CPI(M) criticises Church leaders broadcasting affinity towards BJP despite Christian persecution

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] on Saturday criticised the Church leaders who broadcast a predilection towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite the intensifying attacks against Christians, including the recent attack on Kerala nuns and priests by Sangh Parivar activists in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Odisha. 

CPI(M) leader A.K. Balan told reporters in Palakkad that a prelate in Thalassery, Kannur, arguably an oblique reference to Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplany of Thalassery, had praised Mr. Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for the belated release on bail of two Kerala nuns arrested and incarcerated by the Chhattisgarh government, allegedly at the instance of Bajrang Dal activists on trumped-up charges of trafficking three tribal women for conversion to Christianity.

Mr. Balan said the same Church leader had promised the BJP a foothold in Kerala’s parliamentary landscape, a grievance long nursed by the party, if the Central government raised the minimum price of rubber to ₹300. He said such a transactional mode of politics was an injustice to minorities, chiefly Christians, under attack by the BJP-backed Sangh Parivar forces in North India.

‘Grave injustice’

“Such opinion leaders have done a grave injustice to secular Kerala by helping BJP leader Suresh Gopi bag the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency in 2024. Some Church leaders failed to see that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s extreme right-wing Hindu majoritarian doctrine rests on the premise that Christian missionaries, Muslims and communists were treasonous fourth columnists and internal enemies,” he said. 

The alleged predisposition of some Church leaders towards Mr. Modi and the BJP, and their purported politics of expediency, also drew criticism from within the clergy. 

Notably, Remigiose Inchananiyil, Catholic Bishop of Thamarassery diocese, criticised Mr. Modi for passing a law offering citizenship to the persecuted Hindu minority in Pakistan. “Mr. Modi should state whether minorities in India should go to other countries, including Christians seeking refuge in Europe,” he stated at a farmer’s rally in Kozhikode on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Culture Minister V.N. Vasavan called on the parents of Fr. Jijo, who was among the clergy targeted by the Bajrang Dal activists in Odisha, at the latter’s family home in Kuravalangadu in Kottayam. 

The priest’s father, A.V. George, alleged that the governing BJP’s tacit connivance had emboldened the Sangh Parivar groups to target Christians in Odisha.

In party offices

CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby stated in Kasaragod that Christians, fearing Bajrang Dal attacks, routinely sought refuge in party offices.

Tourism Minister Mohamed Riyas quipped that the “BJP was carving cakes at episcopal palaces of bishops in Kerala while cutting the limbs of Christians in States the party governed.”