Sikhs may avoid eating with other Sikhs from a lower caste, but they are not ostracized if they do. It is the same among Muslims and Christians. None of these have untouchables. However, marriage regulations are still tight. None of Sikhism's ten founding gurus married outside of their sub caste, even though Sikhs deny the very existence of the caste structure within Sikh society. The Indian Supreme Court in past rulings has taken note of the reality of the cast structure among Muslims.

Caste has its roots and justification in Hindu religion: the castes themselves sprang out of different parts of Brahman, people are born into a particular caste as a reward (or punishment) for their actions (karma) in their last life.

How is the Church to approach the issue of caste? One writer describes it as "one of the most complex and cruel systems of social stratification ever devised."

The system is evil beyond question. It is also central to Indian society and culture. Some missionaries feel that the caste system is too evil to be allowed to follow a convert through the doors of the church. Others feel that it is too Indian to be denied entrance into an Indian Church - that unless the realities of caste are accepted, the Indian Church ceases to be Indian, and becomes simply a non Indian Church on Indian soil, unable to effectively reach India.

Dr. Ralph Winter, and David Frazer, in an article in Eternity Magazine in 1979, estimated that perhaps as many as one out of every six Hindus would embrace the Gospel if they could become a Christian while retaining their caste and its implications. They see the choice as one of taking the Gospel to each of India's social compartments vs. tearing down India's social fabric. One writer goes so far as to assert that God has allowed caste to develop in India as a way of preserving social and moral order until the Gospel could be brought. Apart from caste, Indian society would face chaos and moral collapse. Because of the strength of caste ties, successful evangelism could start an avalanche of conversions of new believers continued to function in the caste setting. If Winter and Frazer are right, western prejudice against Indian culture (in the form of the caste) could be the stumbling block that hinders one hundred million people or more from entering the Kingdom of God.

India today tries to present the impression that her social structure is changing. The 21% of the population who fall into the category of unscheduled cast - the untouchables - are today guaranteed a minimum level of representation in the central government. Untouchability itself is illegal. Government grants allow lower caste students to attend college.

The Church cannot afford to wait until caste is not an issue in India, as that day will probably not arrive until Jesus returns. Today's effort is most effective in bringing untouchables and the lowest caste Hindus into the Church. A strategy must be developed, however for reaching India at every level, without neglecting the opportunities among untouchables. If the Church thinks India can reform the caste system by itself, perhaps millions of souls will perish while the Church waits for the unbelievers to do in the strength of their flesh what has been hard to accomplish in the Spirit. If the Church pretends caste has already been dealt with, that India has entered an enlightened age where the prejudices of the past have had their reach far shortened, evangelistic efforts will continue to reach only a portion of society.

The power of Jesus must surely be brought to bear on the prejudices of the Indian mind, but that power can only work after the Indian has submitted to the authority of Christ. The Church must find God's strategy in dealing with caste, and everything else it may find hard in the Indian heart.

© Copyright 1997
Bethany World Prayer Center
This article (which first appeared in "Frontiers Focus" Vol 1 #3, and is used by permission),
may be copied and distributed without obtaining permission
as long as it is not altered, bound, published
or used for profit purposes.

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