Dalit

Dalit

On my first trip to India I landed at the airport in Chennai, formerly Madras. As soon as you walk out of the airport hall you step into a fairy tale. Swaying palm trees have been waiting for me for centuries. I feel at home immediately. The sight of men and women in exotic dress moves me deeply. The scents and the colours – they never let go of me.

I visited this city with its monumental places such as Mount Thomas – the place where the apostle Thomas brought the gospel of Jesus in New Testament times – and the slums that seem to stretch out in all directions along large and small roads. Outside the city we stopped in a village to soak up the atmosphere. Teenpalli was its name, which translated means ‘Honey village’. How can such a sweet name carry so much misery? The people live here as if the badly built huts had fallen from the sky. Higgledy-piggledy beside an unpaved, potholed track. Now it is dry, but you can imagine that twice a year, during the rainy season, it is one big quagmire.

We meet friendly, simple people, whose women wear beautiful, colourful saris. Anyone who is washed and can wear clean clothes looks radiant. But we also see other people who seem to stand at the edge of the abyss of what is human: disfigured, unwashed, in rags, sick, lepers, bewildered and completely lost. Everyone goes their own way and people do not concern themselves with one another. There is indifference towards one’s neighbour, who, according to the Hindu caste system, has a different karma or destiny. Total indifference alongside warm and loving family relationships. It is heartbreaking when we meet the lowest caste of the Hindu way of life: the Dalits. If you are born into this system you have no rights; your lot is worth less than that of vermin. You are condemned to do the dirty work in society. Dalits have no right to education, healthcare, opportunities on the labour market, or protection from the government. As for access to a bank or insurance, you can forget it. You are caught in a vicious circle of hopeless despair. There is shame everywhere about who you are as a Dalit. You are nothing!

Through these wooden sculptures I want to draw attention to the situation of the Dalits. In the making process I started from worthless materials that our society puts out with the bulky waste: pallet wood and scrap metal. I hope you can see the beauty through the transience. Someone wrote in a comment: “This one is very special, the longer I look the more I see. Beautiful…”

God loves people. People with great problems also need great solutions. Are you the one who will bring the solution, or make it possible?

I have donated this artwork to International Justice Mission. http://www.ijm.org