BAMA
I was 27 when I decided to become a religious sister. I was then working as a teacher in a High School in one of the educationally backward districts of northern Tamil Nadu. I was a good teacher and I took very special interest in students from poor and marginalized communities like dalits. I was thrilled to see these students who were neglected till then, blossoming up and it was a matter of joy for me that I had contributed to their growth. This exhilarating experience sowed in me the idea that I should dedicate my life for the uplift of the poor and neglected people. As a practicing Roman Catholic, it seemed to me the easiest way to realize this dream was to join a religious order which offered the opportunity of working among the poor. So I resigned my job and went o my village and told my parents of my decision. My mother who knew me well, told me that I would not survive in a convent for long, given my straight forward character and penchant for standing up for justice. According to her, as a religious sister I would be asked to do crazy things (to test my obedience) like planting a sapling upside down, which she knew, I would never do. But I was adamant and went to the Presbytery to get my baptismal certificate without which I would not be taken into the convent. When I told the parish priest of my desire to become a nun and requested him to issue me my baptism certificate, he asked me in which part of the village I lived. When I told him that I was from R.C. Street, (where Dalits lived) he sniggered and said, “Religious life and priesthood are not for the likes of you”. He wondered whether it was not sheer arrogance on my part even to think of becoming a nun as if I would be polluting the sacred order with my presence. His words dripped with contempt and prejudice. He was obviously referring to my caste and its marginalized position in the Church. I quietly swallowed the humiliation of being a dalit in the Catholic Church, but insisted on getting the baptism certificate. At last he relented and issued it for a fee and pushed the paper towards me. Later I realized that this priest was merely reflecting the prevalent casteist attitude of the Church which systematically sees to it that dalit Catholics who form the majority (almost 65%) of its membership, are kept out of priesthood and religious orders so that the minority non dalits can have an effective control over the Church and its massive Institutions! Strangely, my religious vocation brought me face to face with a Church practicing a kind of apartheid!!
