CHANDIGARH: Indian Christians for the first time after 1950 have mounted powerful pressure on the government to grant reservation to backward sections of the community.
The community has formed a national coordination committee to execute a plan of action including relay fasting and prayers, holding of rallies and public meetings and collecting 10 million signatures on a memorandum to be submitted to the Indian authorities. A mass rally will be held at Delhi on November 30 while a bigger rally to be attended by five lakh persons will be held at Madras later.
The community’s prestigious public schools remained closed throughout the country early this week as a part of the action program.
‘The action committee in a statement said that the Christian educational institutions would be compelled to restrict admissions to members of its ‘own community rather than providing these facilities to children belonging to other communities.
The coordination committee said that there was no justification in denying reservation to Dalit Christians while they live in the same huts as other Dalits, marry among their own people, do the same menial jobs, face poverty as other Dalits face, and suffer the same atrocities and violence from other communities.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 24, 1995
