Indian Church: Traveling in two boats

Ahead of national polls, the resourceful Indian Church is traveling in two boats in the hope that two wrongs make a right.

The Church in India with its centuries-old European colonial ruling legacy owns the largest land bank and many prestigious social institutions in the country after the government of India. However, in the last ten years, few prelates came forward while India was dwarfing into an “elected autocracy” under the watch of Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi which stands for “othering” India’s six minority communities.

The largest democracy in the world, home to 20 percent of humanity, will head towards polling stations to elect lawmakers for its 543-member lower house (Lok Sabha) where 986.8 million voters will exercise their franchise, spread over 28 states and eight union territories in the north and the south, starting April 19.

The stakes are high for 73-year-old Modi, who is seeking a third consecutive term. Messrs Modi and Co. want to make India, the South Asian nation of 1.4 billion people, a theocratic Hindu nation where Christians (2.3 percent), Muslims (14 percent), and Parsees (less than 0.06 percent) will be treated as “alien second-class citizens” and Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism as an offshoot of Hinduism.

Cult and obscurantism

Despite a 10-year stint at the helm of affairs of the most populous nation, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and his parent clandestine organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), composed of innumerable open, secret and militant outfits, could not turn India into a Hindurashtra (Hindu nation) in the formal sense. But in the de-facto sense and for all practical purposes, they reduced the former British colony to a Hindu nation as outlined by Veer Savarkar and MS Golwalkar, proponents of political Hinduism (Hindutva) of the RSS.

The pro-Hindu party has already completed the spadework for a theocratic state and the fringe elements of the ruling party currently control the entire micro and macro spheres of Indian society.

They have successfully reduced India’s Parliament into a mere edifice devoid of its legislative tasks, fostering cult and obscurantism and treating disagreement as treason in place of rational scientific thinking of the liberal democracy.

To secure a thumping victory in the 18th Lok Sabha polls, the ruling party and its hidden parent outfit have brought religion to the forefront. It is no longer the place of birth but the birth in a religion that matters in India, according to them.

Modi’s party and the parent organization are aiming for over 400 seats from its current tally of 303 at the polls this year.

India’s current Constitution, one of the finest and the largest in the world stands for a secular, socialist state and bans discrimination on the grounds of religion, caste, and sex.

After Modi came to power in 2014, Muslims and Christians soon realized what was in store for them under his stewardship.

Brothers in the north

From 2015, atrocities against Christians and Muslims reared their ugly head and became the order of the day in the north, a traditional fiefdom of the pro-Hindu party, comprising 23 provincial states.

Eleven Indian states, most of them ruled by Modi’s party in the north like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana have enacted a sweeping anti-conversion law, which hit hard on Islam and Christianity due to their prosyliterian nature and many Catholic priests and protestant pastors paid a heavy price for standing up for Christ to ended up in jail under the draconian law.

In many northern states like Chhattisgarh tribal Christians were humiliated and had to endure social boycotts.

Christian institutions like Church-run schools and colleges and prayer services were targeted at will and even prelates were slapped with criminal cases in states like Madhya Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand and bordering states like Assam, it became next to impossible for Christians to practice faith. There were also attempts by land sharks, backed by the fringe elements of the ruling party, to confiscate Church properties in the north.

 An 84-year-old activist Father Stan Swamy, arrested on Oct. 8, 2020, for alleged links with banned rebels, died as an undertrial prisoner on July 5, 2021, under the watch of the Modi government. Swamy championed the cause of tribal people (Adivasis) and Dalits (former untouchables) during his stay in northern Jharkhand.

 Adivasis and Dalits together make up 60 percent of India’s 25 million Christians and mostly stay in the northern and northeastern states. Under caste-ridden Hinduism, Adivasis and Dalits are mlecchas (impure) and are destined to toil for the upper classes due to their “impurity at birth.” So, they have to be kept at a "distance" to be controlled.

The ‘martyrdom’ of Swamy generated a wave of sympathy for the Church in India. However, Pope Francis extended a red carpet welcome to Modi in the Vatican on Oct. 30, 2021, on the sidelines of a global conference in Rome.

Neither the Indian Church nor the Universal Church did show courage and sympathy to stand up for Father Swamy, a Jesuit like the Argentinian pope.

The persecution and step-motherly treatment of Christians in the north reached their pinnacle with the sectarian strife in northeastern Manipur, ruled by Modi’s party and bordering civil war-hit Myanmar.

The violence, started on May 3, 2023, against tribal Christians in the hilly state is going on even after claiming more than 219 lives -- mostly Christians. But the Indian Church has remained tight-lipped save a few press statements and token protests here and there.

The Church’s stoic silence against the atrocities against Christians in northern states is aimed at being in the good books of powerful pro-Hindu party and out of fear of government action against its vast fortunes, including foreign remittances generated in the name of India’s poor.

The southern second fiddle

In the south, the Church dances to a different tune to create division.

When it comes to the south, comprising five states, Christians are a prosperous community and the Church is well-organized with many prestigious social institutions. The southern states send 131 lawmakers to the Lok Sabha.

Prelates in the south have often displayed an undue hurry to please the ruling pro-Hindu dispensation. Bishops and archbishops at times come out in the open to support Modi’s party.

There were many instances when prelates in the south walked the extra mile to please Modi’s party by targeting Muslims, the whipping boy of the hidden conservative Hindu outfit whom it wants to other to teach others a lesson.

A prelate in southern Kerala even went to the extent of inventing the “narco-jihad” (narcotics holy war) which is always pleasing to the ears of the pro-Hindu party because of the Islamic connection.

Modi’s party controls no provincial governments in the south despite its nefarious divide et empera policy. In its efforts to boost the poll prospects in the south, the party has found an ally in the Church.

Muslims in north India often sympathize with Christians due to their common ordeal at the hands of the fringe elements.  However, Muslims show no sympathy towards Christians in the south because the Church is keen on hobnobbing with Modi’s party.

There is no Hinduism sans caste.  So, the Syro Malabar Church in the south, the largest Indian denomination, has been tacitly backing the dubious claim that Christians in Kerala trace their origins to the Namboothiris (Bhramins), who are on top in the caste hierarchy of Hinduism.

Having wreaked havoc on India’s future with its inhumane jobless growth, this time Modi’s party’s election narrative sounds hollow and devoid of substance.  So, the Church comes in handy which is fatally attracted to the reactionary Hindutva politics and the Brahminical social order, where the destiny of a person is decided before his/her birth!

Less surprisingly, the Indian Church is bereft of a stand ahead of the vital polls and has let down its folks with its north-south doublespeak.