Between 1950 and 2015, according to census figures gathered by the World Religion Database, a large comparative project based at Boston University, the share of the world’s population that is Muslim rose from 13.6 percent to 24.
Over the same period, the share that is Christian fell from 35 percent to 33 percent -- says project-syndicate.org.
No such surveys are available in India. But time and again, Indian Muslims and Indian Christians have cooperated with each other even as the relationship has had its ups and downs. And obviously so.
Now in the run up to the polls in Kerala -- the good old rivalry and friendship between Islamic interests and Christendom could come to the fore. And more so as the BJP is pushing it hard in the southern state to pick up one or two MPs from this 'God's own country' -- where so far it could not win one seat so far.
Muslims constitute an estimated 26.6 percent population and Christianity at third with 18.4% population. There are 54.7 percent Hindus. So wooing all three communities are important in terms of electoral strategies. The BJP thinks it has made enough noise for Hindus over the last few years. But a major challenge still remains -- can it really get the popular support base translate into votes.
Can BJP really pick up a few seats in the southern state?
Other issues are -- some static and some dynamic !! For long, the CPI-M and the LDF were the Hindu parties in the state. Only Marxists know/knew the fine art of keeping Muslim appeasement card work full steam in West Bengal and also win Hindu votes both in Bengal and in Kerala.
The Christians in Kerala - there was a time - overwhelmingly backed the Congress party and the regional outfit Kerala Congress. But survival anywhere is linked to transition and hence it could be a taboo for both Muslims and Christians to vote for pro-Hindutva (Hindu first) BJP. But some contexts what is being argued here also ought to be understood.
If Muslims had 'fatwa (religious diktat)' system, in Kerala Christians had Idaya Lekhanam. The clergy verdict/announcement. After BJP came to power in 1998 and the Congress lost its grip at the national level, the communists ideology began to gain acceptance within the church.
The Idaya Lekhanam could actually mean - Bishop's article read at the Christian churches giving direction to their followers on various subjects including elections.
One controversy and political gossip that surfaced was about a Christian body's 'readiness' to spread a propaganda video that portrays young Christian females as being in danger of converting to Islam through ‘love jihad’.
As it is Love Jihad carries a powerful political messaging among Hindus in Kerala and also in other parts of India including Uttar Pradesh.
But Bishops in general sense have problems and issues with the Narendra Modi government.
"We are concerned by the attitudes that fuel divisions... and by the fundamentalist movements eroding the pluralistic philosophy that has always characterized our country and its Constitution," the bishops said in a statement. There is also a major issue of funds crunch as the FCRA amendments have forced closure of many organisations and their 'shops'.
Hence it is easy and perhaps nature to speak about 'weakening of democratic institutions, destruction of minority rights, religious polarization, and an increase in poverty'. How would these influence polls?
We are aware of the duty of neutrality in the Church, and the utmost caution not to mix spiritual authority and temporal power.
But it is also true that the Catholic Church in India is trying to get its people more engaged in politics, "but is extremely cautious and without really having the means to influence," said Christophe Jaffrelot, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King's India Institute (London) and author of Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2021).
For his part, PM Narendra Modi has tried to reach out to Christians both in the northeast and in Kerala. While the protestant or Baptist organisations did not get as much audience with Modi during the last decade, the Catholic leaders in Kerala were always welcomed even in the old Parliament building premises.
In 2023, on Christmas morning, Prime Minister Modi welcomed a delegation of Christian figures to his official residence in New Delhi. Among them was Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai. Modi spoke of similarities between Christianity and Hinduism and said he was "touched" by his 2021 meeting with Pope Francis.
Later on what was debated in the social media and other places have been why no one questioned Modi about the increase in violence – exacerbated by the trivialization of anti-conversion laws – against Christians, or the ethnic and religious conflict affecting the state of Manipur.
But such interactions are not new.
In January 2020, BJP president J P Nadda met 15 Christian pastors most of whom expressed unease over the divisive Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Nadda did not forget to mention that he had studied at the Jesuit-run St. Xavier’s school in Patna.
Party leaders feel that despite the campaign — “based on misinformation” — that the saffron party is anti-Christian, its acceptability has increased manifold in the seven north-eastern states, where tribal Christians account for a substantial part of the population.
The BJP is part of the government in the north-eastern states of Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur and Christian-dominated Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
“Our alliance's regional partners are in power. Christians are not against the BJP as is claimed from time to time,” said Tom Vadakkan, a Christian member of the BJP.
However, V. Lal, an office-bearer of the Evangelical Fellowship, says “Christians in India are facing the brunt of nationalism, more precisely Hindu nationalism” promoted by the BJP.
In retrospect, many Christian leaders and tribals in the northeast have ill feelings toward the Narendra Modi government and are skeptical about assurances regarding the safety and security of Christians.
Christian leaders point out that changes made by the central government to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act have affected church bodies as funding has been hit.
"Bit by bit we are feeling the pinch,” Reverend J. R. Sangma, general secretary of the Garo Baptist Convention, told UCA News in 2018, when his Meghalaya state went to the polls.
In the elections the Hindu nationalists only won two of the 60 seats, but its alliance partner NPP, headed by Conrad Sangma — a Christian — now runs the government with the BJP as part of the coalition.
"I think Modi was not able to convince people about his government's approach to minorities. We feel alienated. The prime minister's statements sound more like lip service," Reverend Sangma had said in 2018.
In 2023 assembly polls too, the NPP won it again. In Nagaland, BJP is in power in partnership with regional party NDPP.
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