By W. Laloo & D. Wahlang
There is a frightening word to which many people in the Church have closed their minds, which is gaining support at a rapid rate and threatens to leave the “para-bangeit” behind in its wake. That word is “atheism”. With this word, many people now describe not just themselves, but also the things they respect. Often we Christians do not approve of the word as Meghalaya has always been the land of believers and the Christian God; although it took the Missionary Society a while to slap us all to sense. Conversion from indigenous faith to Christianity began in the 19th century under the British era. Before Christianity arrived in Meghalaya a majority of the tribals were following the animist religion with Ka Niam Khasi – Niamtre and Songsarek traditions. The Christian population in Meghalaya is estimated at approximately 2.21 million which forms 74.59% of the state’s population (2011 census). Meghalaya is one of three states in India with a Christian majority population. About 75% of the population practices Christianity, with Presbyterians, Baptists and Catholics being the more common denominations.
The Roman Catholic Church with a homogenous presence throughout the state of Meghalaya forms the largest denomination with 852,150 adherents (2017 data). The Church is under the ecclesiastical province of Shillong with the following dioceses: 1) Metropolitan Archdiocese of Shillong (315,241 adherents), 2) Suffragan Diocese of Tura (292,890 adherents), 3) Suffragan Diocese of Nongstoin (139,700 adherents), and 4) Suffragan Diocese of Jowai 104,319 adherents).
The Presbyterian Church is the second largest denomination in Meghalaya under the Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Assembly with 750,989 believers in 2015. In 2018 the Church has the following number of believers under the following synod’s namely Khasi Jaintia Synod Mihngi (294,320 believers), the Khasi Jaintia Synod Sepngi (370,764 believers) and the Ri Bhoi Synod (70,510 believers) adding upto 735,594 believers with slight decline from 2015. Unlike the Catholic Church, there is little or no presence of Presbyterianism among the Garos with the absence of a Garo synod.
The Baptist Church under the Garo Baptist Convention make up perhaps the largest denomination among the Garos in Meghalaya with 500,560 adherents (both baptised and unbaptised) concentrated mostly in the Garo Hills out of a Garo population of 821,026 with the remaining 295,000 mostly Catholics. The Church of God in Meghalaya, an indigenous church, established in Mylliem in 1902 is the fourth largest denomination in the state with nearly 100,000 adherents. The Church of North India of the Anglican Communion under the Diocese of North East India in Meghalaya is the fifth largest denomination with close to 50,000 adherents.
But back in 2012, at the start of the so-called “Humanist” movement in Meghalaya, when the 2011 census data was revealed that showed Meghalaya bagging the second place with 9,089 atheists, we witnessed that many young people were being drawn into this movement, swayed by poor arguments and heated rhetoric, in particular through social media. That group included young people who were never taught reasons to believe in God and had thus come to believe that religious belief was little more than superstition. People like Shalabas Syiemlieh, Glenn C. Kharkongor, Tarun Bhartiya and Albert Thyrniang think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They use arguments such as “I don’t believe in God, I believe in Science” to explain that evidence and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But just because they believe in evidence-based, scientific research – which is subject to strict checks and procedures – doesn’t mean that their mind works in the same way.
When you ask these “free thinking” people about why they became atheists in the first place, they often point to eureka moments when they came to realise that religion simply doesn’t make sense. Oddly perhaps, many religious people actually take a similar view of atheism. This comes out when theologians and other theists speculate that it must be rather sad to be an atheist, lacking (as we all think atheists do) so much of the philosophical, ethical, mythical and aesthetic fulfilments that religious people have access to – stuck in a cold world of rationality only. The problem that “rational thinkers” such as these need to tackle though, is that science increasingly shows that atheists are no more rational than theists. Indeed, atheists are just as susceptible as the next person to “group-think” and other non-rational forms of cognition. For example, religious and nonreligious people alike can end up following charismatic individuals without questioning them. And our minds often prefer righteousness over truth.
A day after our letter was published, WhatsApp exploded with questions like “If Christianity in the Christian State is on the way out, what will replace it?” and “What will it mean to have a predominantly godless state?” The great difficulty with answering such questions is that theology and morality are only tenuously related. Habits of kindness, decency and tolerance come from practice rather than belief. I understand that religions are justly feared because (as most atheists like Bhagat Singh and Tarun Bhartiya) accuse they often don’t practise the more loving parts of what they preach. But atheism is no guarantee of moral virtue and tolerance either, as the rhetoric of the “Humanist” movement towards the Harijans in Meghalaya made very clear. Their set of beliefs can be used to justify selfishness and cruelty. In this light, the MAS’s view on atheism that good is without God is hilariously stupid.
So, is it really time to have atheist schools in Meghalaya? When the Meghalaya Atheists Society announced its “Mission Education” project and its proposed expansion of the atheist academies programme last year, I wrote it as a joke, since I’m a strident opponent of the idea, of which so-called “free education” is simply a bait for fools. I’m against the proposal, as I argued in my letter “No Country For Atheists”, because I think they’re just a way of taking control of underprivileged children out of the faithful hands of the Christian Church. We Christians do not believe in “humanist schools” – we think children of all classes and communities should go to the same school, and all the traditions there should enrich each other. Once the MAS published their vision of “the perfect school”, all sorts of people started writing in to Facebook in response. Some approved; some added ideas of their own; but most wrote to say how disgusted they were that atheists were shamelessly pushing their ideas – which was even more encouraging.
So, why on earth should we oppose it? Here’s why. We campaign for God-based education. This is not the way we would have chosen to have it, but it’s the show that’s in town and has always been in our “Ri Tip Briew Tip Blei.” It’s a one-off chance to show that Christian education works. And unlike the more “free thinking” academies, we certainly wouldn’t use it for all those grubby purposes that selfishly attract the poverty stricken. Atheist academies and “free schools” are a passing educational fad. Humanist organizations such as the MAS like to pretend they will solve all the problems in the Christian State. Actually, messing around with the ownership and control of schools solves nothing. They’re just one manifestation of the education political syllogism: “Something must be done. This is something. Therefore this must be done.”
Until they fade away though, we need to seize the “opportunity” they offer, even if it means co-operating with an objectionable and outdated educational policy. The choice is stark. We can hold fast and firm to our principles: that atheist schools are intrinsically bad, that atheist academies are a way of squeezing the democratic life out of our God-based/God-centered school system, and we should have nothing to do with either. And that will get us nowhere. But if the Meghalaya government approves the MAS’s proposal and lets the underprivileged go into their trap with eyes wide open, knowing the danger, and see them use their system to make something that the creators of the system will love. And the more successful it is, the more they will love it, for their mission’s success will prove that you do not need God to make a good school. Take God out of the classroom, and children grow up (as the MAS wishes) free thinkers or in other words, godless heathens – because their school will not be God-based, will not teach them to love religion; because students will be taught that a Godless life is a better life, and not just a handy way of avoiding hellfire for sinners.
If enough believers in God think the same way as I do, maybe we should get together and organize an open demonstration against the setting up of an atheist school in Meghalaya by the MAS. Potential supporters can write to us at [email protected] or dariti.wahlang@protonmail.com. We are retired teachers, housewives, mothers and agnostics turned religionists on social media.