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As the United Nations has made a small but significant step forward towards declaring caste-based discrimination a human rights violation, Indian Christian leaders have called on the churches to confess that the caste system is still being practised also within them.

A team of church representatives from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia will pay a solidarity visit to churches, ecumenical organizations and civil society movements in India from 21 to 27 September.

The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has called on member churches to "recognize that the continued discrimination and exclusion of millions of people on the basis of caste" is a "serious challenge to the credibility of their witness to their faith in God".

"We believe that this is a moment where we are invited by God to commit ourselves to be instruments of change in the church and the wider society," participants in an international conference on "Churches against Racism" have said, 17 June. The message was read in the presence of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands during a closing worship service.

The Dutch queen will be the guest of honour at a conference seeking to take on the legacy of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) historic anti-racism efforts.

According to an Indian church worker, the violence against Christians in the Indian state of Orissa last year was not a one-time event but the consequence of a fragmented society. However, the results of the recent general elections are heartening.

Two global church organizations have congratulated the Durban Review Conference on the adoption of its outcome document, while regretting that the latter makes no mention of the plight of hundreds of millions of people affected by caste-based discrimination.

Caste-based discrimination in India may be 3,500 years old, but something new is unfolding. An emerging liberation movement has consciously chosen not to focus on Dalits' victimhood, but on the latent strength of the Dalit people, drawn from their own history and culture.

By Maurice Malanes (*)

Jointly issued by LWF and WCC

Recounting stories such as the alleged forced poisoning of a young couple, speakers at the Global Ecumenical Conference on Justice for Dalits which opened in Bangkok, Thailand, on 21 March gave a face to the 3,500-year-old system of caste-based discrimination, detailing practices many would consider unthinkable in the 21st century.

Jointly issued by LWF and WCC