Verghese V Joseph –
Bangalore: In order to make the migrants less dependent, and more viable and sustainable eventually, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India’s (CCBI) National Commission for Migrants in its meeting has decided to reach out to the migrants in a more pastoral way.
In its national meeting organised by the regional secretaries of the commission with inputs from the Vatican Dicastery of Integral Human Development and the International Catholic Migration Commission, Geneva, it was decided to further equip by making the migrants feel welcome, protected, and integrate them into the mainstream.
The two-day conference held (March 12-14) at Paalana Pastoral Centre, Bangalore on March 12-14 dwelled on the theme “The Pastoral Care of the migrants in the multicultural context of India: A synodal way.” It felt the migrants and displaced should feel that they are one of them and they live with dignity and freedom.
One of the important steps the conference meet suggested was that the church should prioritise saving and safeguarding their human dignity. The pastoral orientations and teachings of Pope Francis of taking care of the migrants need to be taken up effectively and translated into different programs of Church life.
Regional secretaries in collaboration with their diocesan counterparts will chalk out plans where migrants will be part of the decision-making process for their empowerment programmes. A Good Samaritan attitude needs to be fostered among institutions and individuals.
Periodical coming together and deliberating will be a part of the regional commission’s plan for the future. The origin states of migrants expressed the rise in various exploitations such as wage theft, human trafficking and bonded labour, which needs to be addressed immediately.
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur, the chairman of the commission was deeply concerned about the situation of all migrants. The prelate emphasized the need for interreligious dialogue to address the issues in a collective manner.
Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore Archdiocese called for the attention of the religious working in every diocese to be part of the migrants’ ministry as they can play a better role in caring for the migrants.
Msgr. Fabio Baggio, the Undersecretary, Dicastery of Integral Human Development, Vatican reiterated the expectations and desire of Pope Francis regarding synodality. He said, “Synod demands a church, which is participatory and in communion with all the faithful for a mission to reach out to the most needy and the people in the peripheries. “The church leaders need to be sensitive to the problems and struggles of the distressed migrant workers in India who are much more ruined and devastated due after-effects effects of the pandemic and economic slowdown in the economy,” he added.
Ms. Christine Nathan, President of International Catholic Migration Commission highlighted that there were wide spread discrimination and division in the churches where the migrants were perceived as outsiders and not welcomed wholeheartedly.
She said the local church in the destinations should go through the act of self-introspection and renewal where they need to find the face of Jesus in the migrant brother and sister who are coming to a new place in search of livelihood to eke out their livelihood. They are to be considered as human beings without referring to their their colour, creed and religious affiliations.
Father Jaison Vadassery, the Executive Secretary, along with the secretaries of 14 regions further decided that every diocese should start a migrant cell where minimum services for the migrants will be available.
Networking between different dioceses in the source and destinations and the religious congregations and civil society organizations will help to coordinate the work and organize it more effectively.
Empowering the migrants themselves so that they become agents to reach out to the other migrants in distress and who are also in danger of their lives and under the threat of evils like human trafficking and bonded labour and slavery.
The ministry to migrants is not just an activity for the church and it is a mission very close to the heart and call of the Church, ‘I was a stranger you welcomed me’ (Mathew 25)
The report on the conference of the Commission for Migrants speaks of very lofty ideas without any base/foundation. How does the Commission propose to address the issue of migrant workers across 174 dioceses (132 Roman, 31 Syro-Malabar, and 11 Syro-Malankara)? Where is the database of migrant workers? How many dioceses have this database and upgrade it? Did any participant (whether regional secretaries or otherwise) produce diocese-wise statistics on migrant workers? Is there any with CBCI?
On 28th February 2023 the Calcutta High Court sought a detailed report from the West Bengal government on the statistics of migrant labourers in the state because the bench expressed anguish that the state government had been unable to provide a clear picture on migrant workers. The petitioner Biswajit Mukhopadhyay had filed an RTI for the same in 2022 after which the state government informed him about the absence of specific information. Other states (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh) where a high percentage of their workforce are outward-migrant workers, must have cut a similar sorry figure like West Bengal.
The above Calcutta High Court PIL shows that credible statistics on migrant workers is a must to address or alleviate their issues in a cohesive manner. The Calcutta High Court has called the bluff and caught the bull by the horn.
Several years ago I had proposed to my parish priest and also the Archbishop of Calcutta and his Vicar General to start a database of families in each parish. I had also sent a simple database structure including education of family members, their blood group, self-declared family income, etc. The logic was to identify the families who are in real need of help (educational and healthcare assistance). But the idea was put in the cold storage. I think India’s Church Hierarchy does not believe in maintaining any authentic data. Otherwise how can two consecutive censuses in 2001 and 2011 show Christians at 2.3% of the Indian Population? How could there be no increase or decrease in percentage of Christians? No one from the Hierarchy contested the census results! I hope the Commission for Migrants does not work the same way. It must start from the base i.e. create a database of migrant workers from the parish level to make a meaningful contribution towards addressing the issue of migrant workers, including linking them to the various social security / benefit measures.