By Shajahan Madampat
The arrest of two Malayali Catholic nuns in Chhattisgarh on charges of human trafficking and proselytisation, now out on bail for which the prime minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are profusely thanked by the Church leadership, has brought about some hilarious and ironical repercussions in Kerala.
A substantial chunk of the Syrian Christian leadership has been hobnobbing with the Sangh Parivar, and much to the latter’s delight and on its behalf, spreading anti-Muslim venom for quite some time now. In fact, several of the anti-Muslim online channels in Malayalam are owned and run by Christians. There are a bunch of Christian ideologues, by now very well-known, who peddle Islamophobic propaganda on television channels with irksome regularity. Unprecedented and highly objectionable anti-Muslim rhetoric by priests at the highest levels has become somewhat commonplace.
The nuns’ arrest has led to a moment of disillusion, and many of the notorious Muslim haters among the Christians who were fascinated by the Sangh Parivar are now expressing shock and disgust at the event. One foul-mouthed man even went to the extent of regretting the hard work he and his ilk had done over the years in pushing the Sanghi narrative. In a moment of rare candidness, he even blurted out that he had expected such atrocities only for another group of people. A particularly egregious media owner lamented that the credibility the BJP had established among Kerala Christians completely vanished following the arrest of the nuns. In a statement that revealed a veiled admission of the cooperation with the Sangh Parivar, the Supreme Head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Baselios Marthoma Mathews The Third (III), said that a policy of simultaneous appeasement and persecution is contradictory.
In this rare moment of vindication, secular circles are throwing the Martin Niemoller lines at the “Chrisanghis” (Christian Sanghis) with utter disdain. Now that the state elections are round the corner, both the UDF and LDF have begun using the opportunity to woo the Christians, a significant section among whom revelled in their bonhomie with the BJP. In fact, the most vituperative verbal attacks against the Muslims in Kerala in recent times have not come from the ranks of the Sangh Parivar, but from a bunch of Christians, who included bishops and political leaders.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
