Dalit Theology Month
31st March 2025
Inspired by Black History Month, Dalit History Month was launched in April 2015 by a collective of Dalit activists, to reclaim and reassert the agency of Dalits through their stories of resistance and resilience. It is celebrated in the month of April every year commemorating the birth anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (14th April), a social reformer and a prophet for justice in modern India, who vehemently strived for the annihilation of caste oppression.
In resonance with the spirit of Dalit History Month, #DalitTheologyMonth is being launched this April 2025 to reclaim our Dalit theological Identity, to reinvigorate our Dalit theological spirituality and to seek a public relevance of Dalit theology in our post-Christian and post-secular world. #DalitHistoryMonth is an opportunity to create a new interest, to celebrate new passion, new perspectives and to envision new dreams of/for Dalit theology, as a means of transforming our world today.
Dalit theology, as an Indian liberation theology has a come a long way ever since it made its inroads into the Indian Christian theology by the articulations of Arvind P Nirmal in 1981. Taking cognizance of the Dalit realities in the Indian Church and in the Indian public sphere, Dalit theology emerged as a counter theology, countering the dominant publics of casteism. It has also been a protest theology against the forces of marginalization, domination and oppression. Dalit theology contests the oppressive status quo of any form and all forms of oppression with an aim of affirming life in all its fullness.
Dalit theology today stands as voices of resistance to the colonial projects of knowledge and has been on the go in employing de-colonial methods of reading/hearing/listening texts, contexts, events, histories, theories and theologies and therefore this can be a pointer in seeking its public relevance today. The challenges that #DalitTheologyMonth poses to the euro-centred epistemologies are ‘learning to listen to the voices from below’, the voices from margins as contested epistemologies and ‘hearing to speech’ such knowledge forms. It calls to sufficiently theorise power and its dynamics from the perspectives of those on the margins and to address situations of oppression.
During this month, we are encouraging students, supporters, allies and friends of Dalit theology to be intentional in speaking/sharing/writing about Dalit theology and strive to build a global wave of solidarity for the cause of Dalit liberation and justice. I shall share 30 quotes, posting a quote each day throughout April from various Dalit theologians and invite people to share and reflect on them as my personal offering to this #DalitTheologyMonth. I now seek your support in promoting #DalitTheologyMonth through your creative offerings and solidarity. Come let us join together in seeking the divine among the sites of margins and strive for a liberative and just world.
Rev Dr Raj Bharat Patta
Founder, #DaitTheologyMonth – April 2025
raj.patta@methodist.org.uk
25.03.2025