By Anand Mathew
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 16, 2023: An advocacy group for Catholic religious in India has decided to join civil society groups and national campaigns to defeat what it calls fascist, fundamentalist, and fanatic forces in the coming state and the 2024 general elections.
Around 80 members of the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, who attended a national workshop, have also pledged to protect and to promote the values in the country’s Constitution and to accompany the vulnerable people in their struggle for justice.
The October 12-14 event also resolved to take “a visible and vocal stand” to help restore peace in the strife-torn northeastern Indian state of Manipur immediately.
The participants included men and women from 40 Catholic Religious congregations representing 12 states and 1 Union territory. Several collaborators from all over India participated in the workshop, the organizers claimed.
They met at Stanswamy Nagar in the Jubilee Memorial Animation Centre, in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala.
The workshop addressed the theme “Save Democracy Save Constitution” with ‘Upholding Constitutionality and Democracy: Responsibility of the Christian Community and Civil Society Movements in India today’ as the sub-theme.
During the workshop, resource persons such as Arundhati Roy, a Booker Prize winner and human rights activist, provided incisive and inspirational inputs that helped the participants to focus “the grim realities that plague our beloved country today.”
“They also challenged us to read, understand and respond to the context with urgency and without counting the cost,” says a statement issued by the organizers.
The participants then pledged:
• to leave no stone unturned, in order to protect and to promote the values enshrined in the Constitution, particularly those of justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, secularism, socialism, sovereignty, pluralism, integrity and dignity of all citizens;
• to ensure that the basic tenets of democracy: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, the right to life and livelihood and all other necessary rights and freedoms are guaranteed to all and, particularly, to the poor and the marginalized, the media and human rights defenders;
• to accompany the suffering and vulnerable people of our country: the Adivasis and the Dalits, the Muslims, Christians and other minorities, the people affected by communal violence/ethnic cleansing in different parts of the country, the coastal indigenous people, the farmers, migrant and unorganized workers, the urban poor and all others who struggle for a more equitable, just, dignified and humane life;
• to continue to take a visible and vocal stand, that justice and peace be restored in Manipur immediately; that the displaced tribals and others be guaranteed the security to go back to their homes, lands and forests; that due compensation be given to all who have lost a family member/s and to those whose houses and places of worship are destroyed; that an independent Tribunal be constituted which should hold accountable all those responsible for this crime against humanity, and make sure that they are brought to book;
• to register ourselves on the electoral rolls immediately, to help others to do so and above all, to exercise one’s franchise without fear and/or favour;
• to involve ourselves whole-heartedly with Civil Society groups and other National Campaigns, in order to defeat the fascist, fundamentalist, and fanatic forces in the coming State Elections and at the General Elections 2024;
• to collaborate with all persons of goodwill to Save Democracy, and to Save the Constitution.
Finally, we commit ourselves to play a courageous and prophetic role to ensure the triumph of justice, truth and peace, for the good of all. We pray in the words of Rabindranath Tagore “into that heaven of freedom our Father let our country awake!
Please encourage lay leaders with high moral standards in public life. Clergy and religious should be animators and marg darshaks.