India, March 30 -- You scratch an Indian, the caste comes out, irrespective of whether the person is a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, agnostic or even an atheist. Community life in India is primarily based on caste, not religion.

The majority of Christian and Muslim converts in India come from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe populations. Though most of them or their predecessors converted to escape the caste stigma, the Indian society has refused to treat them differently.

On the ground, the converts continue to experience the discrimination they faced before conversion. This has been proved time and again by numerous sociological studies and statements from converts.

In Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, a...