6 days ago
10
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s long and carefully calibrated attempt to bridge the trust deficit with Kerala’s Christian community appears to have run into yet another roadblock, and at possibly the most inopportune time.
With less than ten days to go for the Assembly elections, the political conversation within the Christian electorate, a segment the BJP has been systematically courting, has taken a sharp turn.
What was, until recently, an aggressive outreach has now been overshadowed by a surge of concern over the Union government’s proposed amendments to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. The perception that the law could be weaponised to tighten control over minority institutions has begun to dominate discourse, particularly in central Travancore.
Despite repeated assertions from the party that the amendments are aimed at curbing money laundering, the message appears not to have landed as intended. Instead, resistance from within the Church has been swift, vocal, and unusually direct.
“If there is any section of the Christian community that poses a threat to the internal security of the nation, let it be made clear,” said Baselios Cardinal Cleemis, Major Archbishop Catholicos of the Syro Malankara Catholic Church.
In a rare intervention, Pala Bishop Joseph Kallarangatt also stepped into the debate, framing the proposed changes as a structural shift in the law itself. “It appears that the Bill shifts the FCRA from a regulatory framework to a controlling one,” he said, while also questioning the logic behind curbs that could potentially stifle charitable work.
“The new FCRA Bill seems to sideline linguistic and religious minorities and their international networks. Such measures will adversely affect poor Christians and push the social fabric into uncertainty,” he added.
The chorus has only grown louder. Archbishop Thomas Tharayil of the Changanassery Archdiocese and Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, have also raised objections, signalling a broader consolidation of opinion within the Church leadership.
Syro Malabar Church Major Archbishop Mar Raphael Thattil expressed his concurrence with the views of all Christian Church leaders who have already responded to the issue and urged the government to address the concerns that have arisen in connection with the proposed amendment.
Taking serious note of the issue, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference is slated to convene a meeting to decide on the course of action if the Centre proceeds with the Bill. Official sources, meanwhile, point out that the Church remains hopeful that its collective opposition will put the Union government under pressure ahead of an all important election for the BJP in Kerala.
Politically, the fallout has been swift. Both the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front have moved quickly to align themselves with the Church’s position, well aware of the electoral weight of Christian voters in regions such as central Travancore and the high ranges of Malabar.
Kerala Congress (M) Chairman Jose K. Mani, contesting from Pala as an LDF candidate, described the Bill as “poison coated in sugar,” while Francis George, MP, leader of the rival Kerala Congress faction in the UDF, also questioned the timing of the move. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has formally written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising objections, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has amplified the issue on the campaign trail.
For the BJP, the development marks a significant political disruption. The party had, in recent years, made incremental gains in engaging with sections of the Christian community, particularly Catholics in central Travancore. That effort was built on a mix of symbolic outreach, strategic positioning, and candidate selection. But as the present episode shows, the gains remain shallow and highly vulnerable to reversal.
“This is clearly a setback and we will have to rebuild trust over time,” admitted a senior BJP leader.
The party has since shifted into damage control mode, attempting to push back against what it calls a narrative built on misinformation. “The claim that the FCRA Bill will affect the Christian community is baseless,” BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar told the media. Union Minister George Kurian, contesting as the NDA candidate in Kanjirappally, also sought to counter the criticism.
“About 10,000 applications are received annually for FCRA licences, and nearly 3,000 of them are from minority communities. How can a provision be targeted specifically at minorities? There are mechanisms for appeal, clarification, and even restoration of institutions that have become defunct,” he said.
Yet, the deeper challenge for the BJP lies not in rebutting individual claims, but in managing perception, particularly in a State like Kerala, where community sentiment often travels faster than official clarification.
The present flare up also fits into a larger pattern in the BJP Church relationship. The past few years have seen dramatic swings, from cautious engagement to sudden strain. The high point arguably came with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outreach to bishops in Kochi in 2023, signalling a willingness to open new channels of communication. But that fragile thaw has repeatedly been tested, whether by incidents such as attacks on churches in Manipur or the arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh.
The BJP, however, has chosen to double down on its strategy. By fielding prominent Catholic faces in key constituencies across central Travancore, where Christian votes are often decisive, the party is effectively turning this election into a referendum on its outreach.
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