India, March 30 -- More than 20 years ago, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, then the Congress president, told this correspondent and Catholic priest Fr S Lourduswamy that hope for Dalit Christians getting the protection of the Schedule Caste cover lay with the Supreme Court, and not with politicians as most of them, in all parties, seemed to be very hostile to the idea of Christians and Muslims getting political empowerment and reservation benefits. The first fear was that the more educated Christians would eat into the "cake" of jobs and educational scholarships, and though she did not say it, the real fear was of large-scale conversion of Dalits to Christianity, and to a lesser extent, to Islam.

The Presidential Order 1950 was introduced as a camoufl...