Two Catholic bishops led some 100 priests and thousands of lay people as they launched an indefinite protest against government apathy toward the rehabilitation of families affected by coastline erosion in the Archdiocese of Trivandrum in the southern Indian Kerala state.
The life of common people, especially the fisher people, had become miserable due to the continued onslaught of natural calamities and disasters, said Archbishop Thomas J Netto of Thiruvananthapuram while leading the protest in front of the state secretariat on June 20.
Archbishop Netto lamented that the communist-led state government ignored their pleas for rehabilitation of the affected people and a permanent solution to coastline erosion.
The protest initiated by the Latin-rite archdiocese witnessed a huge turnout of laypeople including those from the fishing community living along the state’s coastline.
“We have at least 500 families who lost everything and have taken refuge with relatives and friends, besides the local schools and warehouses,” Auxiliary Bishop Christudas Rajappan told.
A 2018 study by India’s National Centre for Earth Science Studies showed that 60 percent of Kerala’s coastline was under erosion due to urbanization, tourism, development of new ports and “unscientific shoreline protection methods” that have caused the beaches to become unstable.