Why Kerala’s Christians love, fear BJP

George Kurian did not contest the recent Lok Sabha elections yet Prime Minister Narendra Modi included him in the Union Council of Ministers Hailed as the Bharatiya Janata Partyrsquos Christian face in Kerala Kurian is an argument for convincing the community to repose their faith in the party notorious for attacking churches and assaulting priests and the laity countrywideThe BJP must act against its Hindutva instinct in Kerala because of its demographymdashHindus are 55 per cent Muslims 27 per cent and Christians 18 per cent of the population Since the BJPMuslim relationship is too broken to be repaired the party must weld a segment of Christians to its expanding base among the Hindus in order to emerge as a contender for power in KeralaIt is from this demographic matrix Kurianrsquos importance arises But herein lies a catch Keralarsquos Christian community is not homogenous Kurian belongs to the SyroMalabar Church one of the three Catholic Churches there The other two are Latin rite Church and the SyroMalankara Church All three differ in rituals of worship and in their relationship with the PopeClass also differentiates them The followers of the Latin Church largely belong to marginalised communities Categorised as a backward class they have a four per cent quota in government jobs and educational institutes By contrast the followers of SyroMalabar and SyroMalankara churches are socially and educationally advanced own land and educational institutes and constitute an important segment of both professional and business classesThey claim they are Brahmins who converted to Christianity centuries ago and have what sociologists would call the ldquomentality of the upper castesrdquo Their worldview and the BJPrsquos have a natural fit defined by their engagement to perpetuate the social hierarchy Significantly SyroMalabar Christians are numerically the most dominant of all Christian dominationsThe BJPrsquos Christian policy in Kerala is not benign I spoke on this issue to former principal of St Stephenrsquos College Valson Thampu who said a ldquocanardrdquo has been systematically spread that the Christians particularly the followers of SyroMalabar Church have been facing an ldquoexistential threat from a hostile and conspiring Muslim communityrdquo intent on politically and economically marginalising themThe other prong of the BJPrsquos strategy has been the Enforcement Directoratersquos raids on a couple of bishopsmdashDharmaraj Rasalam of the Church of South India and K P Yohanan of the Believers Eastern Churchmdashwhich alarmed the community of church leaders Several of them are indeed guilty of serious economic irregularities Thampu said adding ldquoThey understood that they need the BJPrsquos goodwill to save their skin Call this patronageandblackmail politics if you willrdquoEven George Alencherry the previous head of the SyroMalabar Church was accused of being involved in a land scam and was visited by tax officials The SyroMalabar Church has spoken in conflicting voices with bishops as scared of the raids as smitten by the BJPrsquos outreach Some have openly signalled their preference for Modi and others have opposed their viewsYet the bishopsrsquo fear of the State alone cannot explain the growing inclination of SyroMalabar Christians towards the BJP For instance Union Minister Suresh Gopi could not have won without the support of SyroMalabar Christians from Thrissur where they have a substantial presence Their shift toward the BJP is partly an expression of their economic insecurity arising from falling agricultural prices They feel the BJPrsquos quest to expand in Kerala will have it promote their interestsBut it is also about anxiety dogging SyroMalabar Christians as they watch Muslims lower to them in the economic hierarchy leverage their 12 per cent reservation entitlement and deploy their capital largely accumulated in the Gulf to advance both educationally and economically Like the upper castes of north India SyroMalabar Christians rail against reservation and believe they are discriminated againstTheir ire is reserved particularly for the Special Minority Programme which assigns 80 per cent of scholarships to Muslim students and 20 per cent to ldquoother minoritiesrdquo Church leaders say since Muslims are 60 per cent of Keralarsquos religious minorities the allocation to other minorities should be 40 per cent The Kerala High Court ruled against the 8020 formula but the government went in appeal against the judgement Church leaders attribute this to ldquovote bank politicsrdquo which they believe only the BJP can dismantleIn this environment of competition and anxiety many SyroMalabar Christians have fallen for the bogus theory of love jihad One SyroMalabar Christian leader estimated that two to three per cent of ldquotheir girlsrdquo in every parish are married to Muslims To this a journalistfriend remarked ldquoThe incidence of interfaith marriage is rising among all communities There is love but no jihadrdquoThe inclination of SyroMalabar Christians towards the BJP perturbs Christians outside the state The United Christian Forum a civil society group maintains a helpline for community members to report attacks from Hindutva groups Its national coordinator A C Michael said the helpline recorded 117 incidents of attacks on Christians in 2015 This number jumped to 731 in 2023 ldquoIt dismays me that SyroMalabar Christians should lean towards the BJP oblivious of attacks on the community elsewhererdquo But then elite groups are always open to unconscionable political bargains even in Godrsquos own countryThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper