Rohan Arthur
The Crude Fantasy
In the imagination of the Hindu Rashtra, the Christian convert should not exist.
Conversion is seen as a betrayal, a deviation from birthright, a wound on the body of the nation. In this worldview, the only acceptable path is return(ghar wapsi). If not return, then erasure.
There is no place here for contradiction. No room for someone who prays in Kannada, eats from a stainless steel plate, has a Hindu first name, a pastor in the family, a certificate that says OBC, and a grandmother who still sings caste-specific wedding songs. What a life: too Christian to be Hindu, too Hindu to be foreign, too caste-marked to be casteless – does not fit into Hindutva’s sanitized story of the nation.
This is not just theory. It is the basis of active mobilization from anti-conversion laws to the desecration of churches to the murder and other forms of violence against Christians.
There are a few options for the “good” Christian in this frame: hide like a rat, perform loudly like a circus lion, or disappear like a dinosaur.
The Census and the Impossible Question
All this is now further complicated by the upcoming caste census. What does the Christian convert write in the caste census?
This is not a rhetorical question. India is about to experience what promises to be a significant step toward social justice. How can we participate in this? We’ll soon have people knocking at our doors. They’ll ask us the question. The box will need to be ticked.
And yet, for many of us, no answer fits. The state says conversion erases caste. Society says caste can never be erased. The church says, “there is no caste, therefore hallelujah”. But the form is real, the person asking us the question is real, as real as the bile rising in our throat out of awkwardness and fear.
Some will write “OBC.” Some will insist on “SC”. Well, if not legally, then historically. Some will reach for subcaste names like “Madiga.” Others will write nothing at all. But every option carries a cost.
None of these names is wrong. But none of them is complete. Each one is an approximation at best and a bare lie at worst. The tension which shapes the answer is between what we are allowed to say, what we need to say, what we would rather not say at all, what we want to say but don’t know… ad infinitum.
This essay is about that tension. Let’s again try to peel the onion.
The secular State’s amnesia
The Indian state insists that caste disappears with religious conversion.
This is a legal fiction dressed up as secularism. The Constitution allows Scheduled Caste status only to Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, not to Muslims or Christians. The logic is that caste is a feature of Hinduism, and therefore cannot “exist” outside it.
But caste doesn’t vanish when a person converts. It follows them through occupations, surnames, local knowledge, church seating, burial grounds, housing colonies, marriage networks, and job referrals.
As a band-aid, the state offers the label “OBC” to some Christians. A kind of catch-all caste category that admits disadvantage, but without the historical weight or constitutional remedies that SC status would carry. In Karnataka, many Madiga Christians and other Dalit-background converts are placed under Category I or II-A (someone else says III-B). It’s an ever-changing mishmash that’s hard to keep up with, but one thing is always fixed: justice is never done.
The state demands you disown caste in exchange for a place in its records and then punishes you for not having a legible past.
The progressive trap
Even where the state fails, society tries to patch over the problem with language. “Dalit Christian” has become the preferred label in academic writing, NGO reports, and progressive spaces. It’s meant to assert a continued structural location, to say that caste persists after conversion, and that solidarity must follow.
But even this well-meaning label begins to flatten us.
Who is Dalit? OK, that’s too big a question, albeit important, but beyond the scope of this article. Who is this Dalit Christian? A manual scavenger? A domestic worker in Bengaluru? A tech sector employee whose grandfather was a Methodist pastor in the 1940s Bidar? A third-generation teacher in a mission school in Raichur? A girl raised in a poor slum in Yadgir? A former MLC’s son? A current bonded labourer who the state only sees as an MNREGA record?
All of them collapsed now into this category of “Dalit Christian”. None of them is described.
The problem is not with the term itself, but with the illusion of accuracy it creates. “Dalit Christian” sounds like a conclusion. But it was meant to be the beginning of inquiry, not the end. By itself, it tells you very little about region, denomination, caste, language, gender, education, or class. It gathers everyone into one category, and in doing so, sometimes renders the weakest invisible and the most legible as default. Pretty much a reproduction of caste, and a continuous generation of new castes.
Even progressive language, if it isn’t constantly examined, begins to re-create the same amnesia it was meant to undo.
The unspoken hierarchies within
Step inside the church compound, and caste apparently vanishes. But it’s there, transmogrified into other seemingly newfangled things, but looking closer, you’ll recognise them for what it is.
Some churches have prescribed seating patterns, and in some churches, it is more invisible but definitely present. In some churches, some members receive communion last. Who leads the choir, who handles money, who marries whom, and who is trusted to preach: old wine in new bottles.
Even burial grounds are sometimes divided… by something. If it isn’t wealth, status, or language, then it’s got to be something else. But “there is no caste, therefore hallelujah”.
There are visible and invisible, prescribed and tacit, separations within a congregation. There are even separate congregations. The urban churches, once in a while, perform outreach programs to help their less fortunate brethren, but would not dare to share their premises or facilities with them. Sharing of even just halls and pews is unthinkable. How legitimate then is this supposed kinship constructed with this “Dalit Christian” term?
The burden of explanation
Some extremely plausible vignettes below. Some of them are extracted from personally witnessed accounts.
In Bidar, a man sits at his desk with two things. One is a certificate from the Church that says “baptised in Christ.” The other, or rather, its absence says everything else. His family gave up their Scheduled Caste status decades ago, believing in the promise of spiritual equality. He now spends his evenings drafting petitions asking for it back.
In Raichur, a retired schoolteacher leads worship in a small CSI church. His father was once a bonded labourer. His granddaughter now studies in an English-medium convent. In official forms, he writes “Christian.” When pressed, he says “Madiga.” When pressed further, he changes the topic.
In Yadgir, a woman from a Dalit Catholic family marries into a Pentecostal OBC household. The wedding is “simple and quiet”. Neither side’s extended family attends. Oh, you think that’s because of the doctrinal differences? No, actually. Most of them say they couldn’t find transport. But everyone knows what it really means.
In Shivamogga, a pastor declines to officiate a marriage between a Holeya Christian and a Madiga Christian. He says he’s busy, but when they insist, he says he wants to “preserve harmony.” Everyone agrees because it just makes practical sense.
In Hyderabad, a young man fills out every government form with the same word: “Christian”. He has never once received a scholarship, a benefit, or a callback from an interview where he disclosed his religion. But he won’t write “Madiga,” not because he’s ashamed, but because he’s terrified.
Refusing simplicity
The state has designed a system that makes clarity a privilege. The point of schedules and lists is that caste identity becomes (at least politically) fixed, counted, and converted into entitlements. For us, it becomes a burden of proof and a riddle to solve before we can even ask for justice.
The Constitution must be amended to include Dalit-background Christians and Muslims in Scheduled Caste protections. The Ranganath Misra Commission said this in 2007. The Sachar Report said this in 2006. How many committees does the constitution need before we’re finally counted?
Church institutions must also reckon with their inherent fractures. When they deny caste within their walls, they isolate their congregants in the world outside. They must start keeping records, supporting legal claims, speaking in public, and confronting inequality inside their gates.
Progressive movements must stop mistaking labels for liberation. “Dalit Christian” is not the end of the sentence. They are the first words of a long story. We need more research, yes. But let’s not wait for committees and scholars. Let us write, express, and refuse more. We, the ones between the boxes. We must document everything, name what hurts, and insist on a future that does not require this kind of contortion.
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Rohan Arthur is a software engineer based in Bangalore. He writes from memory, old stories, and everyday conversations. He is curious about how people and places shape each other.
