SNAPSHOT
- “Abraham was a Dravidian”; ”Saivism and Vaishnavism are branches of Christianity”; “in ancient times the whole world spoke Tamil”—these are some the beliefs propagated by the Church in Tamil Nadu
- Evangelical organisations have grown to wield enormous political clout in the state, and openly support one party and denounce another
The Silent Control Of The Church On Tamil Politics
In Tamil Nadu elections, the Roman Catholic Church (RC) as well as the Protestant Church (Church of South India, CSI) have always been silent but powerful forces. During the elections, particularly in southern Tamil Nadu, they announce for whom their flock should vote. In Kanyakumari district, the Church always provides clear cut instructions as to whom to vote for and whom not to.
Recently, the clout of the Churches has been on the rise with rival Dravidian leaders competing with each other to placate them. The current Chief Minister was fed cake at a Christmas function by the Chennai Roman Catholic Archbishop. Apart from the regular Churches, charismatic evangelists also subtly hint at – and at times openly declare – whom the believers should support. Both Uma Shankar IAS, Mohan Lazarus (whose massive prayer meets have been attended by rationalist Dravidian leaders like Stalin) and Dhinakaran are known to pray for the victory of specific political parties or divine retribution against a specific party.
For the 2016 assembly elections, the Bishops have openly supported the Congress-DMK alliance. The Church has a stranglehold on the populations of the coastal villages of South India. There have been frequent rebellions by intellectuals in the coastal community against the control of Church in their day to day affairs. But the all-powerful Church has been the final winner in almost all confrontations.
The Church forms an invisible barrier around the coastal communities. It is also the only interface between the communities and the state. The Church will decide what stand the coastal communities should take on a specific national or regional issue and, in turn, it will have the power to bargain with the government and hence the party in power. This has helped the Church exercise enormous power in post-independent India, particularly in Tamil Nadu (and Kerala).
This can be compared only with the power that the Church had in medieval Europe during the dark ages. For example, in 2006, the then DMK government meekly complied with the demands of the Church and banned the screening of the movieDa Vinci Code. In many of the scandals involving the mysterious death of girl students in Church-run institutions in Tamil Nadu, which may indicate widespread abuse not dissimilar to the child abuse within the Church in the West, the state governments of alternative Dravidian parties have remained a silent spectator.
The recent announcement by the Bishops to support the Congress-DMK alliance also comes from a confluence of evangelical and political interests.
Chithbavananda, the famous educationist seer of Tamil Nadu, in his tract on Hindu-Christian encounters recorded an interesting confession by a Madurai Bishop. It said that the Dravidian movement was a time bomb set by the Church to destroy Hinduism. The Church, cutting across denominations, has constantly tried to create and propagate a false history that combines Dravidian racism with evangelical Christianity. In this narrative, Abraham was a Dravidian. St.Thomas brought this Dravidian monotheism back to Tamil Nadu which was then besieged by Brahmins (who else!)— Aryan mercenaries of their pagan religion. Thirukural was the result of the teachings of St.Thomas! Saivism and Vaishnavism were branches of Christianity brought by St.Thomas. Cunning Brahmins corrupted them into present Hinduism.
Rev. Jegath Gaspar Raj, a Catholic priest, grew in importance in the cultural affairs of the state under the previous DMK rule. A veritable Rasputin of the DMK reich, Gaspar tried to secularize Hindu folk traditions. They could be later Christianized through minority educational institutions subsidized by secular government. Simultaneously, he also launched a publication house that propagated the works of ‘scholar’ Ma.Se.Victor who claims that Tamil was the language of Adam spoken by all humanity before the Tower of Babel was destroyed by God. Such crank theories are kept in incubation to take over the Dravidianist narrative and they find forced advocacy under DMK regime. So when DMK gets supported by the Bishops there is more than vote-bank politics and ground level bargaining of concessions. There is ideological vested interest in the form of promoting a racist Dravidian ideology against Hinduism and Hindus.
The Church is also known to give tactical support to internal separatist conflicts in India - either to carve out a separate sovereign linguistic state where it can become a major player or to increase its control as well as bargaining power with the government. In the process it seldom cares what happens to the livelihood of its own flock.
Recently, the clout of the Churches has been on the rise with rival Dravidian leaders competing with each other to placate them. The current Chief Minister was fed cake at a Christmas function by the Chennai Roman Catholic Archbishop. Apart from the regular Churches, charismatic evangelists also subtly hint at – and at times openly declare – whom the believers should support. Both Uma Shankar IAS, Mohan Lazarus (whose massive prayer meets have been attended by rationalist Dravidian leaders like Stalin) and Dhinakaran are known to pray for the victory of specific political parties or divine retribution against a specific party.
For the 2016 assembly elections, the Bishops have openly supported the Congress-DMK alliance. The Church has a stranglehold on the populations of the coastal villages of South India. There have been frequent rebellions by intellectuals in the coastal community against the control of Church in their day to day affairs. But the all-powerful Church has been the final winner in almost all confrontations.
The Church forms an invisible barrier around the coastal communities. It is also the only interface between the communities and the state. The Church will decide what stand the coastal communities should take on a specific national or regional issue and, in turn, it will have the power to bargain with the government and hence the party in power. This has helped the Church exercise enormous power in post-independent India, particularly in Tamil Nadu (and Kerala).
This can be compared only with the power that the Church had in medieval Europe during the dark ages. For example, in 2006, the then DMK government meekly complied with the demands of the Church and banned the screening of the movieDa Vinci Code. In many of the scandals involving the mysterious death of girl students in Church-run institutions in Tamil Nadu, which may indicate widespread abuse not dissimilar to the child abuse within the Church in the West, the state governments of alternative Dravidian parties have remained a silent spectator.
The recent announcement by the Bishops to support the Congress-DMK alliance also comes from a confluence of evangelical and political interests.
Chithbavananda, the famous educationist seer of Tamil Nadu, in his tract on Hindu-Christian encounters recorded an interesting confession by a Madurai Bishop. It said that the Dravidian movement was a time bomb set by the Church to destroy Hinduism. The Church, cutting across denominations, has constantly tried to create and propagate a false history that combines Dravidian racism with evangelical Christianity. In this narrative, Abraham was a Dravidian. St.Thomas brought this Dravidian monotheism back to Tamil Nadu which was then besieged by Brahmins (who else!)— Aryan mercenaries of their pagan religion. Thirukural was the result of the teachings of St.Thomas! Saivism and Vaishnavism were branches of Christianity brought by St.Thomas. Cunning Brahmins corrupted them into present Hinduism.
Rev. Jegath Gaspar Raj, a Catholic priest, grew in importance in the cultural affairs of the state under the previous DMK rule. A veritable Rasputin of the DMK reich, Gaspar tried to secularize Hindu folk traditions. They could be later Christianized through minority educational institutions subsidized by secular government. Simultaneously, he also launched a publication house that propagated the works of ‘scholar’ Ma.Se.Victor who claims that Tamil was the language of Adam spoken by all humanity before the Tower of Babel was destroyed by God. Such crank theories are kept in incubation to take over the Dravidianist narrative and they find forced advocacy under DMK regime. So when DMK gets supported by the Bishops there is more than vote-bank politics and ground level bargaining of concessions. There is ideological vested interest in the form of promoting a racist Dravidian ideology against Hinduism and Hindus.
The Church is also known to give tactical support to internal separatist conflicts in India - either to carve out a separate sovereign linguistic state where it can become a major player or to increase its control as well as bargaining power with the government. In the process it seldom cares what happens to the livelihood of its own flock.
For example, when the separatist LTTE abducted Tamil fishermen in 2007, the Church turned into a propaganda wing of LTTE rather than actively campaigning for the release of the abducted fishermen, most of whom were Catholics. In the case of the Italian marines killing South Indian fishermen including a Tamil Nadu fisherman, the Catholic Church took the side of the Italian killers.
The underlying problem in all these is the concept of minority rights. A person belonging to a particular religion is considered a minority and is given special institutional rights in the secular realms. In the context of Indian culture, ‘matham’ the word for religion actually means an opinion. One cannot become a minority based on the opinion and demand concessions in secular realms.
Consider a set of scientists who hold a minority view differing from the mainstream scientists that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs; can they demand preferential treatment in paleontology department because they hold a ‘minority’ view? Can physicists supporting Bohm’s Implicate order demand reservations for their children in educational institutions? Then why should reservations be given if someone holds a minority view in a realm that is even more speculative and is on flimsier ground than the robust realm of theoretical physics?
Both Dr. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi were united in the idea that the term minority should not have a religious basis. Dr. Ambedkar said that religion ‘cannot be a good and reliable test for minorities’ but ‘social discrimination’ is. In a rare concurrence of thought, Gandhi too accepted this view that social discrimination rather than religion should be the basis of categorizing minorities. Thus in a secular society minorities based on secular categories like gender, ethnicity, language should take precedence over minorities with religion as the defining category.
At the same time there is no denying the fact that any socio-cultural group that finds itself numerical minority in a society should be given psychological comfort in a way that is healthy for democracy. But when the same group becomes expansionist as Dr. Ambedkar pointed out in the case of Muslims, then they should be seen as an aggressive element which should be dealt with and should not be appeased.
Interestingly, the Modi government has acted in tune with the vision of Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhi. This government took special efforts to bring back the Catholic priest abducted by Islamists in Afghanistan. It took special care to liberate the nurses from Kerala from almost certain death and dishonour and majority of them were Catholics. Modi participated in all cultural programmes organized by the minority religious groups.
While in Tamil Nadu the political parties indulging in vote bank politics eagerly handed over the community leadership to the fundamentalist forces campaigning against the internal diversity of minority communities, as in the case of ‘Shirk annihilation campaign’, Modi proactively organized World Sufi Forum to provide an alternative Indic model of Islam fine-tuned for co-existence in a pluralistic world. But all these do not stop the Dioceses and Bishops from supporting the Congress-DMK alliance. Clearly, vote bank politics in the name of minority welfare is batting for their own total control of the believers rather than empowering religious minorities as equal citizens in a secular democracy.
The underlying problem in all these is the concept of minority rights. A person belonging to a particular religion is considered a minority and is given special institutional rights in the secular realms. In the context of Indian culture, ‘matham’ the word for religion actually means an opinion. One cannot become a minority based on the opinion and demand concessions in secular realms.
Consider a set of scientists who hold a minority view differing from the mainstream scientists that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs; can they demand preferential treatment in paleontology department because they hold a ‘minority’ view? Can physicists supporting Bohm’s Implicate order demand reservations for their children in educational institutions? Then why should reservations be given if someone holds a minority view in a realm that is even more speculative and is on flimsier ground than the robust realm of theoretical physics?
Both Dr. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi were united in the idea that the term minority should not have a religious basis. Dr. Ambedkar said that religion ‘cannot be a good and reliable test for minorities’ but ‘social discrimination’ is. In a rare concurrence of thought, Gandhi too accepted this view that social discrimination rather than religion should be the basis of categorizing minorities. Thus in a secular society minorities based on secular categories like gender, ethnicity, language should take precedence over minorities with religion as the defining category.
At the same time there is no denying the fact that any socio-cultural group that finds itself numerical minority in a society should be given psychological comfort in a way that is healthy for democracy. But when the same group becomes expansionist as Dr. Ambedkar pointed out in the case of Muslims, then they should be seen as an aggressive element which should be dealt with and should not be appeased.
Interestingly, the Modi government has acted in tune with the vision of Dr. Ambedkar and Gandhi. This government took special efforts to bring back the Catholic priest abducted by Islamists in Afghanistan. It took special care to liberate the nurses from Kerala from almost certain death and dishonour and majority of them were Catholics. Modi participated in all cultural programmes organized by the minority religious groups.
While in Tamil Nadu the political parties indulging in vote bank politics eagerly handed over the community leadership to the fundamentalist forces campaigning against the internal diversity of minority communities, as in the case of ‘Shirk annihilation campaign’, Modi proactively organized World Sufi Forum to provide an alternative Indic model of Islam fine-tuned for co-existence in a pluralistic world. But all these do not stop the Dioceses and Bishops from supporting the Congress-DMK alliance. Clearly, vote bank politics in the name of minority welfare is batting for their own total control of the believers rather than empowering religious minorities as equal citizens in a secular democracy.
http://swarajyamag.com/politics/the-silent-control-of-the-church-on-tamil-politics
Why bishops' support to DMK alliance is not a good thing for TN
May 05, 2016 15:29 IST
The Tamil Nadu Bishops Council's decision to support the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress alliance in the upcoming elections will vitiate the political atmosphere in the state, reports R Ramasubramanian.
In a decision that could have dire consequences, the Tamil Nadu Bishops Council has extended its support to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Congress alliance in the upcoming assembly elections in the state.
Tamil Nadu goes to the polls on May 16 and counting will take place on May 19.
In a statement issued in Madurai on May 3, Anthony Pappusamy, president of Tamil Nadu Bishops Council and Madurai archbishop, announced that the decision to support the alliance was taken to "safeguard secularism and democratic values". However, Pappusamy also had a word of caution: "We want to make it clear that the council's decision did not mean it considered these parties clean, but among the available lot they were the lesser evil."
The Bishops Council's decision has generated a furore not only among intellectuals and observers, but also among a section of the Christian community in the state.
"This had never happened in the past. This is an open call given in the name of religion. This is punishable under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act. We are going to take up this issue in a big way. We will formally meet the Election Commission very soon," MG Deivasahayam, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer and one of the conveners of the Forum for Catholic Unity, told Rediff.com.
He said the Bishops Council does not represent even a miniscule section of the over 44 lakh Christian population, or 6.12 per cent, of the state. He also warned that this sort of behaviour by the Bishops Council will have an adverse effect as far as maintaining communal amity in the state is concerned.
Others too share these sentiments.
"This is a dangerous trend. In the fight for secularism, everyone including the minorities should join hands. This will become a fodder for the other side because both the majority and minority communalists thrive on each other's strengths and weaknesses. Appealing anyone to vote for a political party on the basis of the religion or caste will completely vitiate the atmosphere,” said R Vijayashankar, editor, Frontline magazine.
"At a time when the southern districts of Tamil Nadu are slowly slipping into communal politics, this sort of decision will further endanger the atmosphere,” Vijayashankar added.
Writer and political analyst Aazhi Senthilnathan said the Bishops Council is forcing its decision on the people and snatching away their basic right.
"The council's decision is dangerous. By imposing your view on your community, you are snatching away their right to choose their candidate.
"There are voters in the community who vote for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the All India Anna DMK, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam and even the Bharatiya Janata Party. But now, you are forcing them to vote for one particular party. This is not the job of the bishops. This will fuel communal tendencies in the other side of the fence,” said Senthilnathan.
However, the BJP is unmoved by the council's decision.
“We welcome this open decision by the Bishops Council. Everyone has a right to recommend a political party to others. But see the double standards. If a particular group or community of people extend their support to the BJP, you will go to town and say the BJP is communal. Here is an organisation which is openly giving a statement to vote against the BJP and everyone is quiet," S R Sekar, treasurer of the Tamil Nadu BJP, told Rediff.com.
Questioning the secularists, Sekar said, "For several of those pseudo-secularists, consolidating one particular community's vote against the BJP is not communal but if the majority community voted in favour of the BJP, then it’s communal."
"The Bishops Council’s decision is nothing but blatant communalism. This is an open communal call. This will indeed strengthen our chances in the southern districts of the state," he said.
Soliciting the support of religious bodies, caste groups and even small and sundry outfits by political parties during elections is not new.
There were over 800 support letters given by various smaller caste and other social outfits to the AIADMK while the DMK received over 600 such letters lending support for the upcoming polls.
Though the utility value of these smaller caste and religious outfits is marginal, both the DMK and the AIADMK encourage this as each and every vote counts in a multi-cornered fight.
In the past, both the Dravidian majors used to make lavish promises to religious groups during polls.
During the 2011 assembly elections, Jayalalithaa promised financial of help of Rs 20,000 to 500 Christians who undertake pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Even for Muslims, during Ramzan, few thousand kilogrammes of rice are given to select mosques.
Cajoling caste groups by declaring the birthdays of caste leaders as auspicious and conducting special prayers at the expense of the concerned district administration are also very common in the state.
In short, when it comes to political appeasement, there is no difference between the ruling AIADMK and the principle opposition, the DMK.
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