Valson Thampu

Two tell-tale events, separated by a duration of time, constitute a sort of scale on which attitudinal changes towards the person or community affected by them can be measured. We have two such events separated by three decades: the martyrdoms of Graham Staines and his two sons in 1999 and of Fr. Stan Swamy in 2021. The differences between how the country as a whole responded to these events indicate how the society has changed towards the Christian community during this period.
I was attending a multi-religious meeting in Delhi, when the news broke out that some Hindu bigots had burned alive an Australian missionary and his two children. Seated next to me was Maulana Wadhidduddin Khan, who was, then, over 80 years old. Preceding this murder most foul, a series of attacks had been unleashed on Christian missionaries, especially in District Dang of Gujarat. Anxieties were mounting that the heightening communal temperature could become a conflagration. In fact, the meeting I was attending was meant to address this brooding crisis. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan sat stock-still, stunned and speechless, on receiving the news. Then he turned to me and whispered in a tremulous voice, ‘India will now know peace. The blood of a martyr has fallen on her soil. This will awaken the conscience of the people.’
I was gripped by what he said. Immediately after the meeting, I began to monitor the responses from various quarters. In the meanwhile the news arrived that Mrs. Gladys Staines had forgiven the killers of her husband and sons. This electrified the country. Such a thing was unheard of. In a flash, Gladys became the glowing point of pan-Indian humanity. I was haunted that night with a single thought: how can it be ensured that this spiritually powerful event is not quickly forgotten. Gradually, the idea of organizing a multi-religious pilgrimage to Manoharpur, where Graham had been martyred, dawned on me. I discussed it with Swami Agnivesh, who welcomed it readily. Together we contacted leaders of other religious communities. The responses were overwhelming. In a matter of days, fifty-five of us set off from Delhi in a reserved railway compartment. It was to prove the most unforgettable journey of my life.
I was besieged by the media to get Gladys for a press conference in Delhi. Fortunately, she obliged; though she was extremely publicity-shy. The respect that she commanded at the press conference was simply awesome. The journalists treated her as a living saint. What every one of them wanted to know was, ‘How could you say the killers of your husband and children should be forgiven?’
Now cut to 2021. Something not unlike the martyrdom of Graham Staines happened through the State-expedited death of Fr. Stan. He was a celibate; so he died alone. He had no wife to echo the words of Jesus. So, that part of the poignancy in the former event was missing. But the death of an 83-year old man, reduced to helplessness by Parkinson’s disease, arrested for offences he could not comprehend, denied bail repeatedly, denied even the luxury of a sorely-needed straw to drink fluids, just because he identified himself with the struggles of the Dalits and adivasis of Jharkhand, cannot sit easy on anyone’s conscience. To me, it is comparable in its spiritual poignancy to, mutatis mutandis, the martyrdom of Graham Staines.
Yet, consider the striking difference in the response of the country as a whole to the latter event. Of course, the circumstances differ. Of course, sadness was expressed in isolated pockets, and continues to be felt, about how Fr. Stan was treated. All that said, there still is a world of difference between how India responded to Christian martyrdom in 1999 and how it responded to it three decades later.
How shall we read it? Arguably, there’s a qualitative change in the wider context. The miasma of communal alienation has seeped into the pores of the society as never before. A far greater degree of de-sensitisation has befallen the national conscience. In the air of apprehension that prevails, individuals and groups do not feel free or bold enough to express their sentiments about the injustice done to Stan; especially given that he died in disfavour with the State. But, all that does not tell us the whole story.
It is a sad, but true, that during this short period of three decades, the Christian community has lost grounds in respect of credibility, respect, and public good will. I have been active in public life during this period. As a matter of fact, my sense of mission centred mainly on the need to craft a positive image of the Christian community in the national context. So, I was keen, all along, to ascertain public perceptions and attitude towards the Christian community.
For a minority community like ours, placed in a matrix of brutal domination by one religion, aggravated further by nascent Hindu self-assertion, it is suicidal to be the ‘salt that has lost its saltiness’.
Mercifully, we are not yet in that state. But there’s no room for complacency. Jesus’ warning that ‘the salt that loses its saltiness’ will be ‘cast out and men will trample it underfoot’ rings with keen, ominous relevance to the emerging national context. Truly, the Fr. Stan-event is a wake-up call. It is from sleep that we need to wake up. Those who refuse to wake up could come to grief that their imperturbable slumber proved tantamount to death.