By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi: The release of an octogenarian Jesuit activist from jail is among several issues that a Catholic weekly wants the Church leaders in Kerala to raise with the BJP leaders who now woo the Christians in the southern Indian state.
“We should loudly ask the BJP state leaders who frequent the bishops’ houses the reasons for the delay in granting justice to the Kandhamal Christians or why innocent Stan Swamy continues to languish in jail,” says an editorial in the Sathyadeepam (lamp of truth), a weekly published by the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese.
Kerala is among five states that will go to polls soon to elect their legislative assemblies.
For the past several months, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have met with leaders of various Christian denominations in Kerala. Political observers say the party would entry into Kerala only with the support of Christians, who form nearly 19 percent of the state’s population. The party has only one member now in Kerala’s 140-seat legislative assembly.
However, the BJP heads the federal coalition government, besides ruling several states.
The Sathyadeepam also wants the Church leaders to question the federal government’s refusal to withdraw the “controversial black farm laws” opposed farmers across the country.
The Catholic weekly’s March 4 editorial coincided with the 100th day of farmers’ protests on the Delhi borders. While the farmers say the new laws would toll the death knell for them, the government insists they would help farmers double their income.
Meanwhile Jesuit Father Stan Swamy has languished in a Mumbai jail since October 9, 2020. The National Investigation Agency arrested the 83-year-old priest a day earlier from his residence at Ranchi, eastern India, for his alleged Maoist links. He is among 16 people arrested in connection with some violent incidents at Bhima-Koregaon village near Pune, western India, on January 1, 2018.
The Catholic weekly points to the continued wait of hundreds of Christians, who survived the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Odisha state’s Kandhamal, for justice. The violence unleashed by Hindu radical groups lasted a few months and killed nearly 100 people and rendered more than 56,000 homeless.
The Sathyadeepam also calls for protection of all minority communities and distribution of minority community benefits on the basis of population.
It questions the BJP’s Kerala leaders for organizing a march across the state ahead of the elections.
“Is the yathra a celebration by the BJP state president to mark the fuel price crossing 100 rupees?” the weekly asks.
The price of cooking gas had gone up by 225 rupees over three months. There was also a move to cut the number of people getting subsidized rations. This would be a big setback to Kerala and was “another reason for celebrations,” the editorial says sarcastically.
The editorial points out that all political combinations now meet various communities to garner votes by promising support to key issues confronting the communities.
The editorial warns that the new type of politics based on caste and community equations does not augur well for the democracy of plurality.
The editorial was issued as Manmohan Vaidya, general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, national volunteers corps) senior bishops of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Kochi, Kerala’s commercial capital.
RSS is the umbrella body of Hindu groups striving for a Hindu nation in India and BJP is its political arm.
Orthodox Bishop Geevarghese Yulios, metropolitan in charge of Ahmedabad diocese, and Yakoob Irenaios of the Kochi diocese met the RSS functionary.
Bishop Yulios said the meeting was not related to politics. They had general discussion on topics, including the non-implementation of a 2017 Supreme Court verdict that had brought finality to a century-old dispute between two factions of the Malankara Church.
On March 1, BJP Kerala president K Surendran along with Karnataka deputy chief minister C N Ashwath Narayan called on Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) president Cardinal George Cardinal Alencherry in Kochi. The KCBC has maintained a strong stand against ‘love jihad’ that they claim to exist in Kerala.
In January this year Cardinal Alencherry had met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Cardinals Baselios Cleemis and Oswald Gracias to discuss various issues affecting the Christian community, including incarceration of Father Swamy.
In early March, Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt of Palai donated money for a grandiose Hindu temple being built in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya. The bishop’s gesture proves that the Church is no more averse to Sangh Parivar (the umbrella group of Hindu radical groups), some political observers said.
K N R Namboothiri, an RSS leader of Kottayam who had called on the bishop, said that the Catholic prelate’s response was encouraging. “We had visited on a short notice, and more than the donation we were keen to get the bishop’s support for the project,” said Namboothiri. The bishop donated 2,000 rupees as a token amount since the RSS team visited on a short notice and a bigger amount needed clearance from the finance wing, reports thehindu.com.
In another related matters, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church has credited BJP leader R Balashankar for his ‘intervention’ in saving 1000-year-old church in Alappuzha district.
The St George Orthodox Church at Cheppad, which was to be demolished for widening a national highway, is now set to be declared a protected monument.
On March 3, Orthodox Church spokesman Father Johns Abraham Konat said the Church head Baselios Marthoma Paulose II wanted the faithful to keep away from partisan political interests and vote for Balashankar, co-convener, BJP national training program.
“If Balashankar is not voted to victory, it would be ungratefulness. The Prime Minister had intervened in the issue of the Cheppad church, which had been subsequently handed over to the Archaeology Department, and thus the decision to demolish the church had been scrapped.”
The Cheppad church, believed to be built in 1050 AD, was to be demolished as part of the widening alignment decided by National Highway Authority of India.
The Church had reportedly raised the issue before political parties, including the BJP, over the past several years. It was only in February Balashankar noticed the issue and brought it to the notice of Nitin Gadkari, federal minister for Road Transport and Highways.
Subsequently, the Archaeological Survey of India officials inspected the church, and hailed it as one of the rarest in Kerala, having traditional architectural patterns with rare and beautiful mural paintings on the walls of the altar.