Joseph DSouza

A picture of a woman holding a broom. Anywhere else, the image might pass unnoticed. But in India the poster for the film Madam Chief Minister, loosely based on the life of politician Mayawati, who is a Dalit, has triggered uproar for perpetuating caste stereotypes. Bollywood actor Richa Chadha, who plays Mayawati, tweeted an image of the poster ahead of the film’s release later this month. She is shown looking dishevelled and holding the kind of large broom used by municipal roadsweepers. The tagline of the poster reads: Untouchable, Unstoppable. The poster has offended on many fronts. “Untouchable” is now an unacceptable term in India – although some Dalits are reclaiming it – and the actor’s unkempt appearance implies Dalits are unwashed and untidy. For Dalits who have strived to escape the hereditary, menial jobs that defined and dehumanised them, the broom is a particularly potent symbol. The outrage was instant. Chadha and director Subhash Kapoor were lambasted for being incapable – as upper-caste and privileged Hindus – of escaping simplistic conceptions of Dalits. Many expressed their views on Twitter. One wrote: “Over the years, Bollywood in the guise of breaking caste barriers and making progressive cinema has furthered caste prejudices and solidified symbols associated with discrimination. What does a Dalit leader going on to become CM have to do with holding broom?” Another tweeted: “UCs (who claim to be secular, liberal) understanding of casteism is always flawed. Apparently everybody wants to make movies on Dalits these days because it’s profitable and they in turn do more harm to the community.” While another wrote: “The recent poster of Madam Chief Minister makes me feel heartbroken once more. I lack words to talk about the deliberate reluctance [...]

For months, farmers in India have been protesting new agriculture reform laws instituted in September 2020, which leave them to the mercy — or lack thereof — of corporate giants.Almost immediately, farmers in Punjab, many of them Sikhs, began protesting locally, but in November, hundreds of thousands of farmers surrounded New Delhi in the largest mass protest India has seen in decades. Although these protests are largely leaderless, millions of farmers across the nation are united in their struggle for human dignity.What can we learn from the protesters?Humans have a right to a dignified livelihood.Globalization and the so-called market economy — which is built upon making money with money, not generating wealth with labor — have destroyed the livelihoods of numerous working-class people around the world. In India, globalization has wreaked havoc on the masses.One effect has been to force Indian farming communities, which comprise 70% of India’s people, to grow nonessential crops for unsustainable compensation. In the state of Bihar, where the new agriculture laws were implemented, many farmers have become destitute. The dynamics that are starving farmers are also worsening India’s already dire water crisis.Every person desires the right to dignified labor and compensation, the right to which was given to humanity by God, as recorded in Genesis:And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ …The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.Though human work eventually became corrupted by the sin of the first man and woman, work gives [...]

On Sept. 14, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was brutally gang raped by four upper caste men in a field near her home in Uttar Pradesh — the largest state in India. Tragically, she succumbed to her injuries two weeks later, on Sept. 29, including a severed spinal cord. Adding insult to injury, authorities denied her family their right to their daughter's body and hastily cremated it themselves under the cover of night. Her story raises four critical issues India must address in order to end rampant sexual violence against women. State complicity How could the local police deny a traumatized, grieving family the last rites for their daughter? In India the answer is predictable: because they are Dalits. Even in death India's caste system denies human dignity. In barring this young woman's family from preparing her body for a proper funeral — and disposing of it themselves — the police of Uttar Pradesh were complicit in the dehumanization of this dear Dalit woman. They were also trying to cover her brutal rape. Such lawlessness among those who are supposed to uphold the law bodes ill not only for Uttar Pradesh but also for other states in India. This is one of the reasons why Martin Luther King, Jr., was correct when he said "injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere." If perpetrators of crime are not punished in India's largest state then what keeps the authorities from doing the same in others? Thankfully, in this case, the federal Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), intervened, confirming the rape and charge the upper caste perpetrators. Unfortunately, this is too uncommon, and it should have happened first at the authority of the state itself. Caste discrimination As Isabel Wilkerson explains in [...]

The public fall of Jerry Falwell Jr., the former president of Liberty University, is a sobering reminder that even our most respected leaders are not exempt from failure. Increasing revelations of the Falwells's lifestyle, which went on for years, paint a more disturbing picture than what was originally revealed. Falwell now joins a tragically growing list of Christian leaders whose moral failures have severely damaged not only the organizations they led and built but also the reputation of the gospel. From my perspective as a bishop, I believe Falwell’s failure is in part due to how evangelicals have built a culture that leaves little to no room for regular confession of sins, repentance and restoration. I believe we lost the practice of a confessional life because in our efforts to stay rooted in our Protestant beliefs we distanced ourselves from anything that could be remotely interpreted as Roman Catholic. Being saved, for many evangelicals, means being declared righteous by the redemptive work of Jesus — all well and good, but “being saved” does not mean we stop being sinners. On the contrary, we need saving because we are sinners. As long as we are on this earth, we have a sin nature, even if we have committed and submitted our lives to Jesus. The inability to acknowledge the fact that we are all works in progress is a major flaw in evangelical subcultures. This is not a modern Christian concept. Jesus himself taught his disciples the parable of the publican and the pharisee (Luke 18). The publican is praised not because of his righteousness but because of his repentant position before God as a sinner. In Acts we also read the early Christians said they belonged to [...]

It’s a statement many Americans pass right over as they are filling out job applications: “No applicant for employment … is denied equal opportunity because of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, status as a parent, national origin, age, disability (physical or mental), family medical history or genetic information, political affiliation, military service, or other non-merit based factors.” This list is part of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s policy statement. A product of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the policy initially protected Americans from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The law has now been expanded to include more than 15 categories. Yet one category has been conspicuously absent over the years: caste. Caste discrimination stems from India’s 3,000-year-old system that stratifies society into groups or “castes” based on the purity of a person’s birth. Those belonging to low castes — such as the Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables” — are consigned to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Despite the fact that India banned the practice of untouchability more than 70 years ago, Dalits and other low castes face discrimination and even violence to this day. While many Americans may think the caste system exists only in India and other South Asian countries, it’s present all over the world, including in the U.S. Take, for instance, the recent case of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Cisco Systems Inc. An Indian man — identified by the alias “John Doe” in the case — alleged that his supervisor, another Indian man, discriminated him because he was a Dalit. According to the case, the two men knew each other from their college days in [...]

On a stormy August day in 1806, five students at Williams College in Massachusetts were gathered in a field for a prayer meeting when a thunderstorm suddenly broke over them. The students ran to the nearest shelter — a haystack — where, as they continued praying, they were burdened to take the gospel to the nations, particularly South Asia. Known as the Haystack Prayer Meeting, the gathering is considered by church historians as the awakening of the North American missions movement. It grew to enlist a vast number of churches and organizations that every year commission individuals and whole families to go overseas and share the good news. Many go on trips of a few weeks or months. Others relocate to their host countries and spend decades — even the rest of their lives — overseas. They learn the language, adopt local customs and integrate into the community with the purpose of winning souls for Jesus. For 200 years, this has been the model of North American missions. It has succeeded in some cultural settings, while in others it has struggled and even backfired, to the detriment of the gospel. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has ground the missions machine to a near halt. As the church figures out the way forward, this may be a moment to rethink the traditional sending framework. The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated the inequalities millions of individuals experience every day. Unfortunately, many American Christians, focused on the spiritual aspect of the gospel, shy away from these social issues. They perceive racial reconciliation, immigration reform and economic inequalities as part of a social justice agenda associated with progressive politics. Influenced by the particularly Western idea of separation of church and state, [...]

If you have ever walked by Mumbai’s southern seacoast, you may have noticed a strange-looking tower rising above the apartment complexes. Measuring 27-stories high and featuring three helipads, an 80-seat theater and an 168-car garage, among other amenities, the skyrise is the residence of India’s wealthiest man, Mukesh Ambani. It’s estimated to be worth at least $1 billion, making it the most expensive private home in the world. Go less than eight miles north along the coastline and you will reach Dharavi, one of the largest slums in the world. Measuring .81 sq mi, the slum is home to over 1 million Indians, making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. Entire families cram into one-room houses inside Dharavi’s labyrinthine neighborhoods, where diseases run rampant because of the confined and unsanitary conditions people live in. This is not the first time the opulence of Ambani’s home has been compared to Dharavi, which was famously depicted in the film “Slumdog Millionaire.” Since it was erected in 2010, Ambani’s home has served as the quintessential metaphor that captures the absurd scope of India’s economic inequality, which is among the worst in the world. But the economic fallout of Covid-19 is exacerbating India’s inequality to a point beyond what metaphors can capture. Economic forecasts estimate that India’s GDP will contract by 4-5% in the coming year, severely impacting major industries and India’s emerging middle class. But it is India’s informal economy, where nearly 81% of Indians work, that will be hit hardest. This bottom half of India, as Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee calls it, is not simply facing an economic crisis but an existential one as they struggle to put food on their tables. These are [...]

If you have ever walked by Mumbai’s southern seacoast, you may have noticed a strange-looking tower rising above the apartment complexes. Measuring 27-stories high and featuring three helipads, an 80-seat theater and an 168-car garage, among other amenities, the skyrise is the residence of India’s wealthiest man, Mukesh Ambani. It’s estimated to be worth at least $1 billion, making it the most expensive private home in the world. Go less than eight miles north along the coastline and you will reach Dharavi, one of the largest slums in the world. Measuring .81 sq mi, the slum is home to over 1 million Indians, making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. Entire families cram into one-room houses inside Dharavi’s labyrinthine neighborhoods, where diseases run rampant because of the confined and unsanitary conditions people live in. This is not the first time the opulence of Ambani’s home has been compared to Dharavi, which was famously depicted in the film “Slumdog Millionaire.” Since it was erected in 2010, Ambani’s home has served as the quintessential metaphor that captures the absurd scope of India’s economic inequality, which is among the worst in the world. But the economic fallout of Covid-19 is exacerbating India’s inequality to a point beyond what metaphors can capture. Economic forecasts estimate that India’s GDP will contract by 4-5% in the coming year, severely impacting major industries and India’s emerging middle class. But it is India’s informal economy, where nearly 81% of Indians work, that will be hit hardest. This bottom half of India, as Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee calls it, is not simply facing an economic crisis but an existential one as they struggle to put food on their tables. These are [...]

Over the past two weeks, I have watched with amazement as George Floyd, a black man killed by a police officer, has not only become a cultural symbol of protest against systemic racism but a global phenomenon. And while rioting is not the right way to pursue justice, I’ve been heartened to see America’s democracy continue to work and move forward, however imperfectly. It gives me hope that India, where I sit, can confront its past and present history of casteism. Though slavery and untouchability have been abolished in both nations, neither of the world’s largest democracies has proved able to eradicate discrimination and ensure equal justice for all. In India, the caste system has resulted in the discrimination and oppression of millions of men and women not just for centuries, but millennia. It is perhaps the oldest form of social stratification, and to this day it assigns people in India their worth, rights, privileges, occupation and place in society based on their birth. So-called low castes — Dalits, “untouchables” and tribals — have borne the economic, physical and spiritual brunt of this system. Though its roots are in religion, it discriminates against people regardless of religious affiliation. And similar to the discrimination against black Americans, dark skin usually determines the amount of discrimination an Indian will experience. As I watch blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos and people of faith and of no faith protesting on the streets of America, my heart aches for such an amalgamation of citizens peacefully protesting on our streets against the violence, scorn and social neglect Dalits, tribals and other low castes experience on a daily basis. I take pride in the CEOs of Microsoft and Google — both of Indian heritage [...]

As I observe Holy Week along with billions of other believers, I have been pondering not only on how Jesus’s death and resurrection restored our relationship to God the Father, but also how they made him the conqueror of all suffering and death. Many of us came to faith in Jesus because we were moved and convicted by the gospel story as told through the innocent Son of God dying on the cross in our place for our sins. This atonement aspect of the gospel captures the sheer scope of God’s grace, sacrificial love and mercy. Yet I fear that sometimes when we consider the image of Christ on the cross we look at him as a passive scapegoat instead of a warrior who went to do war with sin, suffering and death willingly and joyfully. In John 10:18, Jesus himself said, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (NIV) Hebrews 12:2 likewise says, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” It may seem like a theological technicality, but there’s a world of a difference between Jesus being carted away passively to the cross than he facing it head on. In fact, everything about Jesus’ journey to the cross was active, from him “becoming obedient to death” (Phil 2:8) to him “scorning its shame.” Jesus’ victory on the cross was neither accidental nor incidental — it was deliberate and intentional. In light of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic we [...]