By Varghese Alengaden

Indore: Attacks on church institutions and harassment of Christian priests and nuns have become a routine affair now.

The latest incident was on March 17 against two nuns travelling with young postulants in a train from New Delhi to Odisha. The nuns were in their traditional religious dress and the young girls in salwar suit.

A group of Bajrang Dal activists in the train started accusing the nuns of taking the girls for conversion. The men were not convinced despite the girls saying that they were born Christians and showing their ID proofs. The radicals started shouting slogans in the names of Lord Ram and Hanuman.

As the train arrived at Jhansi railway station in Uttar Pradesh state, a large number of Hindutva activists and police gathered there forced the nuns and the girls to get down.They were taken to the police station to file a case against the nuns. Due to the intervention of high ranking police officials and some priests of Jhansi bishop’s house the nuns were released. The nuns resumed their journey after two days in civil dress with police protection.

The whole tragedy would not have happened if the nuns were in civil dress instead of the traditional religious habit.

Such incidents of harassment have taken place in the past also. Catholic nuns wearing traditional religious habit or uniform sari with a cross, medals and rosary become targets of the fringe groups of Hindutva forces when they travel by public transport in northern India with young girls or village women. The fringe groups have all kinds of misinformation about Christian missionaries.

Several times they were abused and dragged to police stations. These incidents were repeated because neither the nuns’ congregations nor the Church leaders ever analyze the fast changing sociopolitical context and prepare new strategies and action plans to meet the new challenges. They continue defending the old rules and routine practices inherited from the colonial times.

No effort has been made to file case against those who harassed and troubled the nuns and young girls. Why doesn’t the Church help these nuns to file case against those who insulted and abused them for no reason?

Though the Church in India is facing challenges hardly any one is reflecting on the solution Christ has given to meet these challenges by exploring ways to “put new wine in new wineskin.”

Despite Christ’s warning not to make ‘patchwork,’ dioceses and congregations adopt patchwork solutions that would only increase problems. A good example of the patchwork is the soft attitude of bishops in Kerala towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the election time. They do not realize such gestures are suicidal. Are they aware of the fact that the same BJP and its fringe groups are attacking the nuns and priests in many places in northern India?

Abandon the colonial legacy and foreign image of the Church

As part of Jubilee Year 2000, the CBCI had conducted an evaluation of the Church in India. ‘Colonial legacy’ was considered one of the major obstacles in the mission of the Church in India. The formation of the priests and nuns are much in the colonial way. Although the local language is used for liturgy, prayers and vestments used are very much alien to the local culture.

Inculturation was promoted by the Second Vatican Council, but a large number of nuns refused to abandon the colonial religious habit. Though Christ wanted His disciples to be like ‘salt’ in society without any external identity the aggressive presence was encouraged through big infrastructure even in the remote villages.

Christ always taught His disciples to evaluate. He himself did the evaluation, “who do people say that I am?” The church personnel don’t bother about knowing what people think of their way of life, dress, food habits and behavior. It is a fact that the Church in India is more misunderstood than understood.

Vast majority of religious nuns reject the proposal to adopt secular dress as a way to become like ‘salt’ in society. They don’t bother about knowing “what do people think of us?” Even after several attacks on nuns by the hostile Hindutva forces in the trains and public places, many refuse to accept the secular dress. There are retreat preachers who brainwash simple nuns to wear traditional habit instead of Sari or Salwar suit.

They seldom realize that external exhibition is not witness. The hypocrisy of these preachers and priests is that they wear shirt and pants to hide their identity especially when they travel in bus and train. Why should only nuns take the responsibility of witnessing and suffer the humiliation in public? Even the most traditional nuns have quickly changed into secular dress whenever they faced hostility as happened in the recent case.

The traditional congregations need wisdom to make prompt decisions and ask their members working in hostile regions to adopt secular dress instead of being obsessed with the religious habit. Christ criticized all kinds of hypocrisy and paraphernalia of the Jewish priestly class. He would be only happy if the nuns liberate themselves from this colonial burden of fancy dress.

This will save them from harassment and abuse of fanatics who neither have any respect for women nor any regard for the constitution of India. Why don’t we obey Christ who said, “Be innocent as doves and wise as serpents?” It is a matter of wisdom to follow the way of Christ.

(Father Varghese Alengaden is the founder director of the Indore-based Universal Solidarity Movement)