Remembering Ilavarasan, Interrogating Casteism: Reimagining Christian Public Witness in India

Dr. Mohan Larbeer

Rev. Raj Bharath Patta

A public lecture on the topic "Remembering Ilavarasan, Interrogating Casteism: Reimagining Christian Public Witness in India" was held in UTC at 5:00 P.M. yesterday. Rev. Raj Bharath Patta, the General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement India (SCMI) gave the main lecture and it was moderated and commented on by Dr. Mohan Larbeer, the secretary of the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore College (BTESSC). The lecture was jointly conducted by UTC and SCMI.

Rev. Raj Bharath Patta explained the loss of life of Ilavarasan, a dalit man, as a murder and something for which all are responsible. He gave a blow by blow account of the issue which lead to the death of Ilavarasan. The violence of the Vaniyars against dalits was brought out clearly. He saw the incident as
1. The violence against dalit communities after inter caste marriages.
2. There is a anti-dalit hate campaign and also an attempt to say that they are coming up and dressing up like others.
3. There is a political conspiracy to spit venom against dalit communities and this is for the creation of an electoral constituency.
4. There is an ongoing increase of suicides among dalits in various places.
5. There is a nexus between caste and politics, caste and patriarchy and caste and power.

For Raj Bharath the need to remember Ilavarasan today is that he reminds us of several others and their struggles against injustice. Ilavarasan reminds us of Rosa Parks, the modern civil rights movement and the life of resilience. Ilavarasan also reminds us of Nelson Mandela and archbishop OscarRomero. Rev. Bharath pointed out that high caste Hindu educated youth are campaigning against inter caste marriages and saying that their crusade is to preserve Indian traditions. He therefore said that inter caste marriages are the need of the hour if we have to thwart false traditions. Dr. Ambedkar also had such a view.

Rev. Bharath then articulated the problem of caste with what Felix Wilfred and Satish Deshpande have written and talked about as our silence on caste. Rev. Bharath finally brought in an analysis from the bible in the form of the story of Cain and Abel and said that Ilavarasan's death is like Abel's death. It was not death but murder. The retort of Cain "Am I my brother's keeper?" is what we are doing by not talking about Ilavarasan. Good news for the poor is bad news to the rich.

He then talked of a positive story in the bible regarding Ruth and Boaz and how their marriage was inter-territorial and went beyond set boundaries. This is the same route the church must take in India. He ended with a letter written to Ilavarsan confessing our inability to help him and affirming that Ilavarasan is now an epitome of hope to the community.

Dr. Larbeer started by saying that he has always been a supporter of inter caste love marriages. He gave a succint report on the real situation of caste in Tamil Nadu referring to the problem between the Vaniyar dominated PMK and the dalits. He brought out the key issue of the economics of caste and how this was also very much an issue of how the social upward mobility of the dalits was a problem to other castes. He also reminded those present of the new expression of dalit capitalism. He ended by saying "No one can murder or kill love." Students and faculty from UTC and the SCMI unit from Goodwill Women's Christian College attended the lecture.

Dr. Sahayadhas introduced the speakers, Dr. Allan Palanna and Dr. George Zachariah made venue arrangements and took care of logistics, Ms. Veronica, MTh II and Mr. Paul Karunakar, BD III helped in the conduct of the programme and Rev. Dinesh, MTh II offered prayer.

BTESSC National Level Theological Students Conference

Participants of the NLTS Conference

BTESSC organized the National level Theological Students Conference from 5^th to 8^th May 2012 at UTC, Bangalore on the theme God of Life, Lead us to Justice and Peace.  More than 130 students from different parts of India and belonging to various denominations and seminaries actively participated.  Representatives from Korea and Sri Lanka also attended.   The  chairperson of BTESSC Rt. Rev. Dr. Isaac Mar Philexinos inaugurated the conference.  In his inaugural address, he narrated the background of the WCC Assembly theme.  Rt. Rev. Dr. Geevarghese Mar Coorilos gave the key note address.  He challenged the students by highlighting present day realities in the light of the theme.  The following resource persons presented papers on specific topics:

Rev. Vinod Victor on Asian Realities and Challenges
Rev. Deenadayalan on Indian Realities and Challenges
Dr. A. Wati Longchar on Theological Education in India: Development, Problems and Challenges
Mr. David Selvaraj on Transformative Learning
Dr. Packiam Samuel on Theological Education in Multi faith context
 

Rev. Raj Bharath Patta and SCMI members conducted worship on all days and bible studies were conducted by Dr. Atula, Rev. Vincent Rajkumar and Ms. Sweety Helen.

The following resource persons led workshops on various issues:

Dr. George Zachariah on Climate Justice
Dr. Samuel George on Disability
Rev. Christopher, Mr. Manohar and Ms. Shubha Chacko on LGBTQ
Dr. Richard Devadoss and Rev. Chandra Mohan on Violence and Peace

The following resource persons led the interest groups on different movements

Dr. Joseph Prabhakar Dayam on Dalit Movement
Ms. Geetha Menon and Rev. Margaret Kalaiselvi on Women’s Movement
Dr. Roy David on Tribal Movement
Rev. Fr. Selvinraj on Students Movement

The secretary of the BTESSC Dr. Mohan Larbeer reported on the conference and stressed on the role of students in theological education. The students who participated in the conference brought out a statement.

"We the 115 theological students from the 37 Senate of Serampore College affiliated colleges and seminaries in India and Sri Lanka with a theological Student representative from South Korea, student representatives from the All India Catholic University Federation, Student Christian Movement of India  including 38 women students send this message to the theological fraternities and Churches in India and at large. This conference was facilitated and organized by the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore College (BTESSC) collaboration with several organizations including the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), Students Christian Movement of India (SCMI), Christian Institute for Study of Religion and Society (CISRS) and aimed to facilitate dialogue between different student communities, cross-learnings and cross fertilization.  There were several theological educators, theologically trained social workers and present students of theology served as resource persons. This conference was held from 5^th – 8^th May 2012 at the UTC Campus, Bengaluru, India on the theme: God of Life: Lead to Justice and Peace (Forth coming WCC Assembly theme).

We the participants dealt with and discussed the issues related to the relevance and challenges of the Students of theology by reviewing the issues including ‘Transformative Learning’, ‘Right to Education’, ‘Eco-Justice’, ‘Disability’, ‘Human Sexuality’, ‘Dalits’, ‘Tribals’, ‘Asian pluri-faith and political  Scenario’,  issues related to ‘Peace and harmony’, ‘neo-developmental policies and polity’ of the states and ‘peoples movements’ including the anti-nuclear movement in Kudankulam, Tamilnadu and Anti-POSCO movement in Jagatsinghpur, Odisha. These were eye opening sessions and all the worship services and Bible studies were centered on the main theme and the issues empowered us and our spirituality to recommit ourselves for the mission of God and to thevarious ministries of the Churches and Society.

We learnt that ….

·         theological studies is not only to serve the Church as pastors and church workers but also to serve the society at large.

·         theologically trained persons must play a major role for the development and growth of any society at large.

·         The God of Bible is the God of all, therefore our services need to be made available for all.

·         the persons with disability and transgender also created in God’s image and they need to be treated with proper respect and dignity.

·         our ecological sins cause pathos for the earth community as climate-refugees, global warming and all kinds of ecological catastrophes.

·         Since the church as a body of Christ will be irrelevant without his presence and agency in remedying the need of the society we affirm that “a church which does not care for and minister in the entire society is not church”.

·         Missio- Dei or the Mission of God needs to be an imperative and therefore, the communities who live on the edges of the societies are to be made participants in mission. This mission in our specific context as in India is imperatively interfaith and social action oriented. Therefore our missions should move beyond to specific faith and confessional and social traditions. We are expected to exhibit sensitivity to plurality of resource for care giving, networking and advocating. This would lead to a meaningful collaboration of all.

We urge that ….

·         the theological fraternities especially the Senate of Serampore to move from notions of the mark-oriented academic programmes in which students are considered and treated as objects. Instead we appeal the concern body to adopt the transformative educational methods to train the students as agencies of God’s image, voice and activity in this world.

·         in the light of the pedagogical discourse at present  the Senate of Serampore present programmatic notions need to relook frequently and regularly from the emerging needs of the society and its relevance. 

·         proactive attention should be given while doing theologies to the already marginalized and discrimination groups and communities such as persons with disabilities, sexual minorities, aged women and children in order that, the theology of today will be just-theology OR justice- based faith expressions. 

·         more theological literature both as reference material and as sermon aids needs to be developed for pastors and church workers and also materials which will aid in conscientization on social issues to be produced theologically as workbooks  for  Sunday School curriculum and other Christian education fora in order to provide a strong basis for building up an inclusive church.

We Propose that……..

·         the Right to Education be advocated through the senate of Serampore designed community based theological educational programmes suitable to all irrespective of  faiths including for atheist and agnostics. 

·         the senate should initiate networks of like-minded individuals locally through its affiliated colleges and organizations to reach out to conscientize the local congregations and local communities in the society at large.

·         the church needs to encourage ordained ministry to include women and persons with disability and transgenders as the history of the church and church leadership has been inclusive of those belonging to the excluded communities.

·         theological institutions should be the  advocates and  initiators of net-work with the states and other stakeholders in making the Church ‘society-friendly’.

·         the theological education in India should keep  students at the Centre in its focus, in formulating its polies, curriculum etc. 

·         to make field exposures not less than six months instead of present three months and enforce the affiliated colleges to follow it strictly.

We demand that…

·         the Senate of Serampore to provide participatory rights of students in all its decision making bodies including curriculum revision since the programmes revolve around students.

·         there should be a Senate level autonomous  grievance and redressel cell.

·         the Senate should facilitate all the affiliated institutions to have a work place policy on gender and sexual harassment and make all the institutions by having a women redressel commission as per the Government norms since it is mandatory and compulsory.

·         a National Forum of theological Students be formed and recognized to dialogue among themselves on issues pertaining to the Church, Society and Theological education vis a vie theological students.

Further, we the participants of the National Theological Students Conference affirm that we will not follow the caste system, accept dowry, follow discriminative regionalism, fanatic denominationalism, patriarchy, classism, corruption, power politics, stigmatization and discrimination etc. as a response to the call of God of life, who leads us to justice and peace."

Adopted by:

The  Participants of the

National Theological Students Conference

08^th May 2012, Bengaluru, India.

From left to right: Bishop Dr. Gheevarghese Coorilos, Rev. Dr. Mohan Larbeer (Secretary, BTESSC) and Bishop Dr. Issac Philexinos (Chairperson, BTESSC)

Mr. David Selvaraj taking a session on "Transformative Learning."

   

BTESSC-UTC Librarians Training on 'Online Techniques and Different Possibilities.'

29-30 August 2011, UTC, Bangalore

Proceedings/Report

The training programme for librarians on “Online Training Techniques and Different Possibilities” started at the Ecumenical Resource Centre at the United Theological College, Bangalore, at 9.30 am on 29 August 2011 with devotion led by Fr Jerry Kurian, Lecturer in the Department of Communication, UTC. The worship order for the devotion related the aspects of communication and information technology to our understanding of God, and this became apparent in the affirmation of faith, confession of sins and absolution, prayers and benediction.  Rev Dr John Samuel Raj, principal of UTC, led the meditation in the light of St Mark 11: 12-19 and underlined the reality of connectivity in our age, the necessity to learn together and share our knowledge and information with each other. He also highlighted the significant role played by libraries in theological education all over the world.

 

Rev Dr Mohan Larbeer, Secretary of the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore College (BTESSC), welcomed the participants and delivered a short speech about some of the plans of the Senate of Serampore College with regard to updating the online resources in the libraries of colleges affiliated to the Senate and making them accessible to students and teachers, and highlighted the significance of this meeting in that venture. This was followed by Fr Jerry Kurian introducing the nature of the programme and the presentations for 29 and 30 August 2011.

 Rev Dr Samuel Meshack, Principal of the Concordia Theological Seminary, Nagercoil and chairperson of the World Association of Christian Communication Asia Region (WACC-AR) delivered the keynote address. He spoke on the process of computerising the libraries under the Senate and the necessity to network them. He talked about the availability and the usability of online resources and the importance of the developing of digital/virtual libraries which will be much more efficient and effective than the regular libraries that we have. He also highlighted some of the advantages of having digital libraries such as their interactive nature and the space for multiple users at the same time. He pointed out some of the plans the Senate of Serampore College was planning to undertake in collaboration with Globethics.net, the World Council of Churches and other institutions in establishing a digital library GlobeTheoLib – to be launched on 23 September 2011 – in order to ensure that theological students all over the world get access to the basic theological material required for their education. He concluded with inviting the librarians under the Senate to cooperate along with others to contribute to this digital library. It was followed by Mr Roby Matthew, Business Manager in charge of marketing ATLA (American Theological Library Association), introducing the major features of ATLA. He explained to the participants about how to use it in order to access full journal texts online. The Post-lunch session was led by Mr Shreenivas who introduced the KOHA Integrated Library System which is an open source web based library software for cataloguing and circulating books in libraries.

 

 

In the afternoon, a video conference was arranged by Dr. Mohan Larbeer with Dr Christoph Stueckelberger in Switzerland, founder of Globethics.net, who spoke about the attempts taken for launching the GlobeTheoLib – the digital library for global theological education. It was moderated by Dr Meshack, who has been networking with Dr. Stueckelberger for a long time in this regard. Dr Stueckelberger emphasised the significance and necessity of the GlobeTheoLib and explained about its nature, content and functioning. He highlighted two important features about this digital library – the availability of resources free of cost for the registered theological students and teachers all over the world, and the possibility of uploading resources into the library. He mentioned that GlobeTheoLob will basically have three types of contents – freely accessible resources already available online which will be collected and placed into the library, materials from subscription to online journals and the content uploaded from the theological community in the Global South. Dr Stueckelberger’s presentation was well received among the participants who also interacted with him. At the end Dr Meshack presented his concluding remarks where he urged the librarians present to contribute to this venture in all possible ways.

On 30 August 2011, the programme started with devotion and mediation led by Fr Jerry Kurian. Based on St Luke 7: 1-10, he reflected on sharing our resources such as information and knowledge with others as Jesus did for others during his ministry. The faith of the Roman centurion and his commands of ‘go’, ‘come’ and ‘do’ can be re-interpreted in our times as ‘click’, ‘send’ and ‘like’. It was followed by the presentation by Mr Yesan Sellan, Librarian, SAIACS, on Online Theological Archives and repositories. He introduced a number of library software which would be helpful for library cataloguing and circulation. He also introduced some open source software for eBook management or digital library. Mr Manoj Samuel made a presentation on Online Theological Resources whereby he introduced to participants several websites which provide free access to the people.

The post-lunch session involved group discussions and presentations. In addition to filling up a questionnaire which contained questions about (1) the usefulness of this training programme, (2) suggestions by the participants to BTESSC for further follow-up action, (3) and how they will utilise the insights learned from this programme in their respective organisations, the participants were divided into four groups to discuss the workshop. For the first question, the groups noted that they have got a clear concept of digital libraries and their importance and usefulness, more confidence about acquiring and sharing knowledge, and information about various online sources which would be helpful for libraries of colleges affiliated to the Senate of Serampore College. Second, the groups suggested BTESSC/SSC to conduct similar meetings for college authorities about improving theological libraries, to make available essential reading materials online for students, to connect the possible donors for weaker seminaries to develop their libraries, to conduct regular training programmes for librarians of colleges affiliated to the Senate, and to publish an occasional news letter on online materials. They also suggested that the BTESSC/Senate may instruct all affiliated colleges to use one software for library for sharing resources, to introduce a few websites for students during orientation, to offer training for library software like KOHA, to elevate the library levels of colleges affiliated to the Senate, to equip the library staff, to include librarians in decision making bodies of the respective colleges, to digitalise their libraries and to have IT departments in their institutions. Third, regarding how they would do the follow-up in their institutions, the participants affirmed that they would pass on the information and insights the received in this programme such as the information regarding online sources and software for library to the faculty and students in their institutions.

The programme came to end as Dr. Mohan Larbeer, on behalf of BTESSC, and Fr. Jerry thanked the participants, resource persons and all those who helped to organise and run this two-day training programme.

 The deliberations of the various groups of librarians and their suggestions-

First group

1. a. The workshop gave a clear concept of online libraries

b. Got information about acquiring and sharing knowledge

c. Good that the Senate has global plans

d. Got information on free sites

2. a. Similar meetings should be held again

b. One software can be used in all colleges

3. Make a list of free accessible web sites and give this list to all colleges

Second group

1. It was a good opportunity to come together

2. a. Faculty should work together with the librarians

b. Circulate new websites and free web site lists to students during their orientation. Training on KOHA is a good idea.

c. Librarians can identify good site adds and circulate in the college.

d. An IT section for the college should be initiated.

Third group

1. a. Was an exposure for librarians

b. Got information about free web sites

c. Information about digitisation techniques and collaboration

2. a. Elevate the standard of libraries

b. Search for possible donors to help weaker seminaries

c. Equip library staff on technology and new innovations

d. BTESSC mobile units can visit seminaries and conduct workshops

e. Librarians should be included in policy making bodies

f. There should be an IT department in the college and there should be a IT support group in the Senate

3. a. Internet connectivity for all colleges essential

b. IT awareness for library users

Fourth group

1. a. Came to know each other

2. a.  Such meetings should be conducted more often

2. b. Meetings should be held in places with good libraries and internet support

3. Senate can have a newsletter on new websites

4. Librarians can be supported to do BCS and be made a part of the faculty

(Prepared by Mr. Muthuraj Samy, Lecturer, UBS, Pune. Photos courtesy Comm Dept, UTC)