The following statements made on this page are not my own words but the copying of author K.P. Yohannan’s book No Longer a Slumdog which illustrates through his personal experience the heart breaking reality of millions of children and adults throughout Asia. I encourage everyone to read this book and pray through the grace & strength of God, we can be used by Him to make a change in the lives of these precious people.
Terms & Concepts:
Caste/Caste System: According to Hinduism, people have an intrinsic value and are sorted into different groups called “castes.” This insidious system that has served to segregate the population and turn people against each other is based purely on their genetics.
Dalit/Untouchables: The word Dalit literally means “broken,” “crushed” or “oppressed.” In Hindu society, Dalits are at the lowest rung of the ladder. The vast majority of them are impoverished, exploited and powerless to change their fate. Considered to be polluted or unclean, they are called “Untouchables.” If they were to touch someone of higher caste, the upper-caste person would supposedly become contaminated. This is why many Dalits are not allowed to drink from community wells and are discouraged from attending schools with other students.
Other Backward Castes (OBCs): The term OBC applies to those from the lowest castes, also known as Sudras. The OBCs are higher than Dalits but are still oppressed and impoverished. Sudras are thought of as the slave caste.
“Imagine if this was you: After being born during a risky home delivery on the dirt floor of the family shack, you were dried off with a dirty rag or an old newspaper; your parents never learned much about sanitation. Your home was made of tarpaulin sheets held up by bamboo in less than 100 square feet of space. When you were born, you were already malnourished. The little milk your mother was able to give you couldn’t do much to ensure your growth.
As you started to crawl, you explored on your hands and knees the open sewer trenches running along the alley between neighboring shacks. If you had any clothing at all, it was made from rags found in the nearby dump, which is where all the household treasures came from. If through strength and providence you survived the first few years of life, at the age of 5 or 6 you might be sold by your parents into bonded labor to help secure a little desperately needed money for the family. Otherwise, you probably joined your siblings sifting through garbage to find rags, plastic bottles, pieces of metal or anything else that could be sold for a few pennies to help the family survive.
You may have become a beggar or even a thief, desperately doing whatever you could just to eat. Due to acute poverty in the rural villages, abandoning children is a choice that some parents are almost forced to make.
Calcutta alone is home to more than 100,000 street children who know neither father nor mother, love nor care, left to fend for themselves, alone. One of the most shocking reports I ever read appeared in the Indian Express several years ago. On the front page was a photo of a little boy, half naked, lying on the sidewalk of a busy street. Next to the boy was a female dog, and the little boy was actually sucking her milk. The caption read, “This Dog Is His Mother.” The three-column article went on to describe the heartbreaking agony that homeless children face as they try to survive on their own. That article came out several years ago, and I wish I could report that things have gotten better. But I can’t because the media keep telling me otherwise.
Throughout the world, more than 150 million children between the ages of 4 and 14 are involved in child labor. There are 1.2 million children bought and sold every year. Those who end up on the streets are quickly picked up and forced into a begging ring or other hard labor and are beaten if they don’t return to their owner with enough money they earned through begging. The worst fate of all awaits little girls who end up trapped in prostitution. Some are kidnapped or tricked into it. Parents sometimes sell their girls. Others are dedicated to this life as a sort of offering by their parents.
Thousands of untouchable female children (between six and eight years old) are forced to become maidens of God (a Hindu religious practice in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Orissa, to mention only a few). They are taken from their families, never to see them again. They are later raped by the temple priest and finally auctioned secretly into prostitution and ultimately die.
These broken and unwanted people are the Untouchables & the Other Backward Castes. They have had to break their malnourished bodies, working all hours of the day simply to get enough money for one meal. Why? It is more than just poverty, though they are among the poorest in the world. It is because of the caste system and the fact that they are not a part of it. Caste is determined at birth. If, for example, your parents were of high caste, you would also be of that caste. However, if your parents were low caste, that’s where you would belong. You would grow up learning to fear and respect those who are higher and despise those who are lower. There is no opportunity for advancement, no hope of someday being worth more.
Whatever you are, you always will be. The filthiest, most degrading and menial work in society is relegated to Dalits/Untouchables. They are the ones who harvest the fields by hand, working for hours in backbreaking labor. They are the ones who clean the open-air toilets, latrines and sewer lines with their bare hands. Those at the bottom are routinely denied even the most basic human rights. Violence is rampant. Degradation against Dalits is so pervasive. A Dalit might be beaten to death just for asking for his daily wages.
This is just a fraction of the devastation and brutality of the lives of those suffering under such conditions. But God has always been in the business of redemption—just think of the Israelites. He saw their affliction. He heard their cries. He knew their sufferings. And so He came down to deliver them. He knows the plight of the 50 million child laborers in India. How did God respond to the cries of His people in Egypt? He sent Moses.
When God spoke to Moses, naturally we might assume that God Himself was coming down to earth to do this rescuing, saving work. Right? No. Instead, God says to Moses, “Go. I am sending you” (Exodus 3:10). If God were coming down to save His people, why did He send Moses? Not because He needed Moses’ strength and arm of the flesh, but because He chose to work through him, just like God still works through us to carry out His will. This is important to recognize. Although God is fully capable of accomplishing all He desires on His own, He still uses us in His incredible work. Countless millions of Dalit villagers and slum dwellers, including their children, all need to be set free from the bondage of sin and slavery. They have yet to hear of the Lamb that was slain from the foundations of the earth (see Revelation 13:8) and of His deep love for them. And they will only hear of Him when you and I, just as Moses did, obey the call of God.”
Yohannan, K.P. (2011). No Longer a Slumdog, pages 27-59.
