By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Jun 7 2004 (IPS)

Encouraged by the installation of a new government committed to the secular values enshrined in India’s Constitution, churches in the country have begun reviving evangelical and charitable activities that were in limbo under the previous pro-Hindu coalition.

These activities were viewed with suspicion during the six-year rule of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which was voted out in the April and May general elections.

Christian groups in this Hindu-majority country of a billion-plus people also faced hostility from other pro-Hindu groups and BJP allies like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum.

In interviews with IPS, leaders of several denominations said the first step to protect the rights and interests of the church has been to lay aside differences and build a joint front called the Communion of Churches of India (CCI) and ”put forward a common face in the political social fabric of India”.

”We have taken stock of the situation faced by the minorities, especially the Christians in the past few years and we have sought an assurance from the new government that the minorities would not be exploited,” said B P Sugandhar, moderator of the Protestant Church of South India (CSI).

Sugandhar’s counterpart at the Church of North India (CNI), James Terom, confirmed that as part of a politically pro-active approach, churches and denominations all over India would liaise with local and central governments on development activities and issues such as safety and security.

However, the efforts at unity have not been entirely successful.

Followers of the Catholic Syro-Malabar rite, numbering three million and concentrated in southern Kerala state, home to seven million Christians, have opted to stay out.

In fact, Cardinal Mar Varkey Vithayathil, leader of the Syro- Malabar church, which traces its origins to the apostle St Thomas, supported the BJP during the elections.

But the unified CCI, which claims the support of at least 10 million of India’s 25 million Christians, has gone ahead and demanded reversal of a situation under which states ruled by the BJP, such as western Gujarat, ordered police to profile followers of the Christian faith and keep dossiers on them.

The CCI wants the new government to bring to justice those involved in heinous crimes against religious minorities in the years under BJP rule – especially those committed against Christians in eastern Gujarat, central Madhya Pradesh and eastern Orissa states.

Several foreign missionaries were either asked to leave or denied visa renewals in the past. Last year, the VHP drew up a list of 50 church functionaries, many of them teachers in seminaries, that it wanted the government to deport.

At the height of the campaign against evangelists, Graham Stewart Staines, an Australian-born missionary and his two young sons, were burned alive in Orissa’s tribal Mayubhanj district in 1999 by a mob led by VHP activists.

The man mainly responsible for the gruesome deaths of Staines and his sons, Dara Singh, was sentenced to death in September 2003. But many other pro-Hindu activists, accused of crimes against members of minority groups, have gotten away as result of the lenient – critics say indulgent – attitude by the Vajpayee government.

Indeed, the Supreme Court has had to intervene on behalf of victims of rape, murder and arson during an anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 after various arms of the state, including the Gujarat High Court, were seen as being partial to the perpetrators, mostly VHP activists.

Muslims, who form 12 percent of India’s majority-Hindu population and Christians, who form another 2.5 percent, both came under unprecedented attack during the rule of the BJP, whose supporters wanted to see India recast as ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or an officially Hindu nation.

In general, church leaders are in a mood of forgiveness and quite prepared to put the past behind them. ”We are already seeing a positive change with the new Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government,” said Enos Das Pradhan, general secretary of the CNI.

But Pradhan said that work remained to be done in states still ruled by the BJP such as Madhya Pradesh, where Christians continue to live in fear of VHP activists.

In January, the hilly Madhya Pradesh district of Jhabua was hit by communal violence after the body of a nine-year-old girl who had evidently been raped before her murder was found in the premises of a school run by Catholic missionaries.

According to rights activists, instead of properly investigating the case, the local administration quickly arrested several church workers and did little to stop mobs from attacking churches, schools and missions in Jhabua. Church leaders believe that much of Hindu hostility against evangelism has to do with their focus on improving the lot of socially backward caste groups and tribals. This threatens to upset social hierarchies and the traditional dominance of the higher caste groups, they add.

Philpose Mar Chrysotom, leader of the Mar Thoma church in Kerala state that has joined the CCI, said he expects the new Congress party -led government to fulfill election promises to work to extend concessions available to lower Hindu castes to all socially and economically people, irrespective of faith.

As things stand, a ‘dalit’ (member of the lowest Hindu caste) loses the benefits of reservations in educational institutions, government jobs and in legislatures the minute he or she converts to another religion.

Said Pradhan: ”The Communion of Churches of India identifies itself with the struggle of the dalits, adivasis (aboriginals) and other marginalised sections of society for a better, equal socio-economic status in India.”

As for the future policy on evangelism, Pradhan said the Indian Constitution very clearly guarantees the right to ”profess, practice and propagate any religion”. He added: ”In my view every Christian is an evangelist.”

But he said the churches also need to take stock and make some corrections, such as by throwing open the fine missionary schools they are famous for to children from poorer backgrounds instead of restricting them to elite social groups.

”We believe that education should be a means of liberation and not the means for exploitation and domination it was turning out to be – the major challenge before us now is an immediate shift in favour of the poor, especially those in the rural areas,” he said in an interview.

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