Talk:Caste system among Indian Christians

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[edit] Sources only address Catholic christians no other denominations

The sources used for this article only address the practices and abuses found amon Catholic Indian Christians in Tamil Nadu and Goa. This is misleading, which could be the purpose to label all Indian christians, when it only has sources for one denomination (Catholicism) and at that specific regions. This can be seen as trying to POV this article against the whole faith, which is probably why my edits to make it more specific and neutral are being undone. For this article to be accurate, it should refer to Catholic not christian, when making specific claims or references. There are no sources for any other denomination, aside from the mention of the syrian christians as middle caste, so User:Bakasuprman and his friend User:Indiarising need to stop the reversions and read the sources again. Plus unsourced text needs to be removed, i.e. "Dalits are denied arable land by uppercaste clergy" which among other things shows a willingess to twist the text for personal biases. --Kathanar 19:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a source for the Dalits denied land. See Economic discrimination part of [1]. Also, Dalitchristians website publishes about all Christians, not just Catholics. In any case, Catholics are majority in India and protestants are minority. There are many minority societies in India that do not do Castes but unnecessary qualification makes the article unencyclopedic because this is understood. Remember that the article needs expansion, not reduction. The other thing is your bizarre addition regarding "abuses". The article is not being used to spread anti-Christian hatred. That would be totally wrong. The article merely writes about castes but does not take a POV position on it. Concerning your statement about "Catholics only", the Britannica article also talks about Syriacs (St Thomas followers) who are not Catholics because Catholicism did not come into being during the heydey of the holy apostle Thomas (honor be to his memory) India Rising 20:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Its true what you said; "There is a source for the Dalits denied land." I'm glad you read that, thats all it said, it didn't say they were denied land due to uppercaste clergy, just due to their being [[Dalits]( no mention of dalit christian in that sentence), meaning the general condition as dalits and being part of the caste system (previous condition). So that is a falsity and twisting facts to say "uppercaste" clergy were the ones preventing them from owning arable land. As you said the dalit christian website might publish about all christians, but when refering to abuses it only has references about the Catholic church, read the article again, no mention of any other denomination. I say Catholics only, because this article and sources only talks about abuses by "uppercaste" catholic christans against "lowercaste" catholic christians. Thank you, I do appreciate you being respectful to Apostle Thomas, the reference to the "Thomas Christians" only refers to their caste status in society in general, syrian christians were considered a caste among Kerala society( caste system in kerala actually is kind of unique it might require another article), theres no caste division among syrian christians, its the caste itself(i.e. no kshatriya syrian christian, no vasiya syrian christian, etc., etc.) I'm just trying to make the article more accurate according to what the sources say, otherwise its just twisting facts. Please review the sources again to see what I'm saying. Thank you for your response, I do appreciate hearing your views, I've asked an administrator User:Dbachman to take a look, as I wanted to make sure everyone could keep their cool( I do mean me as well). --Kathanar 20:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Notice that the title of the article says Caste system among Indian Christians, which can mean two things. 1) Caste System within Christian society and 2) Caste System of Christian society. The St Thomas Christians part concerns the second point, since they are collectively a single caste, a concept which they also regard. The indianhope article's main subject is Caste discrimination of Dalit Christians by upper-caste Christians ("This study is an attempt at assessing the existence and the extent of the practice of untouchability within Christian Church (principally ['but not exclusively'], the Roman Catholic Church in Tamil Nadu).") rather than by others (that matter is discussed in SC articles where the issue of their quota status etc is written about).Thus, the wp article does not "twist facts" but paraphrases them. While I agree that Catholics are mentioned as the only example, the subject of the articles involve all Christians, not just Catholics. Thus, the articles use Catholics as examples, not as subjects. Despite this, you raise a valid question. What is the status of Caste among protestants, evangelicals etc? Since the answer to that question requires additions,I guess that is why there is an expansion tag in the article, which indicates that it is far from complete. It looks that the articles referenced talk about Christians in the main point, then give only Catholics as examples. However, because they do imply Castes among other denominations, some research is required. It is possible that the protestant and other non-Catholic denominations may not have much casteism. If that is the case, sources are needed to establish. That is why the expansion tag is there to tell readers that the article as it is now is not the whole story and there may be deeper aspects that need proper sorting. In order to do that, explicit sources are needed. I will see if I can do some work on this. In the meantime, outside commentary is always welcome. India Rising 21:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you User:Indiarising for your thoughts on the matter. I do agree on what the title says and means, but we cannot make general statements or conclusions if it is not sourced specifically. This would present information that could be misleading. In general, evangelical christian churches are the ones which are going to be the least caste-like, as well as probably most protestant churches, though who knows what can happen in all the churches. But thats exactly the point, if we don't know, we should only talk of what we do know or can cite. Changes can be made the article as new information is found or arrives, we shouldn't make statements and then wait to see if we kind find the info to match it, there are rules about verifiability. I think we're saying the same thing about syrian christians, I'm just addressing the caste disrimination practices in churches that is talked about. Again thank you for your cooperation and together we can make this a better article. Have a good day--Kathanar 21:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

what can I say? try Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. As long as there is no disruptive behaviour, edit-warring, or WP:POINT (like the tongue-in-cheek 'debate' aimed at creating a deadlock we see on Talk:India), there is no need for admin intervention. If the sentence

In addition, there are various instances of economic discrimination where Dalit Christians are not allowed to own arable land by upper caste Christian clergy.

is under dispute, you should add {{fact}} and ask for precise attribution (whose opinion is this? what instances? who does object to that opinion). At the moment, it is just an unsourced claim. We don't want unsourced claims, even if they are true, we want to report on opinions and analyses by someone. Keep this in mind, and there will be no need to disagree, you're just here to document the disagreement of other people. dab (𒁳) 10:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Finger Pointing

Is this just finger pointing by Hindus, who are fed up with criticisms of Hindu racism in the caste system? "You say Hindus are racist--but look, Christians do it, too." While racism by any group should not be condoned, this purported Christian racism is because they have not given up their Hindu caste system roots. The Bible states that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free; all human creatures are inherently equal in worth. That goes for whether their ancestors called themselves--or others called them--Brahmins or Dalits.

Note, Spaniards and Portugeuse in the Americas also formed de facto race-based caste systems, and the United States had it's one-drop rule. Those too were not sanctioned by the Bible, although the nations which had them were nominally majority Christian. Chiss Boy 15:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC) Chiss Boy 15:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Basically you hit it on the nail, this article was made for no other purpose than to distract from any criticism of the original system, using ploys of muddling the issue with these inane articles and trying to spread misinformation where they can. This article is already addressed in a sub article of the Indian Caste System, so I would think there is no need for this article. You will see this type of behavior a lot on Wiki, as you have a gang of them working together on the supremacism of their views, its ridiculous and heinous.--Kathanar 17:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)