TAMIL NADU, INDIA, March 11, 2008: Two Christians died and many more were wounded when shot by police who intervened yesterday to stop clashes between Dalit Catholics and upper caste Catholics in the diocese of Pondicherry- Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu). Troubles started on March 7 when a group of Dalit Christians from the Villupuram district began a hunger strike to protest discrimination in a local parish by the Vanniyar. Three months ago Dalits from St Jabamalais Annai Church in Earyur built another church dedicated to Saghaya Madha (Our Lady of perpetual Help) and sought to have it erected as a separate parish with its own priest. They were backed in their demands by two political groups, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Vck) and Ambedkar Makkal Iyakkam (AMI).
According to Catholic Priest Fr G. Cosmon Arokiaraj, secretary to the Church’s Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the “confrontation in the area between Dalit and Vanniyar Catholics goes back quite some time. For years Dalits have been discriminated within the Church itself,” he said. “They cannot sit with upper caste members in the same church; they are buried in separate cemeteries. When the mother of a Dalit priest died in the 1990s the upper caste did not allow the funeral procession to use the main road; even the bishop failed to bring about a compromise.”