Demands for official recognition of the Sarna tribal religion have intensified in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand after Hindu groups took soil from sacred Sarna sthals to use in the construction of a temple in Ayodhya.
Some 32 tribal organizations plan to boycott next year’s national census if their demand for recognition of the Sarna religion in the census is not met.
“There is no doubt that we are also included among those 32 organizations because we are tribals first, then Christian. Tribal Christians have always been in favour of the Sarna code and have joined the demand for recognition,” Ratan Tirkey, a member of the Tribes Advisory Committee of Jharkhand, told UCA News.
“Demand for recognition of the Sarna code intensified after the soil-taking incident because that was a conspiracy by Hindu fanatics to divide tribal people in the name of religion.
“Christians are outnumbered by people who practice the Sarna religion in the state, so Hindu fanatics are attempting to alienate Christian tribals by claiming that Sarna tribals belong to Hindu society.
“Sarna tribals are nature worshipers who revere forests, mountains and rivers. They do not belong to any religious sect and their demand for a separate category in the census dates back to the 1990s.”
The Spaniard who sought the soul of India
When Jesuit Father George Gispert Sauch died on July 29 in Bombay, India’s secular media completely ignored the fact that this 90-year old from Spain spent more than 70 years working for interreligious dialogue in the country.
He himself articulated it so well: “The relations between the followers of the many world religions and even of smaller religious traditions and Christian believers have now entered a stage beyond ‘confrontation,’ ‘encounter’ and comparative ‘dialogue’ to a search for sharing spirituality.”
Marian hymn sung by archbishop goes viral
A Marian hymn sung by a Catholic arch-bishop in Kerala, southern India, has become a hit on social media platforms.
“This is the first time in the history of the Indian Church that an archbishop has sung in a studio for a Christian album,” says Father John Puthuva, who wrote the lyric for ”Japamaala Kayyil” (Rosary in Hand), a Malayalam hymn sung by Archbishop Antony Kariyil, episcopal vicar of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly.
Indian tribal Catholic joins UN climate initiative
An Indian tribal Catholic woman is among seven young climate leaders selected by United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres to advise him on the global climate crisis.
Archana Soreng, who hails from Odisha State in eastern India, was chosen on July 27 to advise the UN on accelerating global action to tackle climate change.
Bishop D’Silva calls for social reintegration of prisoners
Bishop Allwyn D’Silva, chair-man of Prison Ministry India (PMI), has advo-cated for the dignity and real social integration of prisoners.
The auxiliary bishop of Bombay made this appeal on August 2 when the Catholic Church in India marks Prison Ministry Sunday. For the occasion this year, Bishop D’Silva issued a pastoral letter advocating for the dignity and social reintegration of prisoners in the country.
Squads ensure Christian burial for Kerala pandemic victims
As fear and confusion persist about burying Covid-19 victims in some parts of India, the Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Church has formed squads to give a dignified burial to people dying from the pandemic.
As Covid-19 began to claim lives in the southern Indian state, several burials led to disputes as ill-informed villagers opposed burials, fearing the spread of the disease from buried bodies. Confusion about safety, non-availability of undertakers and an inability to dig graves 10 feet deep as per government norms often resulted in Catholics not having a Christian burial.
The Church has asked all its dioceses to form burial squads — if needed, in parishes too — to help Covid-19 victims “get a decent and dignified burial.”
The volunteers are trained to handle bodies as per Covid-19 protocols to ensure that “we follow government guidelines strictly,” he said.
With a population of some 33 million, Kerala has added close to 1,000 new cases each day of the last fortnight. The first Indian state to report Covid-19 in January, it had reported 63 deaths and some 20,000 cases as of July 28.
Cases have been increasing across the country. India had reported 1.4 million cases and 33,000 deaths as of July 28, making it the most affected country after the US and Brazil.
Church officials wary about India’s new education policy
The Indian government has released an ambitious education policy aiming to transform the country’s learning system to match global standards, gene-rating mixed reactions from church officials.
The federal cabinet approved the National Education Policy 2020 on July 29, replacing a 34-year policy.
The policy was in the making for more than six years and the first draft was released in 2016. The process to formulate a new policy was accelerated soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-Hindu party came to power in 2014.
Officials of the Catholic Church, which claims to be managing the largest network of educational institutions in the country after the government, were reserved in their comments, saying they need time to study the policy in depth.
Indian diocese holds cremations in Catholic cemeteries
A funeral pyre in a Catholic cemetery is usually unimaginable in India, where Christians prefer burial to dispose of the bodies of their community members.
Contrary to this belief and centuries-old practice, a Catholic diocese in southern India has decided to cremate Covid-19 victims in parish cemeteries, indirectly adopting a Hindu way of disposing of the bodies of the dead. Thresiamma Sebastian, 62, a parishioner of St Augustine Church in Mararikulum village in the Diocese of Alleppey in Kerala State, became the first local Catholic to have a dignified cremation in a parish cemetery. The parish priest and Catholic volunteers, helped by an outsourcing agency, prepared her funeral pyre with firewood and placed her body on it in the July 27 cremation. Health officials monitored the entire process. Her body was reduced to ashes within two hours and her ashes were collected in an earthen pot and buried in her family tomb in the presence of one of her family members on the same day.
The Latin-rite Diocese of Alleppey is mostly based on the coast and most of its parishes face the same situation.
Anti-Christian violence on the rise in India
Two women were raped and killed among six Christians murdered for their faith in India in the first half of this year, according to a newly released report.
Three others — two Christian women and a 10-year-old girl — were raped for their refusal to give up their new faith, said the half-yearly report released on July 28 by Persecution Relief, a Christian group.
Persecution Relief, an ecumenical body that records Christians’ persecution in India, said its data shows “a very grim picture” of religious freedom in Hindu-majority India. “Hate crimes against Christians in India have risen by an alarming 40.87 percent despite a nationwide lockdown in place since March 25 in the country,” the report stated.
Between January and June, India witnessed 293 cases of hate crimes against Christians, including five rapes and six murders.
“Persecution against Christians has become very common,” said Shibu Thomas, who founded Persecution Relief, which assists Christians in distress, especially widows and orphans of those killed for their faith.
Dismay at removal of religious figures from Karnataka syllabus
Church and political leaders in India’s southern State of Karnataka have expressed dismay over the state removing chapters on Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad from the school syllabus. The state run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also removed chapters on prominent leaders like Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali who once ruled the state.
“It is very sad to know that our children who are the future of this country will miss important subjects such as Christianity and Islam and their contribution to building brotherhood among all humanity,” Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore told.
“India is known for unity in diversity around the world. The respect and communal harmony among us is the best example in this world and if that subject in disturbed we will lose the secular India which we all are proud of.
“What India can give to this world is the uniqueness of our communal harmony, but depriving our children of this subject is an injustice to our children. We should teach them about brotherhood and communal harmony, which all religions teach.”
Archbishop Machado said the government is interfering with the constitution’s secular values and urged the state government “to take its decision back, if possible.”