OUR
PARIVAR, THEIR PARIVAR:
YOUR
FAMILY AS PART OF THE INDIAN CHRISTIAN FAMILY FACING THE BRUNT OF PERSECUTION
JOHN
DAYAL
It
does not happen to “other people”. It
happens to “us”, though this may not be apparent at first sight. This is the sort of truism that social-psychologists,
cultural anthropologists, and even environmental scientist have been stressing
on a range of issues a diverse as the impact of climate change to that of cinema
on peoples and communities. Faith communities cannot, and do not, remain untouched
with what is happening around them. In fact, their response to these
developments pretty much defines their future cohesiveness and growth, and the
robustness of their faith in their God.
In Many ways, the Christian community in India, a mere 2.3 per cent of
the population, coalesced in a few areas of Southern and North-Eastern regions of the country and
scattered in vulnerable segments in other parts of the large land mass, best reflects this link between cause and
effect in a very critical juncture of the nation’s history.
We
are a faith people divide by race, language, denominations and economic strata,
unlike the more homogenous populations in other parts of the case. Add to this
issues of caste and the presence of two very large religious communities, the
overwhelming Hindu population and the world’s second largest Muslim group, as
well and the Sikhs who are about as many in numbers as the Christians but far
more economically and politically powerful, and one can see the complex
societal matrix in which followers of
Jesus Christ find themselves 15 years into the 21st century.
The
recent universal religious growth survey by the US-based Pew Foundation ahs
predicted a very bright future for Islam, universally, and in India. Globally,
by 2050, it may be just a whisker less that the Christian population, but by
2070, it may well be the largest single religious group. In India, Islam will
grow and while it becomes the world’s largest national group, it will still be
far below the Hindu population, which will hold its own both globally and in
the political borders of the country. In fact, it will grow very much abroad,
in the US and Europe, and in other countries where it already is sizable, if
not majority, faith such as Mauritius, and various other Indian Ocean, Pacific
and Caribbean islands.
PEW
does not predict any large comparable growth for the Christian population that
is organically linked with many international factors, specially in relation of
the situation of the Church in Europe.
But most important, neither international
nor Indian researchers and missiologists have made any deep study of how
political developments, and the growth of Hindutva – which is seeing phenomenal
impetus in the second coming of the National Development Alliance government
with Mr. Narendra Modi at the helm, will impact the Christian community in the
short and the long term. It impacts
almost every sphere, the growth of the faith, the educational,
livelihood and economic status and competitiveness, and the future of the Dalit
Christian and Adivasi communities within the faith. This needs to be done, and
perhaps on an urgent basis.
Relationships within village communities, and perhaps even extended families
will be impacted.
The
Modi government, it is becoming increasingly clear, intends to remain focused
on expanding the national penetration of the religious nationalism ideology of
the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the fountain-head of Hindutva, whose cadres
and polarizing hate campaigns against Muslims and Christians brought it to
power ten months ago. Its secondary objective is to try to keep alive the flow of
foreign investments and the Indian corporate sector, even if it means whittling
away whatever safeguards there are to protect the environment, land and forest
rights and basic constitutional rights of
association such as trade unions.
Since May
2014, when the Modi government was sworn in, there has been a marked shift in
public discourse. The 300 days have seen an assault on democratic structures,
the education and knowledge system,
Human Rights organisations and Rights Defenders and coercive action using the
Intelligence Bureau and the systems if
the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act and the Passport laws to crack down on
NGOs working in areas of empowerment of
the marginalised sections of society, including Dalits, Tribals, Fishermen and
women, and issues of environment, climate, forests, land and water rights.
Environmental
norms have been diminished to an extent that now they will be almost non
existent, threatening the environment and the climate. Land acquisition laws
are being changed to benefit crony capital.
These impact states such as Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh
which have reasonable population of Tribal and Dalit Christians.
The
immediate focus is on the threat to secularism, which underpins India’s modern
existence as a country, and impacts deeply on the Christian existence.
Despite a
tongue lashing by President Pranab
Mukherjee on Republic Day and repeated assertions of freedom of faith by Vice
President Hamid Ansari – not counting the naming and shaming done by visiting
United States President Barack Obama – the government has learnt little. Mr.
Modi, at a public function called by the Syro Malabar Catholic church, spoke of security of minorities, but failed
to name the Sangh Parivar as the spruce of much violence. In fact, he put the
aggressors and the victims on the same platform.
His
Home minister, Mr Rajnath Singh, a former president of the BJP and like Mr.
Modi, a lifelong member of the RSS, has been transparent in announcing his
sympathies. He has called for a national ban on conversions, a national ban on
beef, total opposition for scheduled
caste rights for Dalit Christians and Muslims. And he too has hedged in saying he will punish the spewing of hate and
coercion.
A civil
society report “300 Days –Documenting Sangh Hate and Communal Violence Under
the Narendra Modi Regime” lists 168 targeting Christians. Desecration and
destruction of churches, assault on pastors, illegal police detention of church
workers, and denial of Constitutional rights of Freedom of Faith aggravate
the coercion and terror unleashed in
campaigns of Ghar Wapsi and cries of Love Jihad.
An analysis
shows Chhattisgarh topping the list with 28 incidents of crime, followed
closely by neighbouring Madhya Pradesh with 26, Uttar Pradesh with 18 and Telengana, a newly carved out of Andhra Pradesh, with 15 incidents. Of the deaths in communally targeted
violence, two were killed in Orissa and
Telengana, 8 in Gujarat, 12 in
Maharashtra, 6 in Karnataka and 25 in Uttar Pradesh. Apart from these, 108
people were killed in Assam in attacks by Bodo militant groups. The violence
peaked between August and October with 56 cases, before zooming up to 25 cases
during the Christmas season, including
the burning of the Catholic church of St Sebastian in Dilshad garden in
the national capital of New Delhi.
Much of the
violence, 54 percent, is of threats,
intimidation, coercion, often with the police looking on. Physical violence
constituted a quarter of all cases, 24 per cent], and violence against
Christian women, a trend that is increasingly being seen since the carnage in
Kandhamal, Odisha, in 2007 and 2008, was
11 per cent. Breaking of statues and the Cross and other acts of
desecration were recorded in about 8 per
cent of the cases, but many more were also consequent to other forms of
violence against institutions.
A
disturbing trend is the rising communal
violence in West Bengal where the BJP
and the RSS have redoubled their efforts to fill what they see is a political
vacancy following the decline of the Communist Party of India Marxist and the
Congress party in recent times. The violence has peaked in the gang rape of a
72 year old Nun in a convent and school
in West Bengal. The official apparatus is now busy trying to prove to the world
that it is just another crime, committed by foreigners or professional
criminals.
There are
fears at a severe whittling down of the 15 Point Programme for Minorities, a
lifeline for many severely economic backward communities, and specially their
youth seeking higher education and professional training.
Mr. Modi’s
“assurance” to religious minorities is challenged and countered by Mr. Mohan
Bhagwat, the head of the powerful Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, who asserts,
repeatedly, that every Indian is a Hindu, and minorities will have to learn
their place in the country. Speaking at the 50th Anniversary of foundation of its religious wing,
Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS Sarsanghchalak bluntly stated
that “Hindutva is the identity of India and it has the capacity to swallow
other identities. We just need to restore those capacities.” In
Cuttack, he asserted that India is a Hindu state and "citizens of
Hindustan should be known as Hindus".
Sadhvi Prachi, a central minister, Members of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj
and Adityanath are among those urging measures to check Muslims, including
encouraging Hindu women to have from four to ten children each. In Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and other states, the terror, physical
violence and social ostracising of Dalit and Tribal Christians, in particular,
continues.
But
India was not meant to be, and cannot
be, a homogenised nation-state, the sort of “one nation, one people, one
culture” that the Sangh parivar speaks about.
A common allegiance to the Constitution and its guarantees of religious
and cultural freedom is the basic ingredient for lasting peace, and therefore
an environment in which all communities can prosper.
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