In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was a common sight to see churches being dismantled to be replaced with brand new structures in Kerala. Most of these churches belonged to the Catholic Church, specifically the Syro-Malabar rite, forming a sizeable chunk of the Christian population in the State. The ostensible reason for these large-scale demolitions was the space constraints in the age-old structures, but a more immediate reason was the kind of money coming in as donations and charity from the laity, growing prosperous on the back of a spike in prices of rubber among other cash crops. Towns with sizeable Catholic population in Kottayam district such as Pala and Kanjirappally would see a huge offtake of the newly-launched cars back then. The era of prosperity, however, was short-lived as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-India free trade agreement and other factors caused the prices of rubber and other cash crops to nosedive.
A turning point
With the community’s collective bargaining power on the wane, its focus gradually shifted to the Muslim community’s newfound affluence on the back of West Asian remittances. The seeds of mistrust threatening to rip apart the social fabric of Kerala today were sown about a decade ago. There were allusions to ‘Love-Jihad’ from the clergy even then, but it remained confined to catechism classes or drawing room conversations. The assault, in 2010, on Professor T.J. Joseph, whose palms were chopped off by Popular Front of India (PFI) extremists proved to be a seminal event, despite the Church going on the defensive and even victimising the professor in its aftermath. The fallout of this incident was contained by the swift intervention of civil society; yet, in hindsight, this was probably the point when Islamophobia began to take root among Christians in Central Travancore. The Assembly election in 2011 saw the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) coming back to power but it also saw the eclipsing of the Church-backed Kerala Congress by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in the power structure — contributing to the churning.
Political change, world events
When the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in New Delhi in 2014, the Sangh Parivar saw an opportunity in closing ranks with the Christian community to reverse its electoral fortunes in Kerala. By 2016, as the Islamic State (IS) gained prominence, 21 Keralites — some Christian and Hindu converts among them — who had gone missing were traced to the terrorist outfit, sparking further anxiety within the Church. A spate of anti-Muslim propaganda began to circulate within Christian family networks and social media groups around that period.
A stray remark of State police chief T.P. Senkumar, who would later join the BJP, of Muslim ‘live births’ overtaking Hindus in the State, laced with communal overtones, and the connection of the Popular Front of India (PFI)-backed ‘Sathya Sarani’ to the case of Akhila alias Hadiya, a young Hindu woman who converted to Islam and married a Muslim youth, further queered the pitch. This phase saw a gradual increase in engagement between Christian bishops and BJP leaders in the Centre, facilitated by Minister of State K.J. Alphons. Those days it was assumed that the Church was cosying up to the BJP only to protect its interests in the wake of the central government’s crackdown on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) over the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA).
Gradual mainstreaming
The growing Islamophobia among the Catholics which was limited to the realms of social media got mainstreamed around the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, sparking off a hate-campaign against Muslims. People who were otherwise reticent to speak in sectarian lines were emboldened by the clergy who were beginning to speak like community leaders rather than spiritual figures. There were growing concerns over the Muslim community in Kerala being collectively classified as Other Backward Classes (OBC) and coming under specific minority scholarship schemes.
The onset of COVID-19 led to people participating in Holy Mass online which essentially meant that what was limited to a church gathering was now open to everyone’s scrutiny. The Syro-Malabar Church-backed Shekinah TV became the go-to platform for the laity but regular content on such channels was often rabble-rousing. The Old Testament was being quoted more regularly in churches and given more emphasis than the gospel, a reflection of conservatism.
Communal polemic
An article on the reopening of the historic Hagia Sophia in Turkey as a mosque by the Congress-ally IUML’s Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal in the party mouthpiece, Chandrika , on the eve of the Kerala local body elections as well as the IUML’s decision to have an electoral understanding with the Jamaat-e-Islami caused a furore and saw a major Christian vote shift away from the UDF to the Left Front. In fact, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) very effectively utilised the situation to its advantage by feeding off the insecurities of the Church in central Travancore while playing up the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Malabar to secure Muslim votes. The Assembly election that followed saw the communal polemic in full swing, but it was the Left Front rather than the BJP which benefitted once again from the Christian-Muslim divide.
Of late, the Church and a section of the laity have been quick to latch on to any development abroad, including the march of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they inexplicably kept mum on the institutional murder of Stan Swamy. The Church’s steady engagement with the Sangh Parivar was driven home by a meeting of Ram Madhav with Bishop Emeritus Mathew Arackal recently.
A couple of months ago, the Pala diocese headed by Joseph Kallarangatt issued a circular announcing financial support and other benefits for Christian couples with five or more children in a bid to encourage larger families. The move was reflective of the Church’s concerns over the dwindling numbers of the community as a proportion of the total population of the State as well as in absolute numbers. An unwieldy controversy over the naming of a film — Eesho (Jesus) — helmed by a Muslim as late as last month indicated the level of mistrust prevalent between both communities.
Not much traction
The sweeping ‘narcotic-jihad’ remark of Bishop Kallarangatt during his service at a church in Kuravilangad in Kottayam district on September 9 proved to be the last straw. That a theologian of Bishop Kallarangatt’s standing would resort to such language was difficult to comprehend but it is instructive of the kind of radical turn the Syro-Malabar Church has taken lately. Nonetheless it is significant that Bishop Kallarangatt did not get the backing of the Malankara and Latin Catholic rites. It is also telling that the fellow Saint Thomas Churches — Mar Thoma, Jacobite and Orthodox factions — and the protestant Church of South India Church have come out openly against the remark. While the Congress and the CPI(M) disapproved of the remark, a State BJP office-bearer wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah seeking ‘protection’ for the Pala bishop, seeking to make the most of it.
There have been demands that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan intervene to diffuse the situation rather than play safe but it is unclear how the simmering discontent within the Christian community could be addressed in the long term. The suspicion and distrust prevailing between the Syro-Malabar Church and Muslims would take more than a patch-up to heal and would probably require a Pope Francis-like figure to initiate reconciliation.
Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and former editor of The Kochi Post
