It is time to investigate the Hindu phobias and the Christian laissez faire to seek the reasons for the horrible violence in Orissa. According to the Holy Church, suffering often carries a message. May be God wants to send a message across to the Indian C

JEWISH HISTORY is a history of Holocausts. The final destruction of the Temple marked just the beginning of the trials of the ordinary Jew. No wonder then, that the greatest Jew of all time is just a Marginal Jew. It is this idea of marginality or, in the Indian context -- subalternity that distinguishes the path of this Marginal Jew. And the Lord of History has to repeatedly allow persecutions to beset those whom He loves to draw them closer to him once again. The real Panopticon is that of God’s who did not hesitate to crucify His own Son for the sake of defeating structures of sin. The ultimate woof of history belongs to God. It is keeping these aspects of the godhead and Jewish history that we should search for reasons for the carnage that is even now happening in Orissa. I write as a staunch Hindu, who nonetheless, believes in Jesus as my ’Ishta Devta’ and the Church as the rock on which the Kingdom of God is established. In other words, I witness as a Hindu Brahmin the wonders and the mysteries of Christ.

There are two angles to this simmering hatred that is boiling over in my nation: One is highly academic and thus, of only scholarly value; the other one is more plebian and thus, much more important for our discussion here.
 

After Vatican II the Church in India actively seeks to establish cultural roots here. There exists a large corpus of Christian theological exegesis which bolsters what is now known in seminary-circles as ’inculturation’. There is an ever increasing demand for dialogue and condemnation of what is termed as Hindutva. In other words, the Church desires to contextualise Hindu praxis within Her own matrix, namely, the liturgical practices of the Catholic Church in India. Putting it a bit more academically, the Roman Church in India wants to create a new grand narrative in contextualisation which deliberately wants to erase the old nakedly Eurocentric thrusts. At least, this is how the Church sees itself.


Even a cursory glance at the available Catholic apologetics of our times reveal this much instantly. How does it go about executing this erasure of the old ways and the construction of new paradigms sensitive to the Indian ethos? This has been done with great visual and aural effects in three ways: through the changing of the age-old habits of the religious from European soutanes to saris and ochre robes of the Hindu sannyasis; adding Sanskrit songs and chants within the liturgy in the Latin rite and lastly, by creating Hindu temple like structures where the Virgin and the Lord are made too look like Hindu deities. And often on Sundays, one finds the religious at the Church doors, speaking in Hindu terms to their parishioners: Jai Yesu, for example. Then there is the endless discussion of Hinduism in seminaries and courses galore on comparative religions in Papal Seminaries throughout India. These are what the Church in India thinks as legitimate endeavours of a free people.


Let us now in all fairness see how these efforts are construed at the grass root level. Why should the Church do this and not simply condemn the barbaric and heinous nature of the assaults in Orissa? Why should she concede that fundamentalists are not the only ones to blame? The answer lies in Church history, suffering often has a message. May be there is too much counter-witnessing within the Church. When demoniac men burn alive other women and men, then the former need not be discussed in conciliatory terms but rather delegated to penal systems to see them punished suitably. What is this message? Is it possible that inculturation is simply not working in India?


The much touted dialogue in the Church is in reality only monologue. Hinduism is fundamentally a non-celibate religion. The Church being top-heavy in India naturally draws Hindu monks in its efforts to reach out to Hindus. While certainly the Church runs much coveted educational institutions all over India; they simply serve to weaken the Church here. It is true that most students in such institutions are Hindus but notice how often their parents are offended by seemingly powerful headmasters and principals. Notice how often these same women and men of the cloth are seen posing in photographs with business-scions and politicians. Also notice the unavailability of these same education-religious within the local social structures of the places where they live. And these are the most numerous amongst Indian Catholic religious.



The Catholic Church in India is certainly perceived as an educational behemoth which is elitist and exclusive in Her choice of pupils. The Church in India is firmly entrenched within a vicious circle of paradoxes and thus, runs the risk of being termed a chameleon which preaches sacrifices but serves hedonism. Walk into any of the urban schools and colleges run by the religious in India and all the efforts of the rural religious in inculturation will immediately seem hypocritical to even the least conscientious of men. How is it possible that those who profess Sanyasa, those who vow renunciation of the world and its pomps, live like feudal lords in the fiefdoms that are their institutions? So the average man on the streets lusts after the coveted seats provided by these established places of learning while at the same time cringing at the tortures and humiliations that the process of entry to these places often entails. It never helps that the Church in India keeps on boasting about the service it so kindly renders to the Hindu populace. This Janus-nature of the Indian Church, this deplorable polarisation between the much more honest rural Church and the Pharisaical urban Indian Church is its undoing here. The whiff of double-standards defeats any efforts at inculturation.


This is not to condone the violence that rocks my fellowmen. Yet my response is one of faith in both the truths of Hinduism and Catholicism. Everything that happens, happens only because God allows it and God speaks to us through daily occurrances. More than the hierarchy who suffer, it is the ordinary Christian who is persecuted. Let the Church note this.


The academic explanation for this violence should not only be located in the idea of anti-conversion laws in India or the rise of the so-called Hindutva. By being seminary limited and imitative of Western, South American theology movements, Indian theologians have created a morass of dead theologies which subtly bypass the more lived elements of both Catholicism and Hinduism. By blindly accepting Indian society’s structural injustices as given, Catholic theology in India seems always resistant to understanding Hindu sentiments which see this discourse merely as another western diatribe. Indian Catholic theology is merely a rehash of western movements and draws its inspiration from Patristic sources rather than any genuine appreciation of Anekattavadas.

Thus, the whole idea of studying Hinduism is defeated in Indian clerical circles. There are no Hindus really involved in this experiment. Everything is reduced to changes of names from erstwhile European ones to new Sanskrit ones. This nominalist effort as claiming everything Christian in India as ontologically native just remains polemical and superficial.


May be God wants to send a message across to the Indian Church to be more loyal to the Gospels first and then inculturate. And as a Church of praying people in pilgrimage across this vale of tears, I request your prayers for my Hindu brothers who are persecuting you. Father, they do not know what they do.
Om Shanti.