Kerala - Pathanamthitta   

`Denial of benefits to converted Dalits unfortunate'

Staff Reporter

Government committed to ensuring social justice to backward sections, says Adoor Prakash

PATHANAMTHITTA: Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Adoor Prakash has said that the State Government is committed to ensuring social justice to backward sections of society.

The Minister was inaugurating the valedictory function of the yearlong 151st anniversary celebrations of the baptism of St. Habel of Kaippatta at YMCA Hall in Thiruvalla on Monday.

He termed unfortunate denial of benefits to Dalits who had embraced Christianity.

The Mallappally-based Kaippatta Habel Foundation had organised the celebrations. The foundation has been organising various welfare programmes for Dalits, besides extending financial and moral support for education to the poor among the backward sections.

Mar Thoma Metropolitan Philiose Mar Chrysostom delivered the jubilee message. The Bishop John Thundukalam delivered the benedictory speech.

Samuel Nellikkad, chairman of the foundation, presided over the meeting. P.J. Kurien, MP; Elizabeth Mammen and Joseph M. Puthusserry, MLAs; and Prasad V. Kuzhiyathu, priest, spoke.

Kaippatta Habel was the first Dalit slave from Kerala to embrace Christianity 151 years ago, heralding a social revolution in an age of severe social ostracism, untouchability and slavery of Dalits. Habel, baptised by a missionary, the Rev. John Hawksworth, had strived for freedom and welfare of the downtrodden sections and became their saviour.

Habel became an evangelist in 1864 and died on August 18, 1899. He was buried in CMS Church cemetery at Kaippatta, near Mallappally, and was canonised later. Dr. Nellikkad said the foundation would help Dalit cancer patients.

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