On April,27 Mario Goveia wrote: oblivious both to the caste system and the harm it has caused'' Most of us Goan Catholics may not be oblivious to the caste system but we definitely are to the harm it ( caste system ) has caused. Caste system has done great harm to the physical well being of majority population of India. But what is worse is that it has caused great harm to the psyche of the Indian people so much that I can say that Nazi racism pales into insignificance compared to what most Indian people have undergone in the last millennium or two. Psychically spiritually, intellectually, mentally or call what you wish, most Indian people could be called ''walking dead ''or as they say in America ''dead men walking''.
It is not easy to be in the shoes of a Dalit, Could be that people administering to the spiritual needs of the people would have known the magnitude of the problem but they chose to ignore for reasons best known to themselves or perhaps to maintain their ''superiority'' over the others. They say give a dog bad name and it sticks forever. Calumny, slander disparagement, vilification, vituperation derision scurrility etc that have been heaped upon the unfortunate people of India for generation after generations all in the name of religion is in itself the greatest human rights blot that the world has ever seen so far. As Hannah Arendt says: ""The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil ''' Antonio