The Indian church and nationality...

["Sunil, Mogadati" <m.sunil@barco.com>]

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Comments are requested on the following article from
'The Hindu' (07-11-2000):
Discusses the issue of RSS chief' call for Indianisation
of Church and the insurgency in North East:

http://www.the-hindu.com/stories/13070612.htm


THE RSS Chief, Mr. Sudarshan, visualises a church
of Indians for Indians and by Indians. What can
be better than that? Who can deny the need for
more of it culturally in the Indian church? My
latest book Culture and Faith addresses just this
issue. However, Mr. Sudarshan strayed beyond his
knowledge of the Indian church and landed himself
in a controversy.

The Indian church is perhaps the most democratic
religious institution in India. By popular vote
any Indian of any race, language and area can
ascend to the top positions of the church. Thus
almost all the apex positions in the Protestant,
Evangelical and Pentecostal churches are held by
Dalits, OBCs and tribals. This trend is now slowly
seen in the Catholic Church as well, though belatedly.

What is said of the Indian church is true of the
worldwide church. The World Council of Churches
(WCC- The Federation of all the National Protestant
Churches in the world) is run more by its Third World
leaders than by Europeans or Americans. This is for
the simple reason that, since the Eighties, the
Third World has more Christians than the rest of
the world. The WCC Geneva office has increasing number
of Dalit and OBC Indians in their leadership team.

The WCC is resident in Geneva for factors of
expediency, but the WCC is not run by Switzerland
but by world Christian leaders. The same is true of
the Pope. The Holy See as an elected head certainly
has a lot of ecclesiastic authority over the
worldwide Catholic church. But it is not run by Rome.
It is just as wise as to say that the United Nations
is run by Americans because the U.N. is located
in New York.

Any Catholic from any corner of the world can be
elected as Pope. My good friend Dr. Deivanayagam
is aspiring to see a Dalit become a future
Pope - not an impossible dream. This is in contrast
to the one race-one priest caste-one nation ideology
of Hindutva.

Golwalkar built the logic of Christians and Muslims
being second class Indians because their holy lands
lay outside India. It may be appropriate to note
that much of the Vedic lands falls outside India
(as archaeology declares) as much as a great part
of Bible lands falls outside Palestine. Making
"Indian" synonymous with Hindus (because of some
 of their holy sites being in India) has raised
serious questions on the citizenship and patriotism
of the diaspora Hindus to their own native lands
around the globe. What problem he created for
diaspora Hindus equally affects the Buddhists,
Jains and Sikhs of all races in all nations
outside India. However the greatest problem he
creates is for the VHP and its exported godmen
who have pledged to convert the Caucasoid races
worldwide to Hinduism.
Most Christians acknowledge Bible lands but not
a holy land. If Christ transcends race, geography
and time and incarnates in any seeking soul and
any needy social context then the traditional
dichotomy of holy versus common vanishes.

Beautiful plurality

The third misconception in Mr. Sudarshan's
statement is the monolithic concept of
Indianness, ignoring its beautiful plurality.
Barring the few cosmopolitan churches in our
metropolises, who employ Anglo-Saxon language
and culture, all Indian churches are very
native in using the local language in worship,
local music and local men as priests. I had
adamantly insisted that this should be so in
all the small cultures across India where we
worked. Assaulting this plurality is the
shortest route to losing our nationhood.

On the question of nationality I think the
following extract from my book will suffice
to counter the constant allegation against
the tribal Christians of the Northeast:

When the first railway line in India was
laid in 1853 between Thana and Bombay,
a large crowd was set on an agitation.
The rumour was fabricated and spread that
India was being tied around by a long iron
rope and it would soon be tugged to England.
You may laugh at this now; but people
became very serious then. There was a great
hue and cry. Patriotic nerves were provoked.
Many lay on the railway line risking martyrdom.

Ignorance is gold mine for mind manipulators.
One such example is the incredible discovery
of Bavani Shanker Niyogi. He wrote in his report
on the Christian ministry in Madhya Pradesh,
"With the advent of political independence in
India, the agitation for Adivasisthan was
intensified with a view to forming a sort
of corridor joining East Bengal with Hyderabad
which could be used for a pincer movement
against India in the event of a war between
India and Pakistan."

Some discussion on our understanding of
patriotism will clarify this matter. Who is a
patriot? First we recognise that patriots
exist across community fences. Devadason
records. "When the entire Christian population
of Travancore en bloc demanded merger of the
former Travancore State with India, the one
person who betrayed the cause and wanted to
continue with British imperialism and sought
to exchange ambassadors with Pakistan was
Sir C. P. Ramaswami, who was held to be a
devout Hindu leader. At the most crucial
moment in the history of India, he sought
to betray India's independence. This is
merely mentioned to show that patriots
can be found in all communities"
(Conversion and its Aftermath).

It was extremely easy during the
independence days to define who was a
patriot. A patriot was supposedly a
man who pushed the white man out. Now the
answer is extremely difficult, because we
do not have any man to push out. To define
a patriot today in positive terms, in
terms of national identity and national
interest is almost impossible because each
one projects his identity and interest as national.

Sense of isolation

The great tribal leader, Dr. Bareh in his
Tribal Awakening aptly stated, "the truth is
that traditionally all of us, to whatever
community we belong, whether tribals or
non-tribals, were isolated from each other,
each living his own life. We have begun to
think of ourselves as one nation only recently.

"The sense of isolation of Northeastern
tribals is not because of Christian influence
but in spite of it. Puthuvail describes the
isolation and resulting feuds of headhunting
tribes in Nagaland before they became Christians.
`Believe it or not, he had given the number of
heads taken by four people as one person 42,
another 50, the third one 62 and the last one 60.'
They collected heads as enthusiastically as
our children collect stamps. These are the tribes
who became Christians and started peace talks
with other tribes.

"Anthropologists know well that every tribal
chief is a monarch and every tribe is a sovereign
state for all practical purposes. It was
Christianity which built bridges between clans and
tribes and for tribals with the non-tribal world.
They came to the level of sitting for peace talks.
It was Christ that brought headhunters to peace talks."

However, this process of integration is greatly
suspected by some as being anti-national. For
them, nationalism is synonymous with loyalty to
their parochial ideas and interests. Below is
given one example. A great Aryan leader said,
"If we do not get our Constitution suitably
amended, a hundred more Nagalands are bound
to crop up in our midst, uprooting our age-old
Aryan culture" (Brahmachari Dattamurtiji - A
Call to Action - quoted by Christianity a critical study).

The tribal leaders answer this accusation aptly.
"You define Indian nationals as those who are
proud of their Indian heritage, Indian civilisation
and Indian culture. Having said that, you claim
that Indian civilisation and Indian culture is
basically Hindu civilisation and Hindu culture.
For this one reason alone, we are not Indian
nationals but Indian citizens." This
graphically explains who provokes division.
Dr. Bareh states, "Nothing is more injurious
to national integration than the assumption
that Indian nationality is identical with the
religion, culture or language of the majority
communities."

The famous episode in 1981 of Blasiyus Ekka
the Christian tribal minister of Madhya Pradesh
saw him being penalised by vested non- tribal
politicians for exposing the criminal acts of
Sanjay, Vijay and Prithvipal Singh in looting
the tribal forest wealth
(The Illustrated Weekly, Dec. 22, 1985) and
the Madhya Pradesh Government's attempts to
expel the inconvenient Christian workers on
the pretext of tribal unrest. Who are the
anti-socials - the Christians who exposed the
anti-socials?

Chaitanya Kalbag gives a closer look at the
cause of tribal insurgency. "Shaped by their
histories into close-knit insular lives, the
Northeasterners of Mongoloid stock talk
painfully about how they are often taken to be
foreigners in other parts of India. Such
ignorance only deepens their sense of isolation.

"These warped perceptions boil over when mediocre
bureaucrats from other parts of India - more
often than not, on `punishment postings' - are
sent to administer these sensitive areas. Such men
have treated their charges like colonial outposts.
For these tribal people, India represents only a
brown colonialism that replaced the white colonialism.'' (India Today, Oct.
31, 1982).

The result is not hard to predict. For instance,
the Meiti insurgency is primarily a revolt against
imbalance in population distribution, corruption,
unemployment, and forcible imposition of non-tribal
culture and religion. The Mizo insurgency originally
started as economic and cultural revolt against the
neglect by the government. Brigadier Sailo, the
Chief Minister of Mizoram, stated, "The general
neglect and the inability to face problems squarely,
the half-hearted solution and delay in finding
solutions were some of the principal factors."

Rajshekar Shetty makes the assessment, after close
study, that "the tribal revolts all over India,
from Andhra to the Northeast reflect tribal
determination to resist what they see as wanton
encroachment on their right" (Tribal Unrest, Whom to Blame).
The Dinesh Singh Parliament Committee findings
lay open the root of the problem. "On the
Northeastern region as a whole is lack of
understanding of the real requirements of
the tribals. The tribals no longer feel
secure and are fearful of domination and
exploitation in every respect." However the
bureaucrats have an altogether different
version. It is spelt out clear and curt,
in the words of the district collector
of Ukrul. He said, "The tribals do not
understand any language other than force."

Who will sit and talk with the "junglees"?
 So `peace' was maintained by the Army and
the Air Force (Zaihmingthanga - Crisis in
Northeast India ). Rape, torture and
killings became an integral part of `peace'
operations by security forces
(Nimal Nibedan - Mizoram the Dagger Brigade).
For whose `security' and `peace' were
these operations? Certainly not for the tribals.

The Human Rights Committee set up by
Brig. Sailo presented to Parliament a
documented detail on this violence on
the tribals. Sailo stated, "In the past
the security forces and police resorted
to very strong-arm measures in handling
the insurgency."

Three points emerge clearly:

1. Tribal insurgency antedates independence.
Tribal resistance to inappropriate measures of
interference into his life and territory
started as soon as the British colonialist
attempted to annex the tribal raj to the British raj.

For instance the Zeliangrong movement which
was spearheaded by Jadonang was anti-British
and partly anti-Christian. Rejecting the theses
that the tribal insurgencies are masterminded
by foreign (read Christian) powers against the
Indian Government, the Northeastern tribal
leaders reply that, "The Khasis, Garos,
Angamis, Mizos, and Kukis had put up stiff
fights against the mighty British (read Christian)
Army in defence of their freedom. If they could
fight a hundred years ago on their own accord,
they don't have to be told by someone to fight today."

Similarly the famous Kol revolt of the Mundas
of Chota Nagpur, the Santhal insurgency in
Bihar, the Bhil resistance in Madhya Pradesh
definitely go back to the colonial period.
Does that imply that the Christian missionary
was instigating the tribals against the
British (read Christian) rule?

Legitimate activities

2. All insurgencies are not secessionist
movements. Most of the agitations are
constitutionally legitimate activities
against brutal exploitation, inequality,
cultural or religious imposition and
wanton ill-treatment. Calling all insurgencies
secessionist moves only exposes the near total
ignorance of bureaucratic policy makers to
tribal realities.

Niyogi blames the tribals for treason, for
demanding tribal states. The learned Niyogi
only knows since when it became treason under
our Constitution for a people to demand a
separate state. If a tribal state is treason,
so is a Tamil state or a Gujarati state.

Secessionist seeds are sown not by
``foreign ghosts'' but by irresponsible
utterances of responsible persons.

3. Not all insurgencies come from Christian tribals.
Lal Dena, who did his doctoral research on
 this topic declares, "It would be wrong to attribute
the genesis of the separatist movements to the work
of Christian missionaries." He points out that the
Meitis of Manipur were never Christians. The small
Christian population in Manipur resides in the hills.
It is the non- Christian Meitis in the plains, who
now revolt against cultural imposition and
Vaishnavism and promote revival of Meiti
religion and culture.

The six-member study team of the Central Government,
headed by Dinesh Singh, MP, stated, "Christian
missionary activity in Tripura has very little
significance. There are just one per cent Christians."
Who is then responsible for the Tripura troubles?
The Statesman summed it up well: ``Ignoring the
cause of the malaise, the government blames it
on missionaries and foreigners.'' It must be
clearly noted that today there is not a single
foreign missionary in the entire Northeast India.

Role of the missionary

However, is the Christian missionary totally
innocent of today's tribal upsurge in India? No.
The Christian worker is the one who taught the
tribal to read, read tribal history, Indian
history and world history. The Christian is the
one who created tribal social awareness, awareness
of their basic rights and responsibilities as
citizens and humans.

The Christian is the one who elevated the tribals
to talk on equal terms with the oppressor and
demand their human rights. If this is an unpatriotic
act, the Christian worker must honestly admit his
"unpatriotism." But it is the same Christian worker
who did the same service to the freedom fighters
and the founding fathers of our nation.

Dr. EBE SUNDER RAJ
Joint Convenor, United Christian Forum for Human Rights







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