By Albert Thyrniang
The video of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi being welcomed by Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi and other prelates including CBCI representatives at the Sacred Heart Cathedral Church in New Delhi on Easter Sunday (9 April 2023); his moments with the selected worshippers inside the 1930 built Roman Catholic church, his planting a sapling, his holding the memento of the resurrection among others have gone viral not only in India but abroad as well. The rare visit is quite astonishing leaving many stumped. Of course, many enthusiastic Christians shared the official video feeling proud that the Prime Minister has visited a Cathedral in the national capital. They have never seen a prime minister doing so.
Modi is seen as anti-Christian and anti-Muslim. During his regime Muslims were even called to be massacred. The tiny Christian minority too has been targeted more frequently by the majoritarian mob who are keen to establish a theocratic Hindu state installing Modi as the chief priest. So the images of New Delhi Easter Sunday prayer are a surprise to say the least. But many may be euphoric as well.
Modi has not changed. His cohorts, the Sangh Parivar and Hindutva hardliners who spit venom liberally have not decided to treat Christians with respect. Just recently the Karnataka BJP minister, Munirathna warned, “If anyone comes in drive them (Christians) around and thrash. I will take care of the rest. They should be thrashed in such a way that they should not look back.” This minister’s statement is only an echo of the Hindutva groups who were responsible for the numerous attacks on churches in the Southern state including physical and sexual assaults against women targeting especially the Dalit and Adivasi communities. Persecution of Christians culminated in the passage of the anti-conversion bill in September 2021 in that state.
Right wing organisations’ perpetuation of violence against Christians was in full display also in other states like Chhattisgarh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat etc., recording a sharp rise from 279 cases in 2020 to 505 in 2021 and to 511 in 2022.
A perception is created by a false narrative as if there is mass conversion to Christianity while reality reveals otherwise. The Christian statistics have been static at around 2.3 per cent of the population since the 1951 census. The 80 per cent population is made to be alarmed that Christians indulge in forcible conversions. This has justified the enactments of anti-conversion laws in several states in India inspite of the fact that the Constitution guaranties free practice and propagation of any religion. Individuals are arrested under the draconian laws.
The state too, presided over by the present regime, is seen to be anti-minority. An additional judge of Madras High Court was appointed though she was alleged to have made hate speeches against minority communities. The Jesuit priest Stanislaus Lourduswamy was arrested, imprisoned and eventually died in custody for no reason except for championing the cause of the Adivasis.
The optics of the Prime Minister’s visit to the Cathedral is purely political. It is a wooing tactic for Christian votes. It is not a love for Christians. The Prime Minister has started ringing the 2024 Parliamentary election bells. He has begun the campaign. The BJP has a special eye for Kerala. The saffron party has not succeeded in making inroads into ‘God’s own country’. The ‘communal force’ has failed to open an account in both Assembly and Parliament in Kerala so far. It has been drawing a blank since Independence. This time it thinks the situation has changed. The Christian population has traditionally backed the Congress. In the last Lok Sabha elections the Congress almost swept the state winning 14 out of 20 seats. However, in the in 2021 Assembly election the population moved to the Left Democratic Front (LDF) which also enjoyed the support of Muslim voters. Christians are disillusioned because the Left is allegedly pro-Muslim. Islamophobia has gripped the state. Preachers are hyper active highlighting alleged ‘love jihad’ by Muslim groups. The right wing is an aiding agent in this dubious activity. The BJP, with its social engineering experiences, sees this as a perfect opportunity not to be missed. So it is making all efforts to flatter Christians to its fold. The calculation of the RSS and other similar minds is that if their political wing’s number is reduced in the Hindi belt and thus falls short of majority, Kerala will make up for it.
RSS and BJP leaders have been meeting bishops in Kerala to execute the ‘plot’. The central government might have assured the Pope’s visit in exchange for a ‘good’ rapport. This year’s Easter is also an occasion to forge ties between the two entities in view of the 2024 general elections. Senior BJP leaders visited prominent Bishops in Kerala on Sunday for the purpose. Prelates have been speaking favourably of the party, once their untouchable.
On the day Modi prayed in the New Delhi Cathedral, Cardinal Mar George Alenchery, head of the Syro-Malabar Church was all praise for the prime minister terming him ‘a good leader’ and under him Christians in the country are not insecure. Last month, another BJP influenced official, Joseph Pamplany, a Catholic Syro-Malabar Archbishop promised in Kannur that Christians would vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections if the NDA government at the centre upped the price of rubber to Rs. 300 a kg.
The Church officials are self-centred. They do not see the sufferings of their brothers and sisters in other parts of India. They do not fathom the hypocrisy of the BJP. They do not grasp the reasons for the bid of the BJP to befriend them in the western coast. The BJP overture is simply to get votes in 2024 onwards and nothing else. While in Kerala the BJP embraces church leaders in other parts of the country Christians face discrimination and violence. It is not that the prime minister and other BJP leaders are unwelcome in churches and residences but prelates need to firmly tell them of the current sorry state of affairs where minorities are not treated as equal citizens. They need to emulate Archbishop Moras, the Archbishop Emeritus of Bangalore.
In September 2008 the then Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yedyurappa visited the Archbishop’s House in the presence of the media. Attacks and desecration of the churches was going on in the state. Mincing no words Bernard Blasius Moras literally yelled at the CM: “Sir Thank you for coming to the Bishop’s House, but the whole church in Karnataka is hurt. I am telling you publicly that we are very hurt. Tell me, will you keep quiet if the garbha gudi (Sanctum Sactorum) of a temple is destroyed.” The shocked Yedyurappa had to assure, “Sir, we will see that the culprits are punished. Justice will be done after the inquiry.” On February 19 at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi a huge protest gathering of 20,000 people of the Christian community together with Archbishops, bishops, priests, pastors and nuns, fed up with the continued attacks from the Sangh Parivar elements emphatically stated at the heart of the national Capital, ‘Enough is enough!’
Today, not only in Delhi and Kerala but in other parts prelates are seen in the company of perpetrators of violence against their faithful without doing a bit of what bishop Moras did and repeating what the Jantar Mantar crowd demanded.
The Prime Minister’s and the BJP’s optics were in public view in the North East recently. In Meghalaya and Nagaland the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Amit Shah and BJP leaders made it a point to grace the swearing-in ceremony of the Chief Ministers in these two states where Christians are a majority. The BJP wants to remove the anti-Christian tag. In Nagaland, a ‘Christian’ function was organised for the Prime Minister and other guests. This too was for votes. The BJP wants to win the Christian majority states on their own. For this they are willing to go to any extent including campaigning for beef consumption and participating in ‘gospel’ oath taking ceremonies. For ‘mission Kerala’ visits to cathedrals and churches are made but churches elsewhere in the country are destroyed, vandalised and desecrated. In the North East the Meghalaya and Nagaland models are followed but in the rest of India the BJP cow protection and anti-conversion laws are part of their manifestos. We must be wary of the BJP!