Blogs For Victory

Keeping in mind our great love for our fellow free people of India, we still must be concerned about this, and work to assist the Indians in paying more than lip service to religious pluralism:

Citing concerns about Hindu extremists, Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, India has canceled many of the Christmas festivities in his north Indian diocese.

One of the canceled festivities is the annual Christmas ‘Dance Drama,’ whose celebration on the steps of the cathedral of Lucknow City is typically attended by more than 50,000 people, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) reports.

The dance’s performers include seminarians and novice religious sisters and brothers. Drawing heavily on local culture, the dance drama reenacts Scriptural texts from throughout the Bible with a concentration upon the Nativity.

The two open-air performances of the dance attract a mostly non-Christian audience to St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Lucknow, a majority Hindu city with a 20 percent Muslim population. The event is a key means of outreach in the city of three million, of whom only 4,000 are Catholics.

In further changes to Christmas plans, Bishop Mathias decided not invite the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state, the Governor of Lucknow, the chief justice and other dignitaries to an event of carols, brief speeches, and a meal.

The bishop has also called off a Christmas Day gathering for around 15 priests from Lucknow and another celebration involving clergy and religious from throughout the diocese that was planned for December 30.

Father Ignatius D’Souza, the Diocese of Lucknow’s vicar general, acknowledged that people would be disappointed by the cancelations. However, he reported that an ordinary exhibition of the Christmas story will continue in the cathedral compound and said people were welcome to enter and light a candle according to the local custom.

Father D’Souza explained the decision to cancel the events, saying:

“We are concerned about fundamentalist activity. The extremists’ strategy is very long term and they might see our diocesan Christmas activities as an opportunity to take action.”

From what I can tell, there is an element of Hindu extremists who see the growing Christian Church in India as a threat to India’s social structure, especially the reliance some in India place on a class of “untouchables” to provide cheap labor. People only remain “untouchable” as long as they subscribe to the Hindu theology – once converted to Christianity, the former untouchable might still be despised, but he’ll no longer be servile.

Along with the vital message of Christ, Christians are bringing to the poor of India something they’ve always lacked – education, health care and hope for a better life. The Indian government, to its credit, has done much to alleviate the grinding poverty so many Indians live in, as well as accord genuine political rights to the lower classes – but India is a large country with a huge population and not a lot of monetary resources. There’s only so much a government can do. And so in has stepped Christianity – and to the good. But along with change, comes fear amongst those who benefit from the current social structure. Its an age-old story, and we here in America experienced it as recently as the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.

India has about 24 million Christians – about 2.3% of India’s population, making it India’s third largest religious denomination (though vastly smaller than the Hindu and Moslem religions). The fright among some in India is caused by the rapid growth of Christianity (in this 2005 article, the growth is called “alarmingly high”). Exact figures are hard to come by, but it would appear that a 20% annual growth rate for Christianity is plausible, with conversions making up a large proportion of that growth. You just have to do the math – 24 million this year, 28 million next year, 33 million the year after. Not too long before Christians will make up 10% or more of the Indian population…and that is the level where you no longer remain a supplicant for toleration, but a group demanding equality. Given that Indian Christians still have large families, don’t engage in abortion (especially the horrific sex-selection abortions ever more common amongst Hindu families) and generally tend to that social stability which leads to population growth, one can see where Hindus who like the social dispensation they’ve lived under for a thousand years or more might get disturbed.

But toleration and equality there must be, if India is to take its rightful place in the world. Any actions we take must be taken with care – we don’t want to inflame anti-Christian sentiment, but we must work steadily and persistently with the Indian government to improve the lot of Christians in India.