By Matters India Reporter
Madurai, Jan 24, 2022: A Catholic nun on January 26 completed six days in jail after her arrest in connection with the suicide of a school girl in Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile radical Hindu groups are using the suicide as ploy to target Christians in the southern Indian state.
A video posted on social media platforms by suspected members of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Council of Hindus) allege that the girl took poison after some Catholic nuns forced her to convert.
The video and allegation have created social unrest in Tamil Nadu where Hindu radicals have been trying to get a foothold for several years.
Father Kudanthai Gnani, editor of Namvazhvu, a Church weekly, says the girl, who died January 19, was a twelfth grader in Sacred Heart of Jesus Higher Secondary School in Kumbakonam diocese. The century-old school is situated in Michaelpatti near Thirukattuppalli in Thanjavur district.
The girl had been staying in St. Michael’s Hostel from the eighth grade. The hostel is attached to the school and managed by the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or the Pondicherry Blues, for the poor and the abandoned girls.
Ten days before her death, the girl complained of stomach pain and vomiting, and the nuns took her to a nearby hospital.
The nuns also informed the girl’s father Muruganandam, who took her home following day. The girl did not tell her father that she had consumed poison. When her health condition worsened the father January 15 took the girl to Thanjavur Medical College.
When the doctors examined the girl, it was revealed that she had consumed pesticide. In her reported dying declaration the girls said the nuns had asked her to clean all the rooms in the hostel.
A case was registered at Thirukattuppalli police station and the school warden, Sister Sahaya Mary, 62, was arrested January 20.
A senior police officer in Thanjavur said the girl had not mentioned anything about forced conversion in the First Information Report.
However, the BJP activists and the girl’s family protested in front of the Thanjavur Medical College. They used the suicide as a political agenda, Father Gnani told Matters India.
The girl was from Vadugapalayam in Ariyalur district. The mother Kanimozhi died eight years ago and Muruganandam married Saranya, another woman.
Sister Sahaya Mary took care of the girl after the stepmother allegedly began harassing her. The nun provided whatever the girl needed and took her for outings, the priest explained. The nuns even presented the girl new clothes for Christmas. The key of the closet in the hostel was under the girl’s custody.
The priest quoted the girl’s friends to say that she had yearned for mother’s love. She had to stay in the hostel even during the lockdown because of her stepmother’s torture, the friends allege.
The girl also shared with them her worries bout the place to say after the twelfth grade as her father and stepmother had remained indifferent.
Savukku Sankar, a political critic in Tamil Nadu, alleges that the BJP’s state president first mentioned forced conversion, although neither the girl’s dying declaration nor her father’s initial police complaint mentioned it.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Antony Pappusamy of Madurai, the president of the Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council, said, “We mourn and give our condolences to the girl’s family.”
The head of the Catholic Church in Tamil Nadu says justice should be done to the girl by booking whoever is responsible for her death.
The archbishop also asserted that Christian minority institutions only serve people and never force anyone to convert to Christianity.
“The nuns are running these educational institutions with commitment for the welfare of girl children,” the prelate said and noted that majority of girls in convent schools are from other religions.
“We do not agree with the accusations of forced conversion spread by the BJP elements,” who he said never try to understand “the real reason” for the girl’s death. Such groups only try to harm social harmony, he bemoaned.
“We urge the police and the government of Tamil Nadu to take the issue in the right direction and we always support the government,” the archbishop added.
M Thol Thirumavalavan, a Tamil Nadu state minister and leader of a regional party, asked the Hindu radicals to stop their hate campaign and allegations of conversion and save the state.
“There must be laws to check those indulging in hate speeches,” he asserted. He requested the state chief minister to act against such forces.
In 2021, India witnessed 486 attacks on Christians across India — 75 percent more than the previous year’s figure, reports the United Christian Forum, an ecumenical body.
The dying declaration of the diseased girl said her hostel warden asked to clean all the rooms of the hostel. This itself is unbelievable. If the warden is guilty, deserves punishment. Turning the episode against the Christians of the country is totally unacceptable. When the victim is practically an orphan and the father an illiterate or semi-literate person, it is very easy for the RSS and VHP people. They know very well that courts in the country will take a very serious view when itis related to conversion.,
A report in the Indian Express says: “The father’s petition stated that the hostel warden harassed her by making her clean vessels, toilets, the school campus, and engaging her in cooking food in the hostel without letting her go home on holidays. The petition said the girl died by suicide because of this torture allegedly meted out by the school management…..”
Partiality and favouritism are very common in catholic seminaries and convents based on language, caste, rites, etc. and many boys and girls are expelled from seminaries/convents for no fault of theirs. Most catholic priests and nuns do not see anything wrong in this. For instance, in Delhi a parish priest in a Latin church has instructed syro-malabar catholics not to come to his church.
In the present case, the girl felt that she was being discriminated because she refused to convert. Faced with discrimination from the warden and unable to return home because of the step mother, the poor girl chose to end her life.