Scottish Catholic Observer

Bangalore is booming. Over the past decade, India’s IT capital has recorded economic growth of nearly 20 per cent per annum. Throughout the city glistening new skyscrapers are being thrown upwards toward the heavens. Yet all this thumping economic growth threatens to distract from the real and growing persecution of Christians by the Hindu majority.

This was brought home to Fr Faustine Lobo all too vividly in 2008. A veteran of various Church posts across Karnataka state—of which Bangalore is the capital—on September 1, the Archbishop of Bangalore made him the press officer for all of Karnataka.

Thirteen days later 20 Churches in the state, many of them Catholic, were attacked and vandalised, beginning a spiral of violence against Christians that would go on for a week. The Church’s new press officer had a full-blown crisis on his hands.

“It was all new to me,” he said. “But I had one advantage, I had helped develop our plan for the future of the Church in Karnataka. So I knew exactly what we were doing, where we were doing it and how. So I could speak of what I had seen and I knew that we had not done anything wrong.”

Despite his lack of experience, Fr Lobo was thrown to the lions on more than one occasion in his attempts to defend the Church from claims that they had incited the attacks on live television.

“I had to do one live discussion with a convener of a Hindu extremist group,’ he said. “He was very agitated and he said everything we the Church do is for our own promotion. I showed him how that is false. Forty per cent of education in this state is provided by the Church, yet over 80 per cent of the pupils are Hindu. And I asked him what is the number of converts and he had no answer.”

As that anecdote shows, Catholics have an input in India far beyond their small number. In a population of 1.2 billion they number only 18 million. Their numbers may be small, but their footprint is large. Their dedication to education is impeccable and they also run hospitals and projects for those with the greatest need across this vast country.

“In many different ways we are with the poor,” Fr Lobo stated.

Yet in Karnataka, Fr Lobo claimed that their efforts are not appreciated by the state government, which is controlled by the BJP, a right-wing political party with links to Hindu fundamentalists.

“Among the Hindus this group perpetuates the myth that Christians are converting by force and because of this they are trying to create a situation where Christians are not welcome in India,” Fr Lobo explained. “They are a small group but the large majority are silent. It is no coincidence that this BJP Government came to power in June and the attacks on churches happened in September.”

He said that this pattern of hostility to the Church also occurs in other Indian States were the BJP have come to power.

“It is intense here because of this government and you can see the same in states where the BJP are in power, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, and Orissa,” Fr Lobo stated. “In all of these places we can see that our people are troubled by the government. In other provinces that same intensity is not there, but they are still feeling the heat.”

The root of this hostility, he believes, comes from a fanatical devotion to the Indian caste system, which is inimical to Catholicism.

“In the Indian situation we have this caste system where the majority are considered lower caste or outcaste and, like slaves, they have no rights but to work for the whims and fancies of higher caste people,” he explained. “And the Church went to these people, educated them, showed them their rights and helped them reclaim those rights. So the higher caste people found that they were slowly losing control over the population. This awareness was the reason why they said we should check these Christians. They could not say that what we are doing for these people is wrong, because it is right.

“So in desperation they are claiming that the number of Christians is increasing, and that one day Hindus will be a minority. This is not borne out by the facts, the number of Christians is not increasing. In fact our numbers have come down as a percentage of population because Christians are having fewer children. Their claims that this is not the case are a myth that they have created to deceive people.”

Yet that myth continues to grow, and Fr Lobo highlighted two stories of persecution of Catholics from this Christmas.

“In one place, Christians were celebrating Christmas and having a meal with ten or so families and 20 men in masks came in, smashed everything and hit people with rocks,” he said. “Also there was a village with a small crib next to the road, on private property, and it was set on fire.”

Despite such hostility, the authorities are reluctant to help the Church, Fr Lobo claimed.

“The police do no take our complaints seriously,” he said. “They either don’t take the complaint or if they do they catch the person and release them without charge. To date no one has ever been found guilty for the 2008 attacks on churches even though it is widely known who the culprits are.”

Faced with this rising tide of aggression, Fr Lobo said that the Church has struggled to come to terms with this new reality.

“For the Church in Karnataka, this was the first experience,” he said. “We were complacent, thinking it could happen elsewhere in India but not here. When it came, we were not ready, we never expected it.”

Slowly, however, they have started to respond.

“Before this began, Christians were not motivated to get involved in politics but we have tried to instil a sense of public service because we want to promote secular minded leaders, who are ready to accommodate all,” Fr Lobo said. “Also in the past, we in the Church were not keen on making public appearances, but we have started to do more of that in order to tell the world about the many good works we are doing.”

The attacks also pushed Karnataka’s Catholics to find common cause with other Christian groups.

“As a result of these attacks, all the Christian groups have joined hands, come together and formed the Karnataka United Christian Forum for Human Rights,” he said. “We set a common agenda, agree not to aggressively evangelise and even though this is a delicate situation, God can bring good out of evil so this co-operation is good for us.”

Despite the challenges they face at this point in time, Fr Lobo believes that the attacks on Christians may well be the last throes of a dying regime and the Church may have a bright future in India.

“Already we see tremendous change in society and the BJP is trying to divide and rule, to drive apart the lower castes, the Muslims and the Christians,” he said. “But the more that we work together, the stronger we are and the more change we will see in India.”

Meet one of the faces of SCIAF’s Wee Box, Big Change campaign

One of the faces of SCIAF’s Lenten Wee Box, Big Change campaign this year is Jagadeesh from India. Born deaf, he is one the beneficiaries of SCIAF’s work with the Indian charity Association for Disabled People, (APD). Based in Bangalore, the charity has given thousands of people with a disability the chance of a better life. The campaign will be launched on Ash Wednesday (February 22) by international singing star Susan Boyle.

Imagine if every person in the United Kingdom had some form of physical or mental disability: if every Scot was hearing impaired, if every Welshman was blind, if every last Londoner was unable to walk without assistance. That is the scale of the problem faced by India where at least 60 million people have to live with a disability.

One of them is 18-year-old Jagadeesh. He and his younger brother were both born deaf in a poor village in southern India. His father was a casual manual labourer who earned less than two US dollars a day, when he was able to work. The nearest supply of fresh water was a kilometre away and when Jagadeesh’s parents could not get work the two boys would have very little

to eat.

“It was very difficult,” he told me. “It was emotional for my parents because they could not understand me, they did not know what I was trying to say. It was hard for them.”

Luckily for Jagadeesh a teacher at his local school had heard of the vital work done by the Association for Disabled People (APD), and recommended he attend their specialist campus for people with disabilities.

So he made the eight-hour journey from his parents’ village to the bustling metropolis of Bangalore.

“It was very different,” he said. “I had left my friends from the village behind and all the traffic was very hard to used to.”

But the decision to come to Bangalore is one he does not regret for a moment.

“When I came here, I didn’t know any language,” he told me through a translator via sign language. “I learned everything here, I learned sign language and English here, I learned how to communicate and now I can be understood.”

Not only did APD help him find his voice, but they are also helping him find a vocation as he has just completed a year-long course in metal work that will mean he is able to find work as a factory fitter.

It wasn’t easy for him.

“Being deaf means I have to study harder,” he explained, but he is clearly proud of what he has achieved at APD.

“I am very happy that APD has helped me,” he said. “I want to work in small scale industry so I can support my family. Being able to contribute to my family is very important.”

In India, the family bond clearly remains strong. His father, Manjunath, says he and his wife have sacrificed much to help their children.

“We have suffered because we have two deaf children we have had to borrow money to feed our children,” he said. “We have had to sell some family jewellery to pay for food and education. Our other son also wants to come to APD to learn.”

Jagadeesh’s father is hugely grateful for the support his son has received from APD.

“APD has helped Jagadeesh, he can now study and will get a job to help the family,” he said. “If APD was not here life would be very difficult. We would not have been able to provide an education for him. Other schools are very expensive.”

Even with the help of APD, life is still sometimes hard for Jagadeesh.

“Sometimes I still feel unable to communicate,” he said. “It is hard and frustrating if people can’t sign.”

But he is well aware of just how huge a difference the group has made to his life.

“Without APD, I cannot imagine what my life would be,” he said.

And he also knows that the charity’s work would not be possible without the help it receives from SCIAF’s

supporters in Scotland.

“To people in Scotland, I say thank you for helping me,” he said. “It is going to make a difference.”

n SCIAF has been working with vulnerable people in India since 1985. Operating through local partners including the

Association for People with Disabilities, SCIAF provides mobility aids, prosthetics,

physiotherapy and access

education and employment for disabled people, as well as seeds, tools, training and micro finance loans to poor rural

families

n Starting out in a small

classroom in Rutherglen in 1965 with a budget of £8000, SCIAF now spends more than £5.5million in 16 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America providing long term development support and emergency aid to hundreds of thousands of people affected by conflict, hunger, poverty, injustice and disease,  regardless of their religion

n The Wee Box, Big Change Lent campaign runs from

February 22 to April 7. You can get involved by simply giving up a favourite treat such as chocolate during Lent, putting the money you save into a Wee Box, and then donating it to SCIAF.

You can also help by signing SCIAF’s latest campaign action calling on the UK

Government to implement a Robin Hood Tax—a tiny tax on the financial sector to help raise billions to tackle global poverty

n To order your Wee Box and sign the campaign action visit http://www.theweebox.org or call 0141 354 5555

n http://www.sciaf.org.uk