Ways to end political isolation of Christians in India

Western-centric, religiously jingoistic, evangelical, insular, and apolitical are dominant constructs of Indian Christians. Often cocooned in the comfort of church pastoralism and doctrine, they are mostly active in community-centered social outreach, recreational activities and social relationships, and often responsive to societal concerns expressed through acts of charity, mercy and prayer.

However, the 32.2 million Indian Christians (2024) who constitute India’s diverse national tapestry, and are spread across its vastly different geographic terrain are also heterogenous. Their diversity manifests in economic, social, cultural, and ethnic status, political engagement, and denominational membership.

While conversion to Christianity accompanied the westernization in parts of 16th-century India, Christianity also encountered local cultural assertion, generating a unique mix of Indian-Christian practice marked by local socio-cultural traditions and sometimes religious syncretism.
“The Christian community’s contribution to India’s socio-economic-political life is anchored in Gospel values,” says retired Auxiliary Bishop Allwyn D’Silva of Mumbai.

According to him, the key Christian contributions are “compassionate outreach to the marginalized, providing quality education and ethics-based healthcare to all, promoting workplace rights and protections, upholding the dignity of the human person and human life, and caring for creation.”

He said women “have played a prominent role, especially in healthcare, education, community-centered organization, and care for creation.”

While “few individuals in the community have made an impact, the rest stand indifferent,” he said.

But this is not enough. In a context of growing polarization, a critical mass of Indian Christians as citizens need to elevate the work in Church ministries and congregations to a higher order of strategic engagement with India’s socio-economic and political mainstream.

The World Inequality Report 2022 shows that the top 1 percent of Indians hold 22 percent of the total national income, while the bottom 50 percent has to share 13 percent of the national income.

The Center for Monitoring Indian Economy places India’s unemployment rate at about 7.0 percent (May 2024), up from about 6 percent pre-Covid.

The mainstream Christian response to economic inequality and deprivation must transcend traditional welfare approaches.

The 2024 Global Gender Gap Index ranks India 129 out of 146 countries surveyed — eighteenth from the bottom.

“But the number of Christian women working on Indian women’s rights overall is abysmally low,” says Flavia Agnes, a prominent Mumbai-based women’s rights advocate.

“Also, whenever I attended meetings organized by Christian women on issues impacting them, I felt constrained by their insularity, peculiarly Christian framework and the inability to grasp commonalities and forge alliances with women of ‘other’ identities.

“Only a handful of Christian women have transcended this. As women and as Christians, we need to be concerned about all women,” asserts Agnes.

“Indian Christians’ political participation is woefully low,” according to Ruben Mascarenhas, the National Joint Secretary and Working President of the Aam Aadmi (Common People’s) Party in Mumbai.

“In Christian-dominated areas, most political parties do not give Christian candidates a ticket as they may do for others because they see us as docile, as pushovers and apolitical. We, too, do not come forward.”

Out of the 227 municipal corporators in Mumbai city and its suburbs, only one is a Christian. No Christian is among the 36 members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) elected from Mumbai and its suburbs, and none is a Christian among the 288 members elected to the house from across the state of Maharashtra, according to Mascarenhas.

“Election day is even viewed as a holiday for a picnic among some people I know. Again, the majority of us remain silent, praying at best, in the face of increased fracturing and violence along caste, religious and communal lines, even when it assaults us directly. But prayer without action is no prayer at all opined St. Teresa of Avila,” said Mascarenhas.

Bishop D’Silva notes, “times have changed and many of our freedoms have been curtailed. But with prudence, we must speak the truth and act justly with a merciful heart. The Christian community must not depend on the hierarchy but, in the spirit of synodality, bear witness to Christ through our lived commitment” to Gospel values.

The Christian community in India and across Asia can do this in partnership with others within and beyond the community through the following actions.

• Facilitate introspection to help appreciate and respect different economic, religious, ethnic, and other identities, and forge alliances on common causes with these groups.

• Provide structural analyses and understanding of socio-economic, environmental, and political structures and concerns that inform transformative action for justice and equality.

• Ensure secular leadership training that includes an understanding of good socioeconomic, political, and environmental governance. Build substantive political understanding of these terrains to dispel current attitudes that result in sociopolitical isolation.

• Broker constructive and sustained dialogue between policymakers/duty bearers and underserved and minority populations to ensure that the latter’s strategic interests are served through the design, re-tailoring and effective implementation of policies, laws, and programs. There are also several strategic government programs on provision of public goods and services whose de facto access to marginalized groups can be enhanced.

• Enhance civic and political consciousness on our rights and obligations to register as voters, vote in conscience, and even contest elections to ensure inclusion and representation.

“We must realize that apolitical persons are political as they support the status quo. Politics is not the last resort of scoundrels. Politics with a conscience and human values ensure good governance and social change, aligned with the interests of the marginalized,” says Mascarenhas.

This article is originally published on https://www.ucanews.com/news/ways-to-end-political-isolation-of-christians-in-india/105638