Have Indian Christians made 'common cause' with political parties in power ?

 Indian Christians made 'common cause' with political parties in power ?

"Christian values are forgotten the moment people go out of churches"

New Delhi 

India houses Christians of almost all denominations of Catholics and a large number of Protestants especially in the northeast.

Longwa Church: Myanmar border 

The arrival of the British in India (1610), the dominance of East India Company (1757-1857), and 

colonial rule (1858-1947) influenced in spreading Protestantism, which began in the 19th century. 

Even as the exact origin of Indian Christians may be disputed, scholars believe there were pre-Portuguese Christian missions to India from Rome of John de Montecorvino in the 13th century and John de Marignoli in the 14th century.

Christianity has evolved in India for the last 77 years since 1947 in more ways than one.

Christians in northeast including Nagaland are influenced by the Baptist schools. 

But in north and south India, they are also former Dalits (that is one-time untouchables of lower caste origins of Hindus).

Indian Christians have certainly contributed significantly to nation-building, especially in education and healthcare. They are also well-represented in civil service and especially tribals including those from Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur have excelled in India's power red-tape army - the bureaucracy.

James Michael Lyngdoh from Meghalaya became Chief Election Commissioner and many Nagas from Manipur and Nagaland have made it to Indian Audit and Accounts Service and departments like Income Tax, Information and Broadcasting and elite IPS. 

'Nagaland Page'

But there could still be major issues vis-a-vis communication gap between Christians in general and the rest of the communities and the powers that be.

Other than in Kerala, where Christians and the Catholic church as a unit are dead set against the Marxists, the Church has allegedly "made a common cause with the political party in power".

"At times, this has been embarrassing to itself and to the community. It was so when the then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi, imposed an emergency in 1975, and it has been so in the last ten years (under Narendra Modi)," says an article in UCA News supposedly run by Vatican blessings.

"The Christian leadership, political as well as spiritual, can be said to have collectively failed to carry on a constructive conversation with the various structures that exist — political parties, communities, and the judicial processes in preventing further erosion of the statutory assurances of the republic," says the piece.

In the northeast, the influential Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) in the 1990s was accused of "dividing the God". The allegation had come from veteran S C Jamir, then LoP, in the state assembly and his veiled attack referred to the role played by then Chief Minister Late Vamuzo.

Pongsing Konyak, then NBCC general secretary, had of course countered Jamir's allegation made in a Peace Day Conference at the old Zonal Council Hall near the old Secretariat.

The hall was burnt down by protesters in 2017. 

In August 2022, NBCC general secretary Rev Dr Zelhou Keyho admitted that there is a critique -- "What is the church doing" in a Christian society like Nagaland about corruption. "It could be a legitimate question but it's not that we are not preaching, we are not teaching....We are struggling with that and the Clean Election movement launched by NBCC is one way of addressing the issue from a Christian perspective to fight Corruption".

But he made a reference to an important issue as well.

"But the sadder part of the story is we have landed into a predicament wherein the Christian values are forgotten the moment people go out of churches," he told 'Nagaland Page'.

NBCC Gen Secy: Rev Keyho 

At the national level, however, things have moved on and Indians in general cherish pluralism like nowhere else.

"Given the staggering differences of languages, religions, and cultures that this experiment contains, this nation stands as an exemplar to many Western nations now coping with mass migration," writes analyst Jesuit Father Myron J. Pereira, based in Mumbai.

Now comes another issue as flagged by PM Narendra Modi in his 11th Independence Day speech.

He wants the Uniform Civil Code -- but he is calling the proposed set of new laws as 'Secular' and insisted that the existing civil code India has now is "communal".

The debate is complex. 

A section of the Christian community, like the Catholic Church, does not recognize divorce. The indigenous Nagas follow extreme male chauvinism in certain matters despite their adopting Christianity and being English-educated.

In some societies, women do not have rights to their husbands' wealth after their death; their brothers share it.

Under the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act of 1936, any woman who marries someone from another religion loses all rights to Parsi rituals and customs. Muslims see the UCC as interference with centuries-old Islamic practices.

Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio talks about making "history" by successfully conducting the Urban Local Body Elections with reservation for women for the very first time with 37% women representation, greater than the 33% mandated by the central law.

But all these did not come without a stiff fight by some brave women and a few organisations and individuals based in Delhi and adjoining hubs.

ends