Author: C.I. Issac
Publication: Organiser
Date: September 9, 2001
Introduction: Contrary to the policy
of Carmelite of Mary Immaculate missionaries, they entertain converted
(dalit) Christians neither in the appointments nor in the admissions. The
institution and church started for the dalit converts about two centuries
back are now out of bounds for them. This is one among several instances
of dalit live of Christian missionaries in Kerala. By spreading the network
of the prolonged and continuous missionary activities to the rest of Hindustan
they can cultivate Kerala paradigm as new models everywhere.
Kerala a State with Christian domination
in all fields including political, has to tell rather a different story
of 'Catholic's love' of dalits and downtrodden. In the educational, charitable
and medical fields of Kerala, the Christians, particularly the Catholics,
presence is very dominant. The Catholics who began to concentrate in the
educational sector since 1831 is now a dominant factor in this field, particularly
in the case of Kerala. The Catholics started one of its first English school
of Kerala at Mannannam near Kottayam in 1885, at a time when English education
was a "forbidden fruit" (those English education Catholics were subjected
to punishment either of. excommunication or with fine and this practice
continued till the sixties of the last century) to the Catholic, under
the stewardship of Fr. Kuriakose Elias Chavara alias Fr. Chavara, a native
Catholic padre of Jesuit order, who is now elevated to the rank of blessed/sainthood
by Pope John Paul II, in the early nineties of the last century. Paradoxically,
Kerala accommodated Christianity long before Rome had provided seat to
Christianity, but the Kerala Catholics received a saint of their blood
only in the closing decades of the twentieth century that even after a
hundred, years of weeping and imploring for the sainthood of Fr Chavara
by its laity. Fr. Chavara was responsible for the conversion of dalits
of the region to Catholic faith/church and the construction of a church
for them at Mannannam. At present these poor dalit Christians were kicked
out of this church and its landed property worth ten million rupees, who
are now satisfied with thirty cents of cemetery land exclusively for dalit
Christian converts (no upper caste/Syrian Catholics corpse are buried there),
which is a plight full story of the dalit Christians to tell. Untouchability
continues even after the death, in the case of Kerala Christianity, that
is why the corpse of a dead is untouchable to a 'savarna Christian corpse'
still in Kerala.
Because of the introvert poky of
the Church hierarchy in the educational scenario, the Catholics were quite
backward in the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century.
In order to solve this deficiency, in 1831 Fr. Chavara and two other padres
of the native Syrian Catholic Rite started the Carmelite of Mary Immaculate
(CMI) Congregation in Kerala. The foremost goal of this CMI mission, explained
in its constitution, is summarized as follows: "Conscious of these aims
of human and Christian education, we shall give an excellent and all-round
formation to the students in our educational institutions, concentrating
more on quality than on quantity" (CMI Constitution, Article 75(a). Paradoxically,
they are running educational institutions in Kerala out of the State funds
for spreading this "Christian education". They categorically explain that
their educational policy is for "... to get acquainted with the person
of Jesus Christ and his Gospel" (CMI Vision of Education, Cochin, 1991,
p.6). Is it the meaning of secularism? "Acquainting Christ and Gospel at
the expense of majority Hindus", a quite absurdity not allowed anywhere
else except in Hindustan. The ultimate aim of each and every missionary
is to fulfill "The Marvel of God's plan in Asia", as explained by Pope
John Paul II on November 6, 1999, in New Delhi. And no doubt, in extending
the frontiers of the providence in India, Fr. Chavara is a link between
Saint Francis Xavier and Pope John Paul II.
Fr. Chavara, from 1831 to 1871,
sowed the seeds of Gospel amongst the dalits of Mannannam and surrounding
areas. Hence, he was able to 'save the souls' of thousands of unorganized,
straightforward and illiterate dalit Hindus but they lose something else.
Their social values, culture, religious models, etc, all sacrificed for
the sake of the religion of the 'deliverance, which caused social tensions
amongst the converted dalits of the day. The sixteenth century Catholic
missionary Francis Xavier, the father /apostle of mass/forcible conversion
movement in Hindustan, once declared, "I order everywhere the temples pulled
down and all idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy
I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols" (Kanayalal
M. Talreja, Holy Vedas & Holy Bible). Fr. Chavara imbibed the meaning
of this sixteenth cent" Fringe padre in words and spirit. This much helped
the Church as well as the land holding Syrian Christians (savarnas) in
and around Mannannam to improve their farm lands/ farming with the unpaid,
but sincere and loyal, service of new Christian converts in the name of
Christian love. Before faith the new dalit converts and the traditional
Syrian are equals but they never got a pari pasu treatment in the Christian
society of Kerala. Keeping this sense of reality in mind Fr. Chavara started
a separate church for the new converts at the Mannannam hill. "Their church
had started out by encouraging converts from low castes, but after some
time the Syrian Christians could not stomach former untouchables sitting
side by side with them on the same pews, and there had been a cleavage'
(Nirmala Aravind, A Video, a Fridge and a Bride, p.181), is true in all
sense in the case of the unfortunate dalits of Mannannam also. Now this
church, after the elevation of Fr. Chavara, the founder of this parish,
to the sainthood, became a pilgrim centre. The inflow of pilgrims to Fr.
Chavara's own parish of Mannannam made it a cash rich place. The covetous
eyes of the Catholic hierarchy very simply absorbed this parish and converted
it into a savarna/Syrian Christian parish. At present the poor dalits has
no role in this church affairs. As mentioned earlier, they have only a
cemetery of 'untouchable' Christians near this church.
In 1864, Fr. Chavara started a primary
school, where he admitted the dalit students. CMI order very proudly claims,
"It paved the way for a social revolution when untouchability was at its
summit" (CMI Vision of Education, p.4). Now this institution has grown
up as a first grade college. But the dalit converts now has no specific
role either in church or in its educational institutions. Not only in Mannannam,
everywhere these converted dalit Christians are eliminated from Church
and its institutions. Prof Joseph Pulikunnel, a veteran Catholic, comments,
"There are about 150 Christians colleges in Kerala, but you will not find
any dalit working there' (Organiser, April 29,2001). None of them ordained
as priest or posted as lecturers in the CMI educational institution so
far, which was founded by the 'apostle of the poor, i.e., Fr. Chavara'.
Almost all the Christian educational institutions of the State are run
out of the financial support of the Government. But these minority institutions
are reluctant to obey even the reservation principles of the State policy
in the appointments. In the case of admissions, they always attempt to
sabotage the reservations to SC students with the political support, both
left and right governments. The institutions that are run out of the State
funds are running as the personal property of these missionaries and they
are using them for their narrow designs. Thus they declare: "Being institutions
established by and for a minority community based on religion, they will
give preference to Christians (Catholics) in admission and appointments
and have a special concern for the faith formation of the Christian youth'
(CMI Vision of Education, p.6). Contrary to the policy of CMI missionaries,
they entertain converted. (dalit) Christians neither in the appointments
nor in the admissions. The institution and Church started for the dalit
converts about two centuries back are now out of bounds for them. This
is one among several instances of dalit love of Christian missionaries
in Kerala. By spreading the network of the prolonged and 'continuous missionary
activities to the rest of Hindustan they can cultivate Kerala paradigms
as new models everywhere.
Under the guise of service to the
poor and downtrodden the missionary bands penetrate into the vanvasi and
dalit hamlets, imparting the basic lessons of equality, Christian love,
humble living, and anti-national sentiments. The same missionary bands
outside the mission fields leading a scandalous and worldly life are not
much different from the medieval churches in Europe. The reports of the
deaths of nuns under mysterious condition in the nunneries and priests
involvement in various crimes that appears in the daily newspapers are
sufficient testimony to the degenerating condition of the saviors of the
souls. To quote Prof Joseph Pulikunnel as a testimony to contemporary priestly
life, "Apparently the Church looks powerful with their cathedrals, marble-floored
churches, commercial complexes, huge pastoral centres, elegant monasteries
and nunneries, educational institutions that cater to the rich and hospitals
that serve the upper strata in society. The lifestyle of the bishops and
priests has become the envy of ordinary mortals. The hierarchy has strayed
away from the ordinary faithful. The Church of Kerala has become a ship
without radar' (Identity of Nazrani Church of Kerala, pp. 151, 152).
The Church's main goal is to repeat
its "success in Greece" in India by muting Hindu culture and civilization
along with its upasana systems. In the Asian bishops' conference of Manila
an Indian padre J. Monachanin openly declared that all India has to do
is to allow her civilization to be destroyed by marauding in the name of
Christ, like the classical Greek civilization, which was destroyed by Saint
Cyril of Alexandria. This is the sum and substance of Vatican's evil designs
on India. The very stone of Vatican's survival rest upon this sort of subversive
activities. Through centuries they are repeating this strategy either in
the form of service, deliverance, etc, or in the form of civilizing the
uncivilized. The CMI padres' activities in Mannannam and elsewhere in India
are not much differed from the general paradigm.
