Attack on Nuns in Kerala -Some Unseen Facts

Posted October 9, 2004
Pradeep Nair
Kerala Online
10/10/2004

There is a furor in Kerala after radical Hindu groups opposed a batch of nuns from the Mother Theresa order in Kozhikode who went to do charity at a starvation affected colony. While one can ask the question why those who prevented it are themselves not helping the poor there are also many other issues involved. The reports say that the nuns were earlier sent back by the local people when they came in good strength leading to a conflict. Demonstrations followed and the police are on the look out for those involved. There is public outrage and the media in Kerala is crying for action.

But when the whole history of Christianity in Kerala is seen in perspective one can not help but feel alarmed. For the population of Christians in Kerala few centuries back was less than 20,000 that when Vasco da Gama came to Kerala in 1497. Earlier they were a few families of Syrian Christians who came as refugees and were given asylum by the Kerala kings. More people came later and during the British rule the numbers climbed, obviously by conversions facilitated by the Christian rulers. The Kerala Christians as history tells were the allies of the British till they left the shores. They had by then also become powerful and today under the numbers game of electoral democracy they run Kerala with the vote bank politics. Kerala has a Syrian Christian Chief Minister, with a Chief Secretary and Police Chief from the community to assist. The strategy of Christian conversions was always the same, help the poor then convert. To begin the game make a people poor first. If by colonial devices then through globalization now.

It is interesting that the Syrian Christians of Kerala are spread over India and are running the whole conversion machinery in the nooks and corners of the country with support from international Christian aid agencies. Some historians even go to the extend of proving that they invited the western colonial powers to India, leading to India's colonization few centuries back, that with hard evidence. It also has links to global economics where by design or default most of today's rich countries are Christian. Economic history says that the income disparity between nations started by the mid 1700s. That means the poor rich divide started during colonial period, that colonial loot paved the way for the present inequity. How India, once rich and sought after by Vasco da Gama and Columbus, is today a nation of starving people. A country indebted to the rich west and paying heavy interests just like all other countries of Asia, Africa and Caribbean. Unfair trade dictated by the rich west drive the poor further down the pit. And the same nations do charity through agencies like the Missionaries of Charity, of Mother Theresa.

Within Kerala this double game had its own manifestation. The tribal belts of the western ghats are now not admitting the missionaries. Earlier this was a major area of their operation. The reason, those who came offering heaven later took over the poor tribal's land and the tribals were ousted. What later became famous as the tribal land issue of Kerala. Ironically the powerful Christian community who encroached tribal lands and got title deeds using their political clout also managed to nullify a union government legislation aimed at restoring alienated tribal lands across the country. The Kerala assembly voted enmasse to dispossess the tribals. Such is the power the Christian lobby enjoys in Kerala where the community controls not only politics, also media with an 85 percent share. Public education, they have 80 percent share, apart from business and economy as a whole. Their main planks are international capital and vote bank politics. Post-independence Kerala thus came in to Christian colonization after the British left.

So it is not a freak case of some radical Hindu groups attacking a batch of good Samaritan nuns in Kozhikkode as it is made out, it is a feeble reaction from a people who are cornered. As it is the police has let out reprisals and the political parties in Kerala are vying with each other to condemn the attack. The media fears that the progressive image of Kerala will suffer given the international good will enjoyed by the order of Mother Theresa. But what is forgotten is the plight of the small state which during the visit of Marco Polo in 13 th century was the 'noblest nation in the world'. Today Kerala bestowed with nature's bounty is slowly becoming the suicide capital of the world. The pristine natural systems are all but perished, traditional sectors like agriculture and crafts are all near dead. With large remittances from abroad, from Keralites working abroad mainly from the minority communities, the inflation rates have sky rocketed and the ordinary people are committing suicides. The new thrust of externally imposed globalization has made the scene worse. It is to this starving people that the nuns come with alms. As if the lessons learned are not enough.