NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to oppose the demand for dalit status for “converts” to Christianity and Islam, arguing that only Hinduism recognized “caste system” and “untouchability” that led to the creation of a special category called Scheduled Castes.An interesting reason cited to red-flag the demand is that the Constitution provides reservation in legislatures to dalits and tribals to “compensate for the social injustice” suffered by them over centuries and extending this benefit to converts would impinge on the rights of SCs/STs.While the move was expected after social justice minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot made the government stance plain in an interview to TOI on October 10 last year, it is now learnt that his ministry detailed reasons to the Union law ministry to oppose in Supreme Court the petition seeking SC status for converts.The unambiguous opposition from the BJP government is a sharp departure from the UPA regime’s strategy to buy time – in 2005, entrusting a national commission to study the issue and in 2011, deciding to wait for ‘socio-economic caste census’ for data to commission further studies.As polarizing as it is complicated, the issue is rooted in the reasoning that SC status -- limited to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists -- should be made religion-neutral, thereby opening it to Hindu “untouchables” who converted to Islam and Christianity.Strongly objecting to the demand, the BJP government argues that “untouchability” was a peculiar aspect of Hindu religion that “denied to disadvantaged castes the fundamentals of human dignity, human self-respect and even some of the attributes of human personality”.Linking this “evil practice” exclusively to Hinduism, the government says mere social “backwardness” cannot put converts at par with dalits whose backwardness arises from the traditional practice of “untouchability”.The Centre argues that recognizing SC among followers of Islam and Christianity would amount to violation of the basic tenets of these religions since they do not recognize the caste system.Besides, stretching the quota frontiers to Christianity and Islam would necessitate an increase in the quantum of reservation which would result in the upper ceiling of 50% being breached, the Centre argues.According to the Centre, identifying dalit converts is not easy – since conversions have been happening over several centuries, the caste of an individual’s forefathers cannot be ascertained, especially where the descendants have left the original caste-related occupation.On the contrary, the government argues that dalit converts form part of OBCs in states and at the Centre, benefitting from job reservations and welfare schemes catering to backwards as also religious minorities, adding it would be “iniquitous” to grant “converts” the benefits targeting SCs.Crucially, the apprehension that rendering the SC list religion-neutral would encourage conversions, expressed by minister Gehlot in his interview to TOI, does not figure in the social justice ministry’s list of reasons to oppose the demand of dalit Christians/Muslims.