The Supreme Court order holding that professing a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism through conversion removes statutory protections and benefits available to a Scheduled Caste person has raised the question whether it advances the constitutional objective of safeguarding the communities from discrimination. There is little doubt that the letter of the law, in this case the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, is very specific. It lays down that “no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste”. But in the case before the bench of justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Manmohan, the issue was not one of benefits but protection against assault and discrimination based on the SC status of an individual who converted to Christianity and worked as a pastor. The assault on the pastor on grounds of his original Hindu-Madiga caste is not in dispute.
What the petitioner was seeking was the same protection available to Scheduled Caste members, since the act of conversion had not eliminated the discrimination he suffered. Given the uncontroverted facts before the court, which was incidentally upholding the view taken by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the incident last year, the question really was whether those who left the protective umbrella of the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act could continue to get constitutional protections to life, liberty, and freedom from discrimination.
Clearly, the question of whether Scheduled Caste converts to “non-Indian” religions like Christianity should enjoy the same protections available to them earlier is far from settled. There is pending litigation from 2004, seeking SC status for converts to Christianity and Islam, and those in favour of this view argue that Sikhism and Buddhism were added to the 1950 order much later, the latter as late as 1990. The report of a Commission of Inquiry under the former Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan, constituted four years ago to go into the same question, is awaited. Moreover, while reconversion should normally lead to a restoration of SC protections to the oppressed communities,
The court order sets a high bar of proof, such as acceptance by and assimilation with the original community. Also noteworthy is the absence of exclusion on religious grounds for Scheduled Tribes who convert, and the reliance is more on the persistence of their tribal customs and practices. Natural justice should weigh in favour of acknowledging the oppressive structures that still operate in society, and the law should act as a bulwark against supremacist attitudes that perpetuate discrimination. It also defies logic that induced conversions are raised as a concern when there is overwhelming support for a non-discriminatory unified Hindu identity. The ball is now in the court of politics to strike a blow for protection.
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