A group of Indian theologians, in a recent statement, has set forth the theological task in India as follows. 'We want Indian theology to be a service to the Indian people in our common search for full humanity in an open fraternal fellowship. Indian theology seeks to support and illumine the people's struggle for human wholeness in freedom and dignity. Its endeavour is to make a meaningful contribution to the march of our people towards human completion in an equal society'.¹ The same thrust is echoed and elaborated in a number of articles coming from theological circles. The struggles of the people in these writings are identified as those of 'the poor, the outcast, oppressed women and men, sinners rejected by society'.² You may not, perhaps, agree that the above statement is complete on the nature of the theological task in India. But it certainly indicates a theological position held by some of our best theologians. The insistence in it on man, on his liberation, on the struggle of the poor for human wholeness in freedom and dignity truly speaks to us as a timely emphasis grounded in 'our faith commitment to God in Jesus Christ' as the theologians have put it in their declaration. Let me now come to the point of this paper. A question is now raised how we should study religion which in our context generally means Hindu religious tradition. What should be our approach to it so that we may be of assistance to the churches 'in their total task of witness and service'. I shall now indicate the bare outlines of studying religion from the perspective of the poor. I divide my comments around two aspects of religion. These comments are tentative in nature and presented here for the favour of your criticism. A religion can be studied in several ways. But if our theological context demands a posture of an option in favour of 'the poor, the untouchable, the oppressed women and men' I would answer the question raised above simply like this: 'We should study religion from the perspective of the poor, the untouchable, the oppressed women and men'. ### The Structural factor in Religion Religious values and meanings (religious consciousness/God-experience) cannot exist in a vacuum. In order to experience religious values and meanings they have to be mediated through acts and structures which are social, economical and political in character. I am not here thinking of the prime requirement of an economic and social base which enables one to meet his religious needs. For example this morning four men came to my house asking for money to bury the mother of one of them who had expired in the early hours of the night. It is not a very rare sight in Bangalore to see a dead body placed on the side walk by the relatives with the intention of collecting the funeral expenses from the passers-by. We know of women and children not going to church because they do not have decent clothes. It is obvious that it is a problem for the poor to bury their dead, to conduct the initiation or marriage ceremony of their children, to observe the practices of *homas* and *yagnas*, to take part in festivals and pilgrimages. One could make an analysis of such situations of poverty and trace the social, economical and political structural factors which lead to them. But this is not what I have in mind when I talk of the structural factors in religion from the perspective of the poor. It may be easier to comprehend what I have in mind if I start with some examples of such structural factors operative in a concrete religious situation. There is a religious tradition in North Malabar known as 'Teyyam Worship'. It is a tradition proper to the untouchable castes (*avarna jati*) and the out-castes. The religious dance of the Teyyams are performed by members of sub-castes known as Malayan, Vannan or by an out-caste himself (Pulayan). The chants these dancers sing during the Teyyam worship often narrate stories of caste conflicts, persecution or murder of their Teyyam by the high castes. In the case of the Pottan Teyyam of the Pulayans there is open condemnation of the caste system based on both religious and rational human grounds. However the fact that the Malayan, Vannan and Pulayan dancers of the Teyyams have to take permission from the elder member of the Chirakkal Royal family or his representative³ before starting the preparations for the Teyyam festivals, that the competence of one at Teyyam dance is recognized, judged and given different titles by the feudal prince, that a Nambudiri priest has to visit the Teyyam shrine for a ceremony of purification before the festival make the priesthood of the Malayan, Vannan and Pulayan Teyyam dancers structurally subservient to the caste-class social set up presided by the royal family of the area. In the ritual of worship the gods of the untouchable castes and the out-castes condemn caste-oppression, murder of the innocent and the poor. But structurally these gods have become yet another instrument of overlordship of the high castes as the lower castes attempt to realize their religious values through the existing social, economical and political set up. Let me give a more general example. In our villages there are different castes. Generally speaking each caste group has its own place of worship and gods. If you ask the people they will not say that their gods are caste gods; on the contrary they believe that their gods are forms and modes of a universal power, the God of all people. But the structural fact that different castes have different places of worship and they celebrate their festivals and life events around these places and gods make these gods symbols of the unity and identity of the respective castes and of exclusivity from other castes. The proclaimed conscious meaning of the gods are that they are for all people. But structurally the gods are made carriers of caste consciousness just as other carriers of caste consciousness such as separate quarters in the village, separate wells for drinking water and separate tea shops. Consider again the case of a wealthy man building a church or a temple or conducting the annual festival of the patron saint or of the god, at his own expense. On the face of it, it is an act of religious fervour and devotion. But structurally the temple, the church or the festival is made an instrument of gaining social power over other people. How this power will be used by the wealthy man depends on his caste-class interests. The same can be said if the priests of a temple or temples, church or denomination come from a particular family, group, caste or class. It applies to the trustees and benefactors of religious institutions such as *mutts* and *ashrams*. In all such cases, though religious motives may be at work the structural factors such as caste, class, ethnicity or language make such religious entities instruments in the hands of a person or group to gain social power over other persons or groups. The above examples are sufficient to show that religion is not pure and simple supernatural mystery or experience of the ultimate. Religion besides that, is also 'a human historical reality subjected to the psychological and sociological laws that govern such realities'.⁴ It also shows that religion 'as human historical reality' has been used by man to acquire power over other men just as he uses wealth and education for the same purpose. The study of religion from the perspective of the poor would then mean *critical analysis of the acts and structures which presently mediate religious experience and their relation to the poor*. It has to observe how these acts and structures are linked to the caste-class power structures in our society at different levels and forms. The principle of critique for such exercises comes from one's religious faith or social bias in favour of the poor, in favour of social justice and human equality. The life-world of the poor in our country is dominated by religion in the sense that it is largely through religious concepts and categories they form a picture of themselves and of the world around them. However the poor have no awareness of how their world of religion is manipulated by the structural forces of socio-political and economic interests in our country. Groups engaged in action programmes for the liberation of the poor and oppressed in India are increasingly becoming aware of the crucial role the structural factors in religion play both in liberation and oppression.⁵ They are asking for study of religion in this regard. On the other hand 'religious' people meeting to explore 'religious resources for a just society' completely ignore how religions function as social realities in the social, economical and political processes which determine the shape and nature of a society. ### The realm of meanings and symbols How religious concepts and practices of a religion stand in relation to the poor and the untouchable is the other area of analysis when we approach it from the perspective of the poor. What sort of a self-image and world view they form, how their problems and situations are interpreted through these concepts and practices are important aspects of the study. As every religion is unique in its concepts and practices my comments here have to be specifically limited to the Hindu tradition. Hindu religious tradition, as all of you know, does not possess a central revelatory experience which is normative for its followers as is the case with Christianity. It also lacks a core set of credal symbols and centralized religious authority. The net result of all these has been that Hindu tradition in its evolution does not hold to a uniform and coherent vision of man and the world. It contains diverse schools of philosophical speculation and religious formulation about the fundamental nature of man. It has in it contradictory visions of man, as sages and scholars appeared in it over the centuries, whose spirit was to 'let noble thoughts come to me from every side'. Consideration of these facts would mean that a scriptural and textual approach to Hindu religion is inadequate if our concern is to know how it stands in relation to the poor because the vision of man is rather confused in it. Nor does the tradition reveal to us with any kind of religious authority, how the Hindu should look at the poor and the oppressed. It follows from this that if we want to discover the place of the poor in the Hindu tradition, besides the study of scripture, we should try to find out how concepts like *dharma, karma, varnashrama, God, papam, punyam*, etc., are understood by the Hindu of today. We should recognize that these concepts now operate in an entirely different political and economical framework, of which the underlying assumptions are entirely new to the Hindu traditional religious world. Such empirical study of the religious consciousness of the people should include the different forms of worship in the Hindu tradition. Awakening, bathing, feeding and marrying god and putting him to sleep, as well as hymns and chants like, 'May all things be well, may all the world's people be blessed, may all be blessed, may all see those things which are good, may none suffer' etc., are part of their tradition. What it does to the poor in his search for dignity and self-respect is to be observed. Oppressed sections like untouchables and tribals have a tradition of their own. As Prof. Saral Chatterji says 'In this country religion has been the major medium for the expression of aspirations, feelings of deprivation and dissatisfaction and protest against the different aspects of the social order perceived and experienced as oppressive and destructive. In an extremely repressive situation where all possible means of resistance have been wiped out, folk religion, legends and myths are the only media of expression of their sufferings and aspirations left to the people'.⁶ We should therefore explore this vast area of written and unwritten tradition to understand the role played by religion in the struggles of the poor and the oppressed. In the post-Marxism era when we do not think that 'progress is a movement from religion to non-religion' we need to exploit the potentialities of the religion of the people to help them redeem their full human dignity. Justice and liberation motifs also appear in poems, short stories, novels and in other art forms which may not be generally considered as the religious tradition of the people. But we need to know that the Hindu canon is not closed and new symbols and motifs are assimilated into it and as such they should be considered part of their spiritual tradition. Besides we do not accept a sacred-profane dichotomy in our approach to the study of religion as we refuse to accept a similar division of human experience.