Minority Report: Strategies for secular survival in a majoritarian world

For some time now, a group known as the Catholic-Christian Secular Forum (CSF) has, ironically enough, been a matter of concern for some Indian Catholics who see themselves as secular. The reasons for this concern are numerous and this column does not intend to discuss the problems that the CSF poses; there will be plenty of time for that, especially since the CSF does not look like it is going away. While flagging the CSF as a concern for Indian Catholics committed to crafting a secular society in the face of rising religious extremism in the country, this column will only highlight that one of the central problems with the CSF lies in the manner in which it seeks to build up the idea of the Church in India being a persecuted church.

There can be no doubt that like the Muslim communities in India, Christians too are being persecuted by segments of both State and society. However, while this may be a problem, it is not the full picture, and we need to bear this fact in mind, as we combat, and combat stiffly, this persecution. The problem with the CSF lies in the fact that, just like segments of Muslims and Hindus in the country, they seek to create a minority complex among Christians in India. Nothing can be more detrimental to the creation of a secular spirit than the creation of a minority complex, since this complex engenders a siege mentality within the group. Once cultivated sufficiently, we are unable to see social relations except in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Every action is read as being an action of ‘them’ against ‘us’. Most importantly, the creation of this siege mentality ensures that internal questions of democratic reform are suffocated to allow the dominant forces within these groups to run the show without brooking any argument.

To this extent then, Fr. Thomas Sequeira, who recently stepped down as the deputy secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) had it right when he is reported to have said that Christians in India should not entertain a minority complex. Unfortunately however, after this sage bit of advice his argument seems to have capsized into the sea of majoritarianism that constitutes the dominant political thought in our country today. Fr. Sequeira went on to suggest that while the Christians should not entertain a minority complex, but they should nevertheless “consider their minority status as an invitation to join the majority community for the nation building.”

Let us exclude for the moment the fact that the word ‘nation’ has a specific history and meaning, and assume that what Fr. Sequeira did in fact mean, was ‘country-building’. Indeed, in other parts of the interview Fr. Sequeira uses the word country, in the same context as he earlier used ‘nation’. Even if we exclude this possibility, we are still left with the problematic equation that Fr. Sequeira has drawn up, one in which the relationship is between one minority, the Christians, and one majority, the Hindus. Erased completely from this equation are the other groups outside of Hinduism, such as the heterogeneous Muslim communities, as well as the minorities within Hinduism.

This formulation of the equation unfortunately, may not be the result of a minor error. On the contrary it is reflective of a larger position within the tendency of the leadership of the Catholic Church in India to see itself. It sees itself as largely in conversation with the Hindu majority, the Muslim (and other) groups either falling as a second-rate priority or none at all. We need merely look at the manner in which Fr. Sequeira reportedly illustrated the argument he was making. He suggested that his native state of Goa was a good example to show how people in villages, and especially in the panchayats, think beyond religious consideration to work together for the common good, resolving issues of electricity, water and urbanization. Given the manner in which in a number of cases Muslim communities in Goa have been targeted by panchayats, it is difficult to believe that Fr. Sequeira was thinking of the happy interaction between all kinds of Goans, and not just Catholics and Hindus in happy dialogue.

An interaction with those Catholic religious engaged in dialogue with Muslim communities in India, will reveal the kind of frustration that they experience as a result of a failure to find any support from their religious communities. As it turns out, a good number of Catholics (religious and lay alike) do in fact see the Muslims as a part of the problem, rather than as victims of a complex problem. Allow me to suggest that the reasons they may see the Muslims as the problem, is not only because of the upper-caste positions that the hierarchy  and lay-leaders of the Church often adopt, if not actually being drawn from these caste locations, but also as a result of the uncritical adoption of Indian nationalist rhetoric.

One such possible example can be gleaned from the article reporting Fr. Sequeira’s observations. The article reported that Fr. Sequeira suggested that Christians have to work to remove the perception among certain sections of Indians that the Church indulges in conversion works. His suggestion was that what the Church was in fact engaged in was an attempt “to strengthen our country.” Fr. Sequeira is not wrong in making this suggestion. Owing to developments in missiology since the early twentieth century, there has been a genuine attempt by the Catholic Church to engage not merely in conversion, but in standing witness to Christ by ameliorating the condition of those in need of aid. Thus in the words of Pierre Charles S.J., one of the foundational missiologists of our time “you may entertain the secret hope that your educational effort may produce religious results, but you should not make that hope the primary motive of your enterprise...” To do so, Fr. Charles suggested, would leave the missionary in a morally rather unpleasant position.

 

This could be what Fr. Sequeira was referring to when he refers to the work of the Church in India as developmental, and not as conversion work. However, at the end of the day, we must recognize that the Church is founded on carrying the faith to others and thus welcomes (after due diligence and examination) persons into its flock. Thus while the church may be engaged in strengthening the country, its premise must continue to be hoping for gains to its cult. To skirt around this issue is to agree to the Indian nationalist position, built on Hindu minoritarianism, that conversions are unacceptable, as they pose a threat to nationalism and the majoritarian idea of the Indian community imagined as ideally Hindu.

Fr. Sequeira however emphasized that “[R]ecent cases of Christian persecutions have not discouraged the Church to carry on with its work among the poor and the deprived” suggesting therefore, that the Church embraces persecution, rather than shies from it. If such be the case then, it would behove the CSF and other Christian groups to understand that the persecution that various minority groups in India are witness to is not reason to retreat into minoritarianism, but on the contrary a reason to expand into the realms of the secular, contesting the right of a majority to dictate terms in a democracy.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times  20 June 2012)

Wheat from Chaff II – An eye for an eye, but no teeth please.

A fortnight ago this column strayed from its usual path of picking on Hindu right-wingers to focus on the Catholic bigot. The varied responses to that column justified the decision to take up the issue of the Catholic bigot. Rich and varied have been the response, some supportive, indicating that it was something that needed to be said, some sympathetic pointing out that the Goan Catholic elite are a group that history has left behind, while others were frankly piqued and peeved. It is the last that are perhaps most instructive and useful to construct a counter.

Before moving on to these piques though, it should be pointed out that the earlier column was not about the Goan Catholics, nor about the Goan Catholic elite. It was more specifically about the bigots that populate both these groups. A supportive response rightly highlighted that while the column provided ‘picture of a part, or even a good part of this elite…there was another relevant part (of the Goan Catholic elite) that was anti-Salazarist, active or quietly, and that though even professionally dependent on colonial rule had the courage not to compromise with it.’ To be sure there were these brave persons, whose examples we cannot and must not forget. Indeed, these women and men are the examples we need to hold aloft. However it needs to be pointed out that the bigotry of the Catholic elite was not merely tied to Salazar. Salazar was only one facet of a larger problem that colonial values created in Goa. In contemporary Portugal Salazar is conveniently made a bogeyman for all things bad, so that to stone him allows contemporary Portuguese to self-exculpate themselves from post-colonial faux pas completely. To brutally paraphrase the Urdu poet Faiz, there are greater evils in the Lusofone world than Salazar.

This defense of the past column to affirm that it was not calling all Goan Catholics bigots stems from the fact that the largest piques resulted from this particular misreading. These posts inquired why the column was ‘baying for the blood’ of ‘Goan Catholics in Goa (who) today are a shrinking minority. Jason can get around and finish the job he has set out by crucifying the remaining.’ This is a somewhat bizarre response since a shrewd appraisal of the situation would point out that when a community can identify its bigots, and effectively deal with them, it creates the space to protect the larger community from external attack. This response was indicative of the manner in which the sense of persecution or marginalization (the fact of which this column has consistently argued for) contributes to an inability to introspect and address problems within. It is in this sense then that Hindutva (or any other majoritarianism for that matter) prevents minority groups from addressing issues of inequality and injustice within it. When pushed to the wall, the dominant groups within a minority invariably manage to suffocate internal challenges to the status-quo. Thus the critique of a bigoted mindset among Catholics was castigated as a challenge both to Goa and to Catholics itself. As argued in the earlier column, given the representational dominance of the elite, it is elite representations of Catholic Goan-ness that get frozen as the representative of an entire community. It was also within elite Goan Catholic contexts, that this peculiar brand of bigotry was produced. To this extent then Catholic bigots (like bigots in any group) are not harmless but act as foils for majoritarian attack, and also work together with this right to undermine the non-dominant groups within their fold.

There is also a need for us to challenge notions of a homogeneous and unified Catholic community. Just as there is no single Hindu community, but a Hindu community fractured by region, caste and class; just as the Indian Muslim is a fictitious character, similarly the ‘Goan Catholic’ too is a largely fictitious entity. This is not to deny that there are factors and features that bind different groups together as Catholics and Goans. This is merely to point that this unity is not total. It is fractured by the existence of caste, class, region and goodness knows how many other factors. The last column was castigated for dragging caste unnecessarily into the issue. This was surprising given the last column argued that Catholic bigotry was not restricted to a class or class, but can be, and is present, among all groups. I would like to extract two comments here. The first, ‘I am a sudra fighting for the Goan cause.’ And a second, ‘Not sure which Bamon rubbed Jason Keith Fernandes on the wrong side for him to paint all Goan Catholics with his dirty muck calling them bigots!’ These comments tell us that there is more to caste among Catholics than we care to admit. Both these comments assume the blemish-free nature of Sudras and non-brahmins, and assume that it is always Brahmins or Bamons who are trouble-makers. This column has time and again argued that Brahmins do not hold a monopoly on brahmanical thinking. However, given that the brahmanical frameworks work to their advantage, like other dominant castes, they have a tendency towards it.

Speaking of bigotry among Goan Catholics is important because their bigotry often masquerades as a call to ‘Save Goa’. It prevents any opportunity for internal debate as they present the Hindu right as a far greater threat and call for ‘unity’ in the face of this attack. In both cases there is a reason to fight, both for Goa, as well as Christian security in India and in Goa. But we should not allow the bigots to colour our choices and strategies. These bigots would not have us work with other minority groups or create a genuinely democratic politics. Thus in Goa, they would have us spurn choices to align with the cause of Muslim persecution in Goa, or to work with Dalit and tribal causes in both Goa and other parts of India. They will not contemplate the possibility that Goa's emigration/migration problems could perhaps be partially addressed through better and respectful labour conditions. The bigot would have us believe in our superiority merely because we are Catholic and embody (forgotten) Portuguese values. Indeed they would use discontent with the present to produce an idyllic and blemish-free Portuguese past, which indeed it was not. The bigot would have us confuse uniformity (of opinion) for unity. And in these embattled times, this is no option at all.

(P.S. The reference to 'Save Goa' is not a reference to the 'Save Goa Movement' that existed fas a coalition of groups or a brief moment in recent Goan history)

(A version was first published in the Gomantak Times 19 Jan 2010)