Category: From The States

The annual federal budget of India’s pro-Hindu government has disappointed religious minorities as much of it was mere juggling of words, according to civil society groups and opposition  political parties.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the US$719 million allocated to the Ministry of Minority Affairs is a 62% increase, but critics say funding for minority development schemes has come down.

“The fact is that the allocation for minority development schemes has been sharply reduced” to one fourth from US$634 million to US$158 million, said Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal State who leads the Trinamool (grassroots) Congress, an opposition party.

“It is a budget which is neither here nor there. There is nothing new.” However, Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters that the major chunk of the funding will go toward the education of Muslim women and their empowerment.

Rights activist Bezwada Wilson told that the budget carries no hope for marginalized groups such as the Dalits, ethnic minority groups and indigenous people.

“From that perspective, it is a big disappointment for the country’s poor people,” he said.

Wilson said government claims of increasing funding do not mean anything for the people.

“The issue is how the government will implement the schemes that it says are meant for minorities. It is well apprehended that tomorrow it [money] will be used to build a park, and it will be said that minorities can also can jog in it. This is the way things are going in this country,” he said.

Renowned Christian artist, Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate Sister Claire died on February 11 in Bengaluru. She was 82. The Hindu convert to Catholicism was unwell for the last few days.

The sister, who always wanted to be known as Sr Claire SMMI, had created more than 2,000 Christian paintings using water colour, enamel paints, posture colours and colour pens. She also drew more than 1,000 Christian and Easter greeting cards. The main focus of her paintings was Christian imagery rooted in the Indian soil. She drew inspiration to paint from the day-to-day life of the common people in India, she said in an interview last year.

The artist nun was born in a high caste Hindu family in Tirupati, a Hindu pilgrim centre in the southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. Her parents named her Meera, a Hindu mystic poet and a devotee of Lord Krishna. As a young girl, Meera sought spirituality.

The Manipur High Court has struck down a village law of Sharkaphung/Leingangching that prevented inhabitants from any activity construed as ‘detrimental’ to Baptist Christianity.

Delivering a judgment on a plea by four residents expelled in 2009 for adopting Roman Catholicism, the high court ruled that the village authority’s action was illegal and unconstitutional. The village authority did not have power to order banishment/expulsion of any villager, ruled acting Chief Justice N.Kotiswar Singh.

“The villagers of Leingangching have every right to follow the Baptist Christianity and accordingly, also manage their affairs in tune with the Baptist principles and practices. However, it cannot come in the way of the petitioners professing a different religious denomination of Catholic faith as they have also similar Fundamental Right to profess and practise Catholic Christianity as guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution of India,” the High Court ruled.

It is time the Church in India had a cardinal from the Dalit community, says a Jesuit scholar. It will be a great recognition for Dalits who form more than 60% of Christians in the country,  says Father A.Maria Arul Raja, a professor of Religious Studies at the Jesuit Theology Centre in Chennai.

The priest spoke to Matters India after addressing more than 200 bishops who represent 174 dioceses in the country at the biennial plenary in Bengaluru, southern India. He spoke about the Church and Dalits.

According to him, a Dalit a cardinal would elevate one of the most socially suppressed communities. It would be a symbolic gesture to affirm the dignity and rights of the community that has lived in “the sub-human condition imposed by the caste system on the community for centuries,” said Father Raja.

India has 13 cardinals so far starting with Cardinal Valerian Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, in 1953. They have represented various communities in the Indian Church: Goan, East Indian, Eurasian, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, Eurasian, Tamil and Tribal.

Fr Raja says a Dalit cardinal will give visibility to the community and highlight injustice done to them in society as well in the Church. “It will be powerful witness to Jesus who took a strong choice for the poor, outcasts, socially excluded, the priest said.

A prominent Muslim political leader in Telangana has demanded stern action against those involved in a series of attacks on Christians in the southern Indian State.

The demand was made by Akbaruddin Owaisi, a legislator belonging to the Majlis-e- Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (Council of the Union of Muslims) at press conference on January 5 in Hyderabad, the state capital. The legislator also released a letter he wrote to the state’s Director General of Police Mahender Reddy to draw his attention to the attacks.

The letter noted that on January 23 in Singotam village of Nagarkurnool district, a mob attacked a small group of Christians who were distributing Bibles. “They forcefully snatched the Bibles from them, opened the boxes with Bibles inside their car, piled them up in heap and burnt hundreds of Bibles in broad daylight,” the Muslim leader’s letter noted.The attack has “severely bruised the sentiments of all Christians in India,” he added.

Owaisi also cited an incident on January 29 when another mob of radical Hindus attacked a church in Togota Mandal, Siddipet District and caused severe damage to the property.

An era in the Bihar Church history ended on February 12 with the death of its last American Jesuit missionary. Father Jerome Durack died at 6:20 am at Xavier Bhawan, Xavier Teachers Training Institute, Digha Ghat, a western suburb of Patna, the state capital. He was 88. He was unwell for the past few days. “Fr Durack’s death is a moment of special significance to the history of the Church and of Jesuits in Bihar. He has been the last American Missionary working in Bihar. With his death a significant chapter in the history of Christian faith and Patna Jesuits come to gracing end,” says Father Anto Joseph Thundaparambil, a Patna Jesuit. Father Durack came to Patna in 1951 and visited his home only once, in 1976, and that too under obedience to his Jesuit superior.

Christian leaders have rejected an offer from India’s tourism ministry of a US $10 million grant for the facelift and main-tenance of churches in the Christian-majority State of Meghalaya.

Catholic leaders in the state told that they will not apply for or accept the funding of 613 million rupees for illuminations, landscaping, construction of parking lots and toilets among other infrastructure work at 37 churches.

Federal tourism minister K.J. Alphons announced the grant on Jan. 8, just 10 days ahead of India’s Election Commission declaring Feb. 27 as the date of provincial elections in the northeastern state.

The minister, a member of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has also announced another 86 million rupees for similar projects involving temples, mosques and important sites for 11 other religious groups including indigenous Khasi, Jaintia and Garo believers.

Catholic support is seen as crucial for an election victory in the state, where Christians account for about 80 percent of the three million people. The BJP holds only two seats in the 60-state house.

Alphons, a churchgoing Catholic from southern Kerala state, was made tourism minister on Sept. 3 last year, and four days later he was named the party’s election chief in Meghalaya state.

However, Alphons’ allotment ahead of the election has not enthused Christian leaders.

“First of all, we were never consulted on our needs, nor informed about the project. All these days after the announce-ment, no one from the government had contacted us on this, so there is no question of taking money from the government,” Bishop Victor Lyngdoh of Jowai Diocese told.

Bishop Lyngdoh said the church leadership “cannot take financial help now because it will give the wrong message to our people during this election time. It can create confusion,” he said.

A church decorated with the style and motifs used by Rabindranath Tagore in his works was inaugurated on January 18.

The Infant Jesus Church at Makrampur here was formally inaugurated by Bishop Cyprian Monis of Asansol.

“We have incorporated local traditions of Santiniketan while trying to integrate the church decor with the artistic style of Tagore and popular traditions like open air classrooms which the poet had started,” an official of the Kolkata-based organisation that designed the Infant Jesus Church said.

The centre-piece in the church’s sanctuary is an imposing banyan tree under which Jesus is seated in lotus position imparting his teaching and blessings to all.

Above the banyan tree is the depiction of the Spirit of Wisdom and Enlightenment.

On the right side of banyan tree is the tabernacle enshrined in the traditional winnowing fan decorated with bamboo background and surrounded by conch shells. On the left side of the tree is Infant Jesus – the patron of the church.

The inside back wall of the church has a 40 feet mural depicting Jesus sitting under a huge banyan tree and holding a child.