The Archdiocese of Bhopal organized a peaceful sit-in to highlight various problems Christians face in Madhya Pradesh state as well as in India.

Representatives of various Churches on June 20 spoke on topics related to Christians at the meeting held at Ambedkar park in Bhopal’s Tulsi Nagar area. The program began with a prayer.

The program was organized in the backdrop of recent arrest of a Catholic nun who accompanied some tribal women in a train. Madhya Pradesh in central India witnessed two similar incidents within a month. Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal noted that all missionary institutions employ people of all castes and religions. “Missionary organizations work on secular thinking, and respect all religions. But some fundamentalists always try to defame these institutions and attempts to give communal colors to any event occurring in these institutions,” the archbishop bemoaned in a message that was read out at the meeting.

Bishop Sebastian Francis of Penang in Malaysia says his maiden visit to India’s Trichur archdiocese would help him rediscover his ancestral roots.

Bishop Francis, who was given a rousing welcome in the Kerala archdiocese, told reporters that his grandparents had emigrated to Malaysia (then Malaya) in 1890s when the British ruled the two countries. The bishop’s family belonged to the Mechery family of Ollur in Thrissur district.

The 65-year-old prelate said he knew some of his maternal relatives live in Chennai, capital of neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, but had little contact with them. Bishop Francis’ family in Malaysia comprises five brothers and four sisters, who are now full-fledged Malaysian citizens. They have never visited India until now since they had not links with their Indian relatives.

A Catholic priest, who went missing in Scotland three days ago, has been found dead, an Indian news portal reported on June 24.

According to unconfirmed reports in deepika.com, the body of Father Martin Xavier Vazhachira was found on a beach closer to his residence.

The 33-year-old priest, a native of the southern Indian state of Kerala and a member of Carmelites of Mary Immaculate congregation, served as the parish priests of St. John the Baptist’s church in Corstorphine since October 2016. The parish comes under Edinburgh diocese that he joined on July 15, 2016..

Although Father Xavier went missing on June 21, the news about his disappearance appeared in media only two days later. According to the Malayalam portal, the priest had contacted his relatives in Kerala by phone on June 20 evening. He was doing doctoral studies along with the pastoral duties.

Christians in Gujarat have demanded withdrawal of a school textbook that refers to Jesus Christ as a demon whose stories would be remembered forever.

The lesson appeared in the Hindi textbook for ninth grade under the Gujarat State Board.

The education minister and the chairperson of the textbook board have said that the error will be rectified soon. Officials said that the mistake was caused by a misprint.

The reference to Jesus Christ as a demon is made in chapter 16 of the book titled “Bharatiya Sanskriti Mein Guru-Shishya Sambandh” (the teacher-disciple relationship in the Indian culture).

On page 70, the line referring to Jesus Christ reads – “Iss sambandh mein haivan Isa ka ek kathan sadaa smaraniya hain.” Translated, it means that in this context, an incident of demon Jesus will always be remembered. The underlined sentence translates to “an incident of demon Jesus will always be remembered.”

Subramaniam Iyer, a lawyer who noticed the mistake, says that the error attracts section 295 (a) of the Indian Penal Code, which pertains to deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class. Speaking to News18, Iyer said, “Jesus is being portrayed as a demon to students. Quite clearly, this is a case that attracts section 295(a) of the IPC that pertains to hurting the religious sentiments of any class.”

Iyer said that the error may be unintentional, but it can create a rift between communities and cause a law and order problem. “This simply is unacceptable and should be removed immediately,” he added.

The news channel contacted Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama who said he was aware of the error and added that it will be corrected.

Nitin Pethani, chairperson of the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks, said that it was a typographical error. “The word “haiva,” a disciple of Jesus Christ, got misprinted as “haivan,” meaning a demon,” he said, adding that “Aadam Isa” and “Haiva Isa” were the two disciples of Christ and an “n” inadvertently got printed in the book.

Christians from across the city and district submitted a memorandum to the district collector over the class IX Hindi Textbook published by Gujarat State School Textbook Board (GSSTB) that had printed adjective ‘hevaan’ or demon for Jesus Christ.

Christians from Syrian Church, Pentecost, Brethren Mission, Protestant, Roman Catholic and other denominations have expressed shock over the Textbook referring Jesus Christ as a demon.

Christians took out a rally and submitted a memorandum to district collector Mahendra Patel here on June 12.

Thousands of young people from Africa, many of them Catholics, migrate each year to major Indian cities, mainly to study, creating a new challenge for the Indian church. “The challenges are pastoral,” said Fr Martin Puthussery, secretary of the Commission of Migrants in Bangalore Archdiocese. He said Indian society is prejudiced against Africans, seeing them as wanton drug peddlers.

“It is difficult for them to rent accommodation because of the negative attitudes towards them and those who do find accommo-dation are almost always over-charged,” the Jesuit priest said.
Bangalore, where Father Puthussery is based, has at least 3,000 African students and a third of them are Catholic, he said.

Even though there are no official statistics on the number of Africans in the country, a rough estimate suggests that there are 50,000 Nigerians in India mostly in New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai.

The prejudice against Africans in Indian society cannot be helped but Africans are encouraged to join in with parish activities, Father Puthussery said. “We deliberately try to integrate them and help remove social preju-dice,” he said.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, winding up a three-day visit to Kerala, gave a clear message to the state unit of the party—win the support of all non-Muslim minorities, especially Christians, and backward caste Hindus, in order to win more seats in the 2019 general election, according to people privy to the discussions.

State BJP leaders, who attended key meetings with Shah, said that he asked to focus on the reality behind getting only one seat rather than boasting about the increase in vote share for the party in the 2016 assembly election.

Kerala is crucial for BJP in its efforts to become a truly national party. The saffron juggernaut, which is on a roll in most Indian states, has not yet been able to make an electoral footprint in Kerala—one of the few states where the BJP has never won a parliamentary seat. However, the party was able to carve some success recently, arguably with the rise of Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi within the BJP. In the assembly election in May last year, BJP doubled its vote share to 16% and won its first seat.

“He has learned Kerala politics better than any state leader. Now he knows how to tackle it,” said BJP state president and national executive member Sreedharan Pillai, NDTV report-ed.

Kerala has a strong presence of Muslims and Christians, who together make up close to half of the state’s population, as per the 2011 census. “The Muslim Lea-gue has more or less consolidated the bulk of Muslim votes, and it may be a tough nut to crack. But he (Shah) believes the Christian votes, along with the backward caste Hindu votes, may swing in favour of the BJP,” said another state BJP leader, who did not wish to be named.

On June 3rd, Shah visited top Christian priests, including Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) major archbishop M.Soosa Pakiam and Syro-Malabar Church major archbishop.

A Catholic nun and four girls accompanying her were on June 13 forced out of a train in the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh.

Government Railway Police detained them at Satna station in the state after rightwing Hindu groups accused Sister Bina Joseph of indulging in illegal religious conversion.
The group was traveling on Shipra Express to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh capital, from the eastern Indian State of Jharkhand.

“As our train reached the station, police personnel forced us out and then detained saying the girls were being taken for religious conversion,” Sister Joseph told Matters India over phone from police station.

The nun and the girls were held up in the police station at the time of filing this report at 11:40 pm on June 13 almost 12-hours after their detention. The police personnel also recorded their statements before a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) who reportedly ordered their release.

Confirming their detention, Satna GRP Police station in-charge S.R.Bagri told media persons, “The police personnel carried out a search in the Shipra Express in which they were travelling following complaint from Bajrang Dal activists.”

The Bishops of Kerala’s Catholic Church said on Jun 8 that it views with “openness” BJP chief Amit Shah’s recent bid to reach out to the Christians in the state, but made it clear that it could not agree with the “basic ideology” of the saffron party.

Expressing anguish over the Centre’s ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets, the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) said the church will not accept a government that dictates what people should eat.

He said the bishops discussed with Shah the minority rights.

“We did not discuss politics. We had a friendly discussion on minorities and their rights. He said the government is 100 per cent committed to protecting the constitutional rights of minorities,” Pakiam said.

“But, we will never accept a dictum on what we should eat or a government that dictates it. They (the BJP government) may try to impose their dictum as they are mighty. But we are not going to accept such decrees. For us, the Constitution is big,” he said.

Talking to reporters after the monsoon session of the KCBC here, the official, however, alleged rights of minorities were being violated in north India. He also said he had never expected Shah to meet the bishops.

Pakiam further said the bishops welcome those who visit their homes. “We are dealing with openness,” he said.

Police say they have arrested 22 people from a crowd of over 100 people who vandalized the Lady of Fatima Church in Kundapalli village. They broke statues of Jesus and the Blessed Mother, the crucifix and left furniture in disarray.

“All the attackers belong to the village where the church was built,” Anantha Chari, investigating police officer of the case, told ucanews.com.

George Reddy, a layman, donated land for the church. He applied for permission to construct a church but was never given the go ahead, Chari said.

“The villagers had objected two or three times to the construction,” he said.

The new church was blessed by Archbishop Thumma Bala of Hyderabad on May 13 but the church had not yet been used for service. Finishing touches to the building were ongoing.

Archbishop Bala told ucanews.com that the church was blessed to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima “otherwise we would have waited a few more months.”

The prelate said that the attack could have happened because the Catholic Church is getting a bad name due to “aggressive preaching” by leaders of the Pentecostal churches in the area.

Pentecostal preachers are going around villages condemning other faiths, telling people they are not saved except in Christ and converting them. It is creating trouble for the Catholic Church, he said.

“Local anger is shown [by attacking churches] as the general public cannot differentiate between a Catholic or other denominations. They see the cross and consider the person a Christian,” Archbishop Bala said.

This is not the first time Christian places of worship have come under attack in the country. In August 2016, Hindu extremists stopped the construction of a church building in Chhattisgarh State accusing Christians of illegal conversion activities.

India’s tribal Catholic bishops have sought the intervention of President Pranab Mukherjee to ensure the rights of millions of tribal people.

The memorandum signed by tribal bishops from six states said, they were “saddened” by the policies of state governments that have trampled over tribal people’s rights. They want the president “to protect the land, forest and socio-cultural rights of tribal people,” the May 10 memorandum said.

“Land is the only means of livelihood and sustenance” for most tribal people, as 90 percent of them are dependent on agriculture or allied activities in their ancestral land, the bishops said. The present federal and most state governments, however, “have taken various actions to alienate tribal people from their land on a massive scale to facilitate industrialists.”

In the most recent example, Jharkhand government amended two laws that guaranteed the protection of tribal land used for agriculture. The government declared their land as non-agricultural and, since non-agricultural land does not come under the purview of protective legislation, tribal people can be deposed.

Father Stanislaus Tirkey, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ office for tribal people told ucanews.com that indigenous people are facing the same problems every state and “we plan to address it collectively.”