By Fakir Hassen, IANS
Pretoria : A Christian priest in South Africa who came from India to free himself from the shackles of the caste system that classifies his community as untouchable is now determined to see the life of Dalits in his country of origin improves.
Rajesh Kumar, who came here in 2001 after meeting Christian missionaries, has become the first Indian to be ordained in the Reformed Church of South Africa.
“Dominee” (reverend) Kumar, as he is now known, wants to use the principles of the church to improve the lives of the Dalit community in the northern parts of India.
He was reluctant to give specific details about where in northern India he and his team would be going for fear of attacks against Christian missionaries.
However, before departing for India Monday, Kumar said: “Our aim is to uplift as a whole the Dalit community that Mamta (his wife) and I come from – socially, culturally, educationally and above all to help them rise out of the poverty that is so endemic there.”
Kumar, the son of an atheist father who wanted him to study communism in Russia and a staunch Hindu mother, has become the first Indian to earn a three-year theological qualification at the Potchefstroom University for Higher Christian Education.
The medium of instruction at the university is Afrikaans, but Kumar completed his bachelor of theology degree with the assistance of translators.
When asked if he could speak Afrikaans, Kumar said: “Bietjie (a little)”.
The language was seen for many years as the language of the oppressor because black schools were forced to teach it as a subject in the apartheid era. Resistance to it by black students was one of the major catalysts of the uprising in Soweto in 1976 that eventually led to the democratic South Africa of today.
But Kumar has found nothing but warm welcomes from the Afrikaner families who make up the main followers of this church. He has been staying with them, something that would have been illegal in the apartheid era.
Kumar explained how his father had been very disappointed initially about his decision to convert to Christianity after he first became interested in the religion as a high school student in India.
But now the entire family follows Christianity. Even Mamta, who was a Hindu, adopted Christianity after the couple were introduced to each other during one of Kumar’s visits home.
Kumar was in fact the first Indian to be married in the Reformed Church of South Africa here to Mamta, who came from India for the occasion in November 2007.