The Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Church, one of the largest Eastern Catholic Churches, has severely criticised the erection of signboards prohibiting the entry of pastors and “converted Christians” in some Chhattisgarh villages, saying that such a move “marks out a group of people as second-class citizens” and called it “the most divisive boundary the country has seen since Partition”.
Referring to the recent Chhattisgarh High Court ruling that the hoardings could not be termed unconstitutional, the Church on Monday said, “In some villages of Chhattisgarh, signboards have been put up declaring that pastors and converted Christians are not allowed entry — a move the court has now approved. That signboard, which marks out a group of people as second-class citizens, is the most divisive boundary the country has seen since Partition.”
The Church called for a legal challenge to the High Court ruling, saying, “In a nation where lynch mobs, killers, persecutors of Dalits and Adivasis, and those forcing ‘ghar wapsi’ conversions are not prohibited, this verdict must be challenged in the Supreme Court.”
The influential Syro-Malabar Church, which happens to be at the top of the BJP’s Christian outreach mission in Kerala, further said in its statement, “In secular India, forces of Hindutva have successfully launched yet another experiment in religious discrimination and aggressive intolerance. By putting up these boards banning pastors and converted Christians in certain villages of Chhattisgarh, a new chariot march of institutionalised communalism has been set in motion.”
The Church said the resistance against Hindutva should be waged “in alliance with the Constitution” and not with “any kind of religious fanaticism”.
“…the resistance against this Hindutva invasion must not be carried out by equating it with other forms of communalism or extremism, nor by maintaining a so-called ‘holy silence’ against them. We must not lend our ears to the threatening temptations of those communal and extremist supporters who misuse the anti-fascist words, ‘Finally, they came for you.’ To keep India secular, the fight must not be waged in alliance with any kind of religious fanaticism — it must be waged only in alliance with the Constitution of India, the Magna Carta of citizens’ rights,’’ the Church said.
On October 28, the Chhattisgarh High Court’s Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru said the hoardings erected in the villages “appear to have been installed by the concerned Gram Sabhas as a precautionary measure to protect the interest of indigenous tribes and local cultural heritage.”
Story continues below this ad
In July this year, two Catholic nuns from Kerala, Preethi Marry and Vandana Francis, were arrested at Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh on charges of human trafficking and forced religious conversion. That case, in which the purported “victims” said the nuns were just helping them get jobs, had created a major stir in Kerala.
