Hindu Extremists Killed Priest for Being a Christian and Helping the Poor

This week, Archbishop Marampudi Joji Hyderabad of India said that Hindu extremists who murdered Carmelite priest of Mary Immaculate, Father Thomas Pandippally, carried out the act for three reasons: “because he was religious, because he was Christian and because he was charitable to the poor.”

In statements to the L'Osservatore Romano, the archbishop explained that Father Pandippally “was killed because the Catholic missionaries are on the side of the poor in this region - in which there still exists a harsh form of servitude in the agricultural industry. Land owners do not recognize the rights of farm workers and make use of fanatical Hindu gangs to put a stop to any improvement to the living conditions of the rural population,” he said.

You wrote:

“Hm. Sounds suspiciously like these “Catholics” are actually working more on secular “social justice” programs than saving souls.”

No. In Hinduism social castes are stratified. The poor are considered deserving of their lot in life and are abused accordingly. They may be beaten, raped and even killed and it is all considered their lot in life. You might want to read the book called Broken People which details this sort of violence and abuse.

Recently Hindus burned a Protestant orphanage: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=59560

And then there’s this (note the last line):

“Priests and religious, victims of casteism? Ask the five Missionaries of Charity who were hospitalized after being attacked with iron rods and chains in the southern state of Kerala. This happened in the peaceful, caste-free state that has the largest percentage of Christians in India (19 percent, mostly Catholic and Orthodox) and the highest literacy rate (80 percent), a place where village politics never dictated social norms, as in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Socialist egalitarianism has ruled since independence, and the only conflict people talk about is the rivalry between Latin and Malabar Rite Catholics. As for the Missionaries of Charity, they are revered by all religions in India and had never before been attacked on Indian soil. Yet in September 2004, first two sisters and their driver, and then two more sisters and two brothers, were attacked by a gang of Hindu militants shouting hate-filled slogans. Their crime: helping poor Dalit villagers.” http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=4011

And here’s another reason why the radical Hindus are scared:

“In many ways, Indian Catholicism is thriving. The Church is growing at a rate ahead of overall population growth, and by 2050 there could be almost 30 million Catholics, which would place India among the twenty largest Catholic nations on earth, roughly on a par with Germany in terms of its Catholic population. Outside its traditional base in the south, Catholicism is also expanding in the northeast. In the state of Arunachal Pradesh on the eastern border with China, where Catholicism arrived barely 25 years ago, there are today 180,000 Catholics out of a total population of 800,000.”

“A noteworthy point about Catholic demography in India is the disproportionate share of Dalits, or untouchables. Estimates are that somewhere between 60 and 75 percent of Indian Catholics are Dalits, who often see Christianity as a means of protesting the caste system and of affiliating with a social network to buffer its effects.”

Helping the poor can get you killed in India. It’s a sick, pagan society.

Gee, lady, show some Christian charity regardless of the denomination. As a Catholic, this made me weep. Your reaction to the death of the Catholic priest was enlightening.

"OH, INDIA!" came the first heavily-weighted words sent out by one of Graham Staines' long-time associates and co-laborers for the Gospel in India. He was passing on word that Graham, 58, along with his two sons, Phillip, 10, and Timothy, 6, had been burned alive as they slept in their jeep during Graham's fourteenth annual jungle Bible camp in the village of Monoharpur, in the state of Orissa. A native Australian, Staines was the director of the Leprosy Mission in Baripada, Orissa, where he had served since 1965.

It was just after midnight on the morning of January 23 when the windows were broken out of Staines' jeep; gasoline was poured on and ignited; the jeep was then enveloped in flames. The screams that were emitted did not incite sufficient help to prevent the horror from continuing. But they may have awakened the nation. There are at least two obvious things that India has been made keenly aware of: the horrors of the Hindu fundamentalist movement's most radical fringe and, in the Staines example, an authentic faith with a depth of Christian spirituality hitherto unrecognized by many in India.

The response of Graham's wife, Gladys, caught the attention and deep admiration of greater India when she offered a clear and public statement forgiving the perpetrators of the heinous act just days after the killings. While struck deep with grief, she expressed her hope that the perpetrators would be touched by the love of Christ.

The more any Christian can do in India, the better off the country will be.

There is a certain amount of “social justice” that goes along automatically with being a Christian. That is, we have to treat others as beings created in the image of God and our equals, which is not being done in the case of these lower-caste farmworkers.

During the time of slavery in the US, there were a few Southern states that had laws prohibiting missionaries from teaching or baptizing African slaves. One of the laws even mandated capital punishment for any missionary who tried it! The reason was that if a slave was baptized, then he could claim the right to be treated as a human being, something the slave owners had no intention of permitting. It’s the same in this case.

Caste system and the racism and discrimination that is associated with it, is in the mind. Conversion to another religion from Hinduism like Christianity, Buddhism, Sikh
and Islam simply changes the way they identify themselves and worship god. But it doesn’t wash away the caste they are from. There is a brief explanation in wikipedia about the caste system among non Hindus here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_Indian_Christians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_caste_system

(Section Caste system among non-Hindus)

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=4011

(See the last section - Caste and the Indian Church)

India passed the law for equal rights soon after independence from the British. But if the problem is deeply in the mind of the population, it is hard to fix it by just passing laws and making it illegal. Please remember that
black population in United States needed a civil rights movement to get equal rights, despite the laws that existed that provided them equal rights. Same in South Africa with apartheid. It is hard to imagine that apartheid existed
late into the end of 20th century, even though both
the perpetrators and the victims belong to the same religion and worship the same god.

Taking Kerala as an example in India, i would believe that conversion to Christianity (or another religion) has helped as a social equalizer for Dalit population when some of the following happens -

A lower caste Hindu can join a currently higher caste
dominated church like Syrian or Roman catholic church

A lower caste converted Christian can marry a higher caste
converted Christian without social repercussions

A lower caste converted Christian can get buried next to an upper caste converted Christian (a Syrian catholic for example) in the burial grounds.

Even though i knew about the caste system still existing among Christian population in Kerala (since i am a hindu born in Kerala now in Canada), i am a little surprised that it still existed among Buddhist, Muslim and Sikh converts from Hinduism also. Its not uncommon for Christian (or even Muslim) families to dig deep into the family tree during arranged marriages to see the original caste in Hinduism
from which the bride or groom’s family converted to make sure they are not below in social status in comparison!!

There is no quick fix for the caste problem, racism and discrimination. One way is strict and pro-active enforcement of laws. But that can go only so far. Ultimately the change needs to come from inside each and every Indian. Almost all states in India reserve 50% or more share of government jobs and university seats to backward castes. (like the affirmative action in North America) With economic progress, caste is something of a shame that most Indians coming abroad don’t want to talk about, but still exists even though its not legal in India for a good 50 years. Hopefully time and economic progress would heal most of this evil. But since the caste status didn’t change even after converting to another religion, i am not all that convinced how much of an effect, converting to another religion alone would have, in creating social equality in India.

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