In India, the Christians' Offense Is Fighting Against Slavery
The slavery is that of the caste system. Against this, the Christians both preach and practice equal dignity for all. Professor Parsi explains the reasons for the growing Hindu violence. And he warns about the international repercussions
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, August 29, 2008 – This morning, the 15,000 Catholic schools in India closed their doors for the entire day. The Indian Catholic Church has called for a day of prayer and fasting for the first Sunday in September, with peaceful processions all over the country.
The reason is the new wave of violence that has struck the Christians in the state of Orissa. Every day, there is news of killing, wounding, rape, assaults against churches, convents, schools, orphanages, villages, carried out by Hindu fanatics. Hundreds of people have had to abandon their homes and flee to the forests.
The spark for the latest explosion of violence was struck with the killing, on August 23, of the Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and five of his followers. The killing was carried out by armed Maoist groups, but the Hindus used it as a pretext for blaming the Christians and taking revenge on them.
The epicenter of the latest violence is the district of Kandhamal, in the state of Orissa. For several months, this has been the most bloodstained state in the country. There are few Catholics there, less than 1 percent. There are also few conversions, but these are taken as another pretext for retaliation. What is unleashing the violence – according to Raphael Cheenath, the archbishop of Chuttack-Bhubaneswar, whose territory includes the district of Kandhamal – is the work that Christians in Orissa are carrying out on behalf of the tribals and the Dalits, at the very bottom of the caste system:
"Before, they were like slaves. Now, some of them study in our schools, start businesses in the villages, demand their rights. And those who – even in the India of the economic boom – want to keep intact the old division into castes are afraid that they will gain too much power. Orissa today is a laboratory. What is at stake is the future of millions of Dalits and tribals living all over the country."
According to the latest census, conducted in 2001, 80.5 percent of India's inhabitants are Hindu, while 13.4 percent are Muslim. The Christians are 2.3 percent. And they are even less numerous in Orissa and in the other states in the central and northern part of the country, the most densely populated areas. The highest percentages of Christians are in the easternmost part of the country, reaching 90 percent in Nagaland and Mizoram, 70 percent in Meghalaya, and 34 percent in Manipur. But these areas are thinly populated and very backward economically. In absolute numbers, Christians are most heavily represented in the southern part of the country, in Goa, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. In Kerala, Christians are 19 percent of the population, and most of them are Catholic. The state boasts the highest level of education, including female education, in all of India.
The events of recent days confirm that coexistence between Christians and Hindus in India is no longer as peaceful and harmonious as the tradition – and myth – of this country would have one believe. Hindu intolerance and fanaticism are growing, and acts of violence against Christians are on the rise. To the silence and disinterest of the world.
The reasons for this development, and the dangers of ignoring it, are incisively analyzed by Vittorio E. Parsi, professor of international politics at the Catholic University of Milan, in this editorial published on August 27 in "Avvenire,"the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference:
The largest democracy in the world. This is the definition that is usually associated with India. It would be ungenerous and mistaken to forget this now, or to question it at its core. But it does seem necessary to question the quality of this democracy, and the direction that it is taking.
The Indian Union has the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, a genuine multiparty system, and a free press. But at the same time, widespread corruption and the crony-client political system in the individual states, together with the substantial impunity granted to the violent actions of extremist groups, risk emptying of meaning the concrete significance of India's democracy.
The alarm is being raised in a particular way by the growth of sectarian violence, which is especially targeting the Christians – responsible for helping the Dalits, the outcastes, the slave foundation of the pyramidal system according to which Hindu society was traditionally organized – but also Muslims and Buddhists.
What is happening in India with worrying frequency and intensity shows the dark side of the independence achieved under the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent action. The story of his life itself, with its tragic conclusion, contains in symbolic form all of the contradictions of this extraordinary country: from the rediscovery of traditional culture and the village economy, to the decision to live as the least of the least, to the attempt to preserve the unity and religious pluralism of the old British Raj, to his violent death at the hand of a Hindu extremist.
More than 60 years after the country's independence, it is precisely the position that India should be solely and exclusively Hindu that is continually making new proselytes. Movements like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are the expression of a Nazi-like culture, which preaches through violence the false idea that being Indian means being Hindu, in spite of the fact that there are more Muslims living in in India than in many Muslim countries. Of course, there has always been Hindu hegemony in the political system, but it was mitigated to a certain extent by the fact that the early leaders of the republic, from Nehru to Indira Gandhi, all members of the Congress Party, acted on the basis of an essentially secular view of politics, blocking the most devastating consequences of such a contradiction.
It is likely that the sneering modern "spirit of the times" in which fundamentalism and the political abuse of religion seem to be re-emerging, on top of the radical tendencies of neighboring Pakistan, have contributed to the success of movements like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and of the Bharatiya Janata party. But – as Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran has correctly observed – in Hinduism as well there is a growing push toward intolerance and fanaticism, which is all the more grave in that it is understood too little, and too often denied.
Beside the political contradiction is the economic contradiction. India is the "office" of the world, at least to the same extent that China is its "factory." It is a society that produces tens of thousands of English-speaking engineers each year, but still lives in the Gandhian myth of the village economy, that ossified structure which deprives the "least" of any hope, for this and any other life, and fosters the caste system with its aftermath of commonplace violence. It is the Christians who are held responsible for offering hope to the "least," for this and any other life. And they have accepted the burden of this responsibility, to the point of martyrdom, as has taken place in Orissa.
One last point of reflection. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are considered, together with South Africa, the leading countries that should balance the excessive power of the West and make the governing of the world more multilateral. One must begin to reflect on the fact that, with the exception of Brazil, none of these countries seems to have begun to reduce its heavy deficit of internal democracy, and on the consequences that this implies for international "governance."
Source: Chiesa
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, August 29, 2008 – This morning, the 15,000 Catholic schools in India closed their doors for the entire day. The Indian Catholic Church has called for a day of prayer and fasting for the first Sunday in September, with peaceful processions all over the country.
The reason is the new wave of violence that has struck the Christians in the state of Orissa. Every day, there is news of killing, wounding, rape, assaults against churches, convents, schools, orphanages, villages, carried out by Hindu fanatics. Hundreds of people have had to abandon their homes and flee to the forests.
The spark for the latest explosion of violence was struck with the killing, on August 23, of the Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and five of his followers. The killing was carried out by armed Maoist groups, but the Hindus used it as a pretext for blaming the Christians and taking revenge on them.
The epicenter of the latest violence is the district of Kandhamal, in the state of Orissa. For several months, this has been the most bloodstained state in the country. There are few Catholics there, less than 1 percent. There are also few conversions, but these are taken as another pretext for retaliation. What is unleashing the violence – according to Raphael Cheenath, the archbishop of Chuttack-Bhubaneswar, whose territory includes the district of Kandhamal – is the work that Christians in Orissa are carrying out on behalf of the tribals and the Dalits, at the very bottom of the caste system:
"Before, they were like slaves. Now, some of them study in our schools, start businesses in the villages, demand their rights. And those who – even in the India of the economic boom – want to keep intact the old division into castes are afraid that they will gain too much power. Orissa today is a laboratory. What is at stake is the future of millions of Dalits and tribals living all over the country."
According to the latest census, conducted in 2001, 80.5 percent of India's inhabitants are Hindu, while 13.4 percent are Muslim. The Christians are 2.3 percent. And they are even less numerous in Orissa and in the other states in the central and northern part of the country, the most densely populated areas. The highest percentages of Christians are in the easternmost part of the country, reaching 90 percent in Nagaland and Mizoram, 70 percent in Meghalaya, and 34 percent in Manipur. But these areas are thinly populated and very backward economically. In absolute numbers, Christians are most heavily represented in the southern part of the country, in Goa, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. In Kerala, Christians are 19 percent of the population, and most of them are Catholic. The state boasts the highest level of education, including female education, in all of India.
The events of recent days confirm that coexistence between Christians and Hindus in India is no longer as peaceful and harmonious as the tradition – and myth – of this country would have one believe. Hindu intolerance and fanaticism are growing, and acts of violence against Christians are on the rise. To the silence and disinterest of the world.
The reasons for this development, and the dangers of ignoring it, are incisively analyzed by Vittorio E. Parsi, professor of international politics at the Catholic University of Milan, in this editorial published on August 27 in "Avvenire,"the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference:
Contradictions and fanaticism are undoing Gandhi's legacy
by Vittorio E. ParsiThe largest democracy in the world. This is the definition that is usually associated with India. It would be ungenerous and mistaken to forget this now, or to question it at its core. But it does seem necessary to question the quality of this democracy, and the direction that it is taking.
The Indian Union has the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, a genuine multiparty system, and a free press. But at the same time, widespread corruption and the crony-client political system in the individual states, together with the substantial impunity granted to the violent actions of extremist groups, risk emptying of meaning the concrete significance of India's democracy.
The alarm is being raised in a particular way by the growth of sectarian violence, which is especially targeting the Christians – responsible for helping the Dalits, the outcastes, the slave foundation of the pyramidal system according to which Hindu society was traditionally organized – but also Muslims and Buddhists.
What is happening in India with worrying frequency and intensity shows the dark side of the independence achieved under the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent action. The story of his life itself, with its tragic conclusion, contains in symbolic form all of the contradictions of this extraordinary country: from the rediscovery of traditional culture and the village economy, to the decision to live as the least of the least, to the attempt to preserve the unity and religious pluralism of the old British Raj, to his violent death at the hand of a Hindu extremist.
More than 60 years after the country's independence, it is precisely the position that India should be solely and exclusively Hindu that is continually making new proselytes. Movements like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are the expression of a Nazi-like culture, which preaches through violence the false idea that being Indian means being Hindu, in spite of the fact that there are more Muslims living in in India than in many Muslim countries. Of course, there has always been Hindu hegemony in the political system, but it was mitigated to a certain extent by the fact that the early leaders of the republic, from Nehru to Indira Gandhi, all members of the Congress Party, acted on the basis of an essentially secular view of politics, blocking the most devastating consequences of such a contradiction.
It is likely that the sneering modern "spirit of the times" in which fundamentalism and the political abuse of religion seem to be re-emerging, on top of the radical tendencies of neighboring Pakistan, have contributed to the success of movements like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and of the Bharatiya Janata party. But – as Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran has correctly observed – in Hinduism as well there is a growing push toward intolerance and fanaticism, which is all the more grave in that it is understood too little, and too often denied.
Beside the political contradiction is the economic contradiction. India is the "office" of the world, at least to the same extent that China is its "factory." It is a society that produces tens of thousands of English-speaking engineers each year, but still lives in the Gandhian myth of the village economy, that ossified structure which deprives the "least" of any hope, for this and any other life, and fosters the caste system with its aftermath of commonplace violence. It is the Christians who are held responsible for offering hope to the "least," for this and any other life. And they have accepted the burden of this responsibility, to the point of martyrdom, as has taken place in Orissa.
One last point of reflection. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are considered, together with South Africa, the leading countries that should balance the excessive power of the West and make the governing of the world more multilateral. One must begin to reflect on the fact that, with the exception of Brazil, none of these countries seems to have begun to reduce its heavy deficit of internal democracy, and on the consequences that this implies for international "governance."
Source: Chiesa
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