All Are Caught Up In Their Own Dioceses and Provinces

Fr. Ajaya kumar Singh
Bhubaneswar

What did the church and you personally learn from the Kandhamal experience?
We learned a lot of lessons from it. One of the first things we learned was that, as members of the Church, we should always be prepared and be on our toes to see and understand what goes on around us, but we keep our eyes closed. Secondly, we take things for granted, even when incidences of violence against us happen. There is no proper and systematic analysis of it, nor do we bother to address it. We tend to ignore or localise the issue, unmindful of its larger impact. The anti-Christian Kandhamal violence was a case in point. Some sections of the national leadership saw it as a localised issue that culminated in violence. On the contrary, it was a well-planned, well-organised and well-thought-out violence. It was ideologically inspired to subjugate and control a vulnerable community. It was part of a national plan to control and intimidate the Christian community. The Kandhamal violence should have been an eye-opener for the national leadership of the Catholic Church. No study or guideline came after it. It was left to the beleaguered local community to respond to the brutal national design of the attackers. Hence, I do feel we are yet to learn lessons from it.

Would you specify the lessons we should have learned?
We, as a community, a civil society group, a Church and also a state, need to learn the lessons such bitter experiences provide. For the perpetrators of the violence, Kandhamal was simply an experiment to see how a full-fledged pogrom could be executed. It was not a sudden or spontaneous outburst; it was the culmination of a series of violence Christians suffered from 1960 onwards. It was a well-thought-out and well-calculated move to silence us.
It is truly an attempt to silence the Christian community and even stop certain types of activity, but do you believe all such ideological project planners will achieve their goals?
Just to put things in perspective, what we see in Kandhamal is not an isolated thing; Kandhamal was one of the three areas they selected besides Dangs in Gujarat and Joshpur in Chhattisgarh/Jharkhand. To start with, the Sangh Parivar targets the most vulnerable Christians. They have achieved that goal of theirs to some extent, but their progress in that depends on how the Christian community responds. If the community has no national plan or guidelines to face the onslaught, these ideological project planners will continue to succeed in their divide and rule games, polarising the communities further.

Is that also an indication of how they intend to suppress missionary activity?
Yes, surely! Presently, adivasi, dalit and MBC struggle for their basic necessities. They have been victims of the caste system for centuries, which deprives them of access to basic needs. The caste system is a gradation of human communities into lower and higher categories. Our missionaries are working on both human dignity and livelihood issues, which is a threat to the basic foundation of the caste system. In that sense, missionaries become a threat to these reactionary forces.

Are they so worried that they want to stop that kind of humanization of people wherever they are considered equals?
Exactly! Their idea of the Hindu Rashtra is based on Manu Smriti. The new education policy is yet another tool in their hands for it. Hence their preference for Sanskritisation, which revives a acultural heritage that is linked to the caste system. They make no mention of minority rights or of human rights. They are focussed on stoping the rights based secular order that the Indian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantee.

if you see just go through their web pages you’ll know they want to control using the ideology of conquest, isn’t it?
Conquest means subjugation, and subjugation is based on the caste system in which the lower are born to serve the higher. Manu Smriti is the cornerstone of Hindu Rashtra. Recently, the Shankaracharya of Puri said, “if you want to establish Hindu Rashtra you need two things, Sastra (scriptures) and Shaastro (weapon). Sastra is to establish control over people’s minds and Shaastro is to establish control over people’s bodies so that they can continue enjoy hegemony for all time to come. It aims at a sychological as well as ideological conquest over communities. It is a pity that some of us do not understand these designs of theirs.

“Kandhamal Violence should have been eye opener for national leadership of Catholic Church. There is no study or any guidelines in the aftermath of the violence.”

How do you think the Church in India is facing this challenge? Is the church even aware of it? What do they say about what happened to the tribals in 2014?
Fr. Nicolas Barla, the current head of the CBCI tribal desk, and myself had undertaken a trip to Bastar/Chhattisgarh for a fact finding mission a few years back. There we listened to people’s testimonies. Local Catholic officials called it a localised issue that was not a cause of worry for Catholics, but it seriously affected other Christian groups. Of course, we had the apprehension that any fact finding mission would worsen the situation of the Christians there. Hence, the local leadership asked us not to even undertaken any FFT. Christians as a whole have two diverse responses, one of fear and another of apprehension about what might happen next.
I wrote a letter of appeal to all our four cardinals immediately after the Chattishgarh FFT in 2017 explaining the need of National Consultation on anti-Christian violence. Of course, the present President of the CBCI, who was then the vice president, had acknowledged it. But, there has not been any proposal till date for a national consultation involving all the stakeholders. The Catholic Church in India does not have a National Plan to address such important and critical issues facing it today. All are caught up in the affairs of their own dioceses and provinces.

Are they too anxious about our institutions?
That is one big reason! We have a huge number of institutions to manage. Protecting properties gets priority over the people in today’s situations. When one runs institutions that have large properties, there is an increased perception of insecurity and intimidation from agencies. Hence, the authorities play safe.

Is there a tendency to placate them?
Surely! Working for people and their issues brings us directly into confrontation with the people in power who don’t take kindly to it. One is afraid of harassment for reason or no reason. That is quite palpable. Hence, they play low profile or do not engage in rights based programmes.

And now to ask a very tricky question, is this kind of amnesia perhaps a kind of an irresponsible stand on the part of the Church hierarchy that betrays cowardice or simple negligence? What is happening to this hierarchy, which displays no leadership in moments of crisis?
The present regime has three ways to engage the Christian community. One is of being concerned about the community’s development, for which they are willing to compromise the Sangh’s core ideology. It uses this approach wherever Christians are dominantly placed or their positions cannot be undermined. Christians have substantial presence and base in certain states. The regime has a stick and carrot policy to win over the Christian leadership in those places. The last one is of one intimidation and harassment, which will keep the Church leadership in disarray. Presently, the Christian community has become increasingly directionless due to ignorance or a feeling of insecurity. The lust for power or some immediate gains also play a role here. All in all, the Church is becoming rudderless; it faces a leadership crisis.

Looking at the Catholic leadership around the world, especially the Catholic leadership, there is a question of a lack of clear leadership The church is being attacked by scandals in the Church. Do you think it is suffering from the scandals?
A leadership that evolves from the community will remain connected with the community, sharing people’s joys and sorrows. Such a leadership tends to be accountable to the people. If not, it tends to accountable to the authorities that appoints them. How I wish people have a role in evaluating the leadership. Scandal does compromise and weaken the hierarchy’s role to lead the community in a fair and upright manner. It impacts the community quite badly.

Pope Francis is now introducing a new idea of authority called synodality, which means that, together with the people, priests and bishops think, decide and act. How far is that being followed?
The synodality process initiated by Pope Francis is a wonderful opportunity. The Pope wishes to focus on peripheries and believes the grassroots should get centre stage. The community should be the centre of all our activities – walking together with the margins. But I wonder how far synodality has been practiced. Feedback and comments that I hear suggest very little has been achieved.

From the perspective of the Kandhamal persecution of dalit and adivasi Christians, what hope do you entertain for democracy in this country?
Just immediately after the present government took office, I wrote a piece titled ‘India towards Doldrums’ for a news portal. I am afraid in India the democratic space is shrinking and democratic voices are silenced. The challenges for dalits, adivasi and minorities are mounting.

What about the opposition parties in India? Will they play a constructive role for democracy?
What we hear are just scattered voices. They should at least be consolidated and strengthened. Or else, we will end up as a Majoritarian Religious Nationalist Country.

But is the current global situation conducive to it?
Afghanistan is an example of violent religious nationalism. However, I am hopeful about our country remaining democratic.

Do you also apprehend that we will have a democracy that is based on Brahmanic hegemony?
I am worried about religious nationalism; India’s religious nationalism is based on the caste system. The caste system is based on caste-gradation of communities, where the lower castes are expected to serve the higher castes. In order to restore robust democracy, we need to work on religious nationalism as well as the supremacy of the caste system. The caste system has to be annihilated.

How do you, as someone from Odisha, see the future of Christianity in India?
As Christians, we are people of faith and hope. We are hopeful today and tomorrow about equality and equity of all, despite the many challenges. The establishment of the Kingdom of God is nothing but the establishment of justice, equality, or fraternity.