Towards accommodation with the RSS?

THE PARLEYS between leaders of the church in India and those of the RSS should be of interest and concern not only to Christians but to all those who are keen to uphold secular democracy in this country. After the dialogue between the representatives of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) and the RSS on August 23, talks are scheduled to take place in Nagpur on September 12 between the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and the RSS. While talks between any groups or organisations are to be welcomed, the credibility of a dialogue on important public issues is best ensured by openness about the agenda, clarity about the conditions under which it takes place and appropriateness of the partners in dialogue. In this instance the conspicuous absence of all these together with the secrecy surrounding the talks raises a number of problems. The leaders of the church are mistaken if they assume that the issues involved are of concern only to them or that they can be dealt with by their bilateral talks with the RSS.

Plans for a dialogue between church leaders and the RSS were initiated by the National Minorities Commission in the wake of a series of acts of violence against Christians, especially after the BJP Government came to power in 1998. These plans had to be shelved in view of doubts about the usefulness of such an exercise and apprehensions about the risks involved, voiced by many church leaders. The CBCI and the NCCI have to explain the circumstances under which the plans for the dialogue have been revived and what the terms and conditions for the dialogue are. What is the basis of the new understanding between church leaders and the RSS?

These questions are pertinent in view of the fact that the RSS's ideological onslaught on the minorities had actually intensified during the period after the previous plans for talks were shelved. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the RSS, its chief, Mr. K. S. Sudarshan demanded the `Indianisation' of the minorities and the reorganisation of their structures. He questioned their loyalty to the nation. Based on a warped and narrow notion of nationalism, the RSS stipulated conditions for tolerating minorities. It maintained that a meaningful dialogue with Christians was possible only if they stopped conversions. Both the CBCI and the NCCI made it clear that none of these conditions was acceptable to them.

Dubious claim

Some church leaders as well as RSS leaders claim that their aim in these talks is to remove the misunderstanding between the Christian community and the Hindu community. This claim is dubious and misleading. What is the misunderstanding between the two communities they are speaking about? Problems that have arisen are those created for the minorities by the Sangh Parivar. Dialogue between the Christian and the Hindu communities is always to be welcomed. But do the spiritual leaders of the church consider the RSS the legitimate representatives of the Hindu community and therefore its leaders their natural partners in dialogue? If so, they are bestowing on the leaders of the RSS credibility and representative character the latter do not possess or deserve. By doing so the church leaders are weakening their own credentials to speak on behalf of their community. By referring to misunderstanding between the Christian community and the Hindu community they only betray their confusion about the agenda of the talks.

In contrast, the stance of the RSS is very clear. The attack on Christians emanates from the ideological position of the RSS on minorities. This is an integral part of a project to alter the secular character of the state. The Sangh Parivar seeks to carry out this through redefinition of secularism and nationalism. Secularism is redefined as conditional tolerance. From there the distance to the Hindu rashtra is short. There is also the redefinition of nationalism linking it to majority religion. This goes against the fundamental principle of nationalism. The principle that the nation belongs equally to all its citizens has been repeatedly questioned by the RSS. If the church leaders think they can influence, through secret talks, the project of the RSS based on its ideology they are deceiving themselves. The issues are not spiritual, religious or theological but political and ideological. It is unfortunate that Christian spiritual leaders, in their dealings with the RSS, seem to forget the predicament of other minorities and the larger issues involved.

Commitment to secularism

Church leaders in India have to formulate and articulate clearly their position. When the Constitution was made, Christians and Muslims in the country, by rejecting special reservation in legislatures including Parliament, made a clear commitment to secularism the significance of which was openly acknowledged by Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders. The main interest of Christians in India should therefore be in the strengthening of secular democracy. Their most precious rights are the equal rights they enjoy with all citizens of the country. What they should defend are the larger political and civil rights of all, especially of the oppressed and the marginalised. They should realise that religious freedom is not a minority right, but a political right for all. In the absence of important civil and political rights religious freedom has little meaning and violations of religious liberty are invariably violations of civil and political rights. In fact religious freedom should be used to promote the fundamental freedoms of all people. That is what churches in South Africa, in several countries of Latin America, East Germany and South Korea did in the most difficult periods in their history. They utilised the space of their religious liberty to defend the rights, freedoms and human dignity of all who were denied them and not for special privileges for the churches. Are there not lessons for the Indian churches in these challenging experiences of their sister churches?

The parleys between the church and the RSS are arranged by the National Minority Commission, with its member from Kerala taking the lead. The so-called enquiries conducted by the commission, with the participation of this member, about the numerous acts of violence against Christians in various parts of the country, have all been farcical, and have raised questions about the independence and impartiality of this statutory quasi-judicial body. It was only recently that the Minister of State for Home Affairs told Parliament that during the past two and a half years there have been 431 acts of violence against Christians including 33 killings in the country. It was during the same period that the various outfits of the Sangh Parivar have been engaged in a campaign of vilification against Christians and thus created a climate for violence against them. But the Minority Commission has been totally silent on all these. The member from Kerala has earned the reputation of being a spokesperson for the Sangh Parivar and is known to be indulging in pro-BJP politics.

Instead of affirming the rights of Christians as the citizens of a democratic secular nation and upholding the rights of all, church leaders appear to be asking for accommodation and minority status in the RSS project for the nation. They need to be reminded of the words of the great leader of the Indian church, late Bishop V. S. Azariah of Andhra Pradesh, spoken on the occasion of rejecting the offer of reserved minority community electorate. He said that the offer, if accepted, "would force the church to function like a religious sect, a community which seeks self-protection for the sake of its own loaves and fishes" and "prevent its members living alongside fellow Indians sharing in public life with concern for Christian principles in it."

NINAN KOSHY

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