Christians from across the country will stage a day-long dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on 11 December 2006 to press for their various demands, including Scheduled Caste status for Dalit Christians.

Addressing media persons in New Delhi on 28 November 2006, Dr Joseph D’Souza, the President of All India Christian Council (aicc) said, “The Dalits suffer injustice and oppression within Hindu religion and when they convert, they face double injustices. The upper caste Christians do not allow them to have equal access to education and other resources under their control. Similarly Article 341 of the Constitution deprives them of getting the reservation.”

Dr Joseph D’Souza said there was no serious effort to collect data on the conditions of Dalit Christians and, in fact, the officials of the Mishra Commission were least interested to gather the available information of these people. The NGOs and other persons assigned to collect the data regarding the socio and educational conditions of Dalit Christian did not have any sympathy, prior linkages and experiences about them. One of the largest bodies of Christians - the All India Christian Council - was not even invited to share the details about Dalit Christians. Perhaps, they feared that any consultation with aicc would reveal the true conditions of Dalit Christians, he added.

Udit Raj, the Chairman of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations and Indian Justice Party, said he supported Dalit Christians` demand to be included in the Presidential Order of 1950. “According to the order, Dalits practising Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism get the benefits of reservation but those following Islam and Christianity, are being barred from such benefits. I challenge the incorrect and incomplete data collected by the National Commission of Linguistic and Minority Religions on the socio-economic and educational status of Christian Dalits of Scheduled Caste origins,” he said.

Udit Raj said the outstanding demands of Dalit Christians would be raised in the rally to be held on 3 December 2006 at Ramlila Ground in New Delhi. This rally was being organised by the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations to seek reservation in the private sector, filling up the backlog posts and enactment of reservation law. Thousands of employees from all over the country would take part in the rally, he said.

Dr VK William, the Principal of Mount Carmel School, opened the meeting with a prayer. Expressing his concern over the new Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Bill 2006, Dr Jon Dayal, the Secretary General of aicc, said all of sudden, after leaking out the content of the proposed FCRA Bill, the text available on website was removed. But the statements in different newspaper were sufficient to give some hints of what could really matter once the Bill was passed.

Dr Dayal said according to the new Bill, the FCRA has to be renewed every five years by the collectors of respective districts. This would cause more difficulties to churches and mission organisations as most of the district collectors, particularly in the BJP ruled States were biased against them. He said this would also encourage bribing the district collectors. The new proposed bill would also empower the bank managers to report back the transaction of the fund to the Home Ministry.

Although he did not have the full content of the text, he said it was proposed to draft a memorandum and fix a date to submit to the department concerned the opinion of the Christian community.

Dr Dayal said the Church had not done anything substantial after the gathering in 1991.  What was now needed was a demonstration along with PIL. He said it was decided to meet on 6 December 2006 at YMCA to chalk out more details. Meanwhile the mobilization for rally would begin with posters, hand bills and appeal letters.