There is a popular belief that Christians blindly vote for the Congress, en bloc. To a great extent the Congress has also allowed itself to believe this. Considering that a Congress led coalition Government is now in power, it would be politically expedient to reaffirm that Christians are Congressites. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth, if one is to go by the voting pattern and results of E2004.
The All India Catholic Union (AICU), which represents 16 million lay Catholics in public life, held its Working Committee Meeting in Goa shortly after the results were declared. Members from all over the country reported what happened at the grassroots level, while the national leaders gave an overview.
Let’s first look at the results. 5 Christians were elected to the Lok Sabha from Kerala, where there is a heavy concentration of Christians. Not one of these is from the Congress. Manoj Abraham won on the CPM ticket from Allapuzzha, as did his colleague Lonappan Nanbadan from Mukundapuram. He defeated Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja by 1,30,000 votes. Sebastian Paul from Ernakulalm is an Independent supported by the Left Democratic Front (LDF). He won even though the bishop of Cochin publicly espoused another candidate; though two other bishops there took a neutral stand. In contrast to their bishop, the Latin Catholic Association in Ernakulam openly supported the LDF candidate, who won. Francis George of the Kerala Congress (Joseph), an ally of the LDF, won from Idduki. Astoundingly, P.C. Thomas, a minister in the outgoing NDA Government, won from the Christian heartland of Moovathupuzha squeaking through by 539 votes. He had the tacit support of the bishops of the area. The Malankara Catholic Association had actively supported Manoj Abraham, who was the President of its Alleppey (Allapuzzha) unit. Lonappan’s constituency is near Trichur, another Christian bastion, where several parish units supported his candidature. Kerala Christians were apparently bugged by the Congress Chief Minister A.K. Antony’s “Soft Hindutva” approach. It is therefore apparent that in Kerala, the Christians quite literally saw red!
This is not an isolated case. Neighbouring Tamilnadu, which has some pockets of Christians, mostly Dalit, also saw red. All three Christians MPs elected from this State are again from the Left parties. Mohan MP from Madurai and Belormir from Kanyakumari won on CPM tickets, while Appadurai won from Thinkasi constituency on a CPI ticket. The DMK had included the Dalit Christian issue in its election manifesto.
Moving up from the deep south the colour changes. In Karnataka, Congress stalwart, Margaret Alva, lost. But super cop H.T. Sangliana (a committed Christian from Mizoram) won on the BJP ticket from Bangalore. He had reportedly stated that he wanted to shout the name of Jesus in parliament, and rename the BJP as “Bhartiya Jesus Party”! Some hope that.
East of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh has elected a Christian Chief Minister, in the person of Dr. Y.S. Rajshekar Reddy. Earlier Christian leaders had met former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, saying that though they appreciated him as a person, they would not vote for him, as that would be tantamount to supporting the BJP. Talk about shooting from the lip! On the west coast, the Catholic dominated region of South Goa elected Churchill Alemao as their MP on a Congress ticket. The Catholic Association of Goa said their determination of candidate was based on “winnability”. So did other factors like credibility take a backseat?
Let us now dash across to the northeast, which has three Christian majority states – Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. Purno Sagma, an NDA ally, won the Tura seat in Meghalaya. P.R. Kyndiah, a Congress veteran, won the Shillong seat. One seat each in Mizoram and Nagaland were won by regional parties allied with Sangma and the NDA. They are Vanlalzawma of the Mizo National Front, and W. Wangyuh of the Nagaland Peoples’ Front. Adjoining the North East, in the chicken’s neck area of West Bengal, Joachim Baxla won on a Revolutionary Socialist Party ticket from Alipurdwar. Another tribal winner was Sushila Kerketta of the Congress, from the Khunti seat in Jharkhand.
This roundup can end with three aces – Sonia Gandhi (U.P.) and Ajit Jogi (Chhatisgarh) of the Congress, and George Fernandes of the JDU, who won from his adopted land of Bihar. All three are of Christian background, but are not known to publicly profess their faith.
Till the time of writing we are not aware of any Christians who were elected to the Lok Sabha from Orissa, Andhra and Arunachal, all of which have sent Christians to parliament in the past. From the available information, 19 Christians have been elected to the 542-member Lok Sabha. That is 3.5%, as against the Christian population, which is 2.3% of the country. This means that the number of Christians elected to the Lok Sabha is 52% higher than their proportionate number. It is conclusive evidence that Christians are very much in the mainstream of Indian politics. The party wise break up is also interesting: LDF – 8, NDA – 6; Congress – 5 (which includes Sonia and Jogi, who were elected from constituencies where there are hardly any Christians). This data debunks the myth that Christians are diehard Congress supporters.
Perhaps the Congress needs to sit up and introspect on its attitude towards Christians. The Congress fumed against the anti-conversion laws of Jayalalithaa and Modi; conveniently forgetting that it was the originator of such laws in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. (Morarji Desai’s Janata Party was responsible for similar legislation in Arunachal). The Congress also instituted the infamous Niyogi Commission in Madhya Pradesh in the 1950’s, which targeted the then foreign missionaries. The long standing demand of Equal Rights to Dalit Christians (since 1950) has never really been on the Congress agenda, not even when Rajiv Gandhi had a brute 80% majority in the Lok Sabha. Neither did the Congress lift a finger for redress of Christian personal laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, succession and adoption. Ironically, it was the allegedly ‘anti-minority’ NDA Government that enacted amendments in the Indian Divorce Act (1869) and Indian Succession Act (1925), giving relief to Christians.
Now that the Congress is back in the saddle it needs to address itself to three major issues affecting the Christian Community. It must grant equal rights to Dalit Christians (Christians of Scheduled Caste Origin). The Presidential Order of 1950 gave SC status and privileges to Hindus only. After Master Tara Singh of the Akali Dal went on an indefinite fast in 1956, Sikhs were also included in the SC list. In 1990 the VP Singh Janta Dal Government included Buddhists too. But SC Christians are still out in the cold. Will Manmohan Singh’s Government bring them in? Ironically, in the case of STs and OBCs (Mandal Commission), the Government treats all equally, regardless of religion. Then why this anomaly and dichotomy in the case of Dalit Christians?
The second pressing concern of Christians is that they have no legal right to adopt children. This is doubly ironical because Christians care for the maximum number of orphans in India.
The third concern is the Census 2001. It has revealed data on economic growth, sex ratios and a host of other parameters and indices. But it has not yet revealed the religion-wise population growth rates. Perhaps because it ran contrary to the then NDA Government’s propaganda, that due to mass conversions the Christian population was increasing rapidly. The facts are again to the contrary. Since 1971 the percentage of Christians in India has been declining from 2.6%, to 2.4% in 1981, and 2.3% in the 1991 Census. The Decadal Growth Rate (DGR) of Christians between 1981 and 1991 was 16.89%, as against the national average of 22.1% (or 5.21% percentage points less than the national DGR). It is time that the Government revealed the religious population figures of the 2001 Census. Since Christians have higher literacy rates and follow “responsible parenthood”, it can be safely assumed that the Christian DGR from 1991 to 2001 will again be well below the national average. This will debunk another myth propagated by the Sangh Parivar, that the nation is in danger, due to mass conversions by Christian missionaries and institutions. The Christians of India have been deeply hurt by this sustained vilification campaign.
The All India Catholic Union and its 120 affiliated Catholic Associations/ Sabhas across the country had given a clarion call to its members to take an active part in the electoral process. There was no party affiliation, but a commitment to secularism, and a crime and corruption free body politic.
None of the three Christian issues aforementioned have found a place in Manmohan Singh’s “Common Minimum Programme”. Will the 19 or more Christian MPs in the Lok Sabha speak up? Otherwise the Christians of India will actually see red – in a different metaphor. It would be a cross connection, and gross injustice to a community whose loyalty and service to the nation is unsurpassed.
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