By Fr Prakash Louis, SJ –
As an Indian, a Christian and a Jesuit, I was impressed by the language of Jaithirath Rao’s article ‘Marxist Jesuits are not for tribal welfare. India and Indian Catholics both must realise that’ recently in a section of the press but was totally disappointed to say the least by the content. If he was a student of the Jesuits, he should be happy to have been taught to write in English. But it would be expedient if he reads and re-reads his article and see where he has been true to facts and where he has taken to falsehood or presenting half-baked facts or even being malicious to tarnish the image, history, tradition and heritage of Jesuits and the Indian Church.
Let us take the nomenclature. By labelling the Jesuits Marxist Jesuits, the author has employed the age-old strategy of the dominant caste, class and patriarchy in this country to name, label and discredit someone and to disown in front of the wider public. If the state and the corporates called Fr Stan Swamy ‘anti-national’ and ‘Maoist’, a Jesuit student has labelled Jesuits as Marxist Jesuits. Stan had hoped for an opportunity to clear this accusation but his martyrdom called him before that. Now we the Jesuits, Christians and the conscious citizens of this country have the responsibility to expose people like Jaithirath Rao that those who are labelled ‘anti-nationals’ are not in fact so but those who are engaged in mal-governance, mortgaging the values, resources and citizens of this country are the real ‘anti-nationals’.
It is not a surprise that the author calls the martyrdom of Fr. Stan ‘tragic circumstances around the recent death of Father Stan’. Not only conscious citizens, activists, academics, lawyers, students, youth, women, politicians in India but all over the world, the martyrdom of Stan has been highly revered and the Indian state and its various oppressive forces are condemned for the death of a 84-year old person who laid his life for the rights and dignity of the Tribals and for keeping the conscience of this country. By belittling the martyrdom, this former student of the Jesuits has shown what he in reality is.
Rao seems to have a fundamental issue with the Jesuits and Church being part of the lives and struggles of the Tribals of India. He forgets that it is in the fundamental mission of the Church to be at the side of the Tribals against all the exploitative ‘Dikus’. Dikus is a term by the tribals of central India to describe the ‘outsiders’. But the term has much broader and wider meaning. By the term Dikus, the tribals refer to all the exploiters who are the politicians, police, health, education, forest department officials, corporates, green hound, para military forces who are basically exploiters of them. Jaithirath is upset that the Jesuits and the Church is working with them for their liberation and not open up more cheap and best run education institutions to cater to Jaithirath’s caste, class and gender.
The author goes to the ridiculous level of wanting the ‘padre to be a benign, helpful and healing figure’. He and his likes are upset with Fr. Stan and others for being in the forefront to take up the issues of displacement, disappearance of tribal youth, detention of thousands of youth in jail without even trial on false cases. Above all, Rao seems to upset that Stan and other Church members stand with the Tribals even if they themselves may not be Tribals in the struggle of Jal, Jungle, Zamin aur Zamir, that is, water, land, forest, and dignity. The caste, class and gender that Rao comes from can only use the Tribals to be their domestic help, labourers and their rich natural resources.
Jaithirath’s knowledge like that of many issues which he writes about is extremely shallow and substandard to say the least. He states, ‘Liberation theology is profoundly anti-capitalist, anti-markets and justifies violence using selective quotations from the gospels. They like to talk about the reference in the gospels to Jesus throwing out money-changers from the temple; there is little if any reference to the parable of talents’. In the foregoing pages I have spelt out briefly what Liberation Theology means and how it influenced Fr. Stan. Suffice to state, it would do good to Rao to study the basic tenets of the Gospel, the Life and Mission of Jesus Christ, the importance of Liberation Theology and the Martyrdom of Stan.
Taking clue from Bishop Helder Camara’s life and mission and belief of the Christians in the Gospel and Constitutional values it can be stated, No Jesuit and no Christian engages in violence for the sake of violence or to propagate violence. The very socio-economic, cultural and political structure which is exploitative, repressive and oppressive is in itself violent in nature. Those who want to change this do not engage in violence but resist the violent use of power, position and privilege.
The deep desire of Rao and his likes in proposing the ‘Parable of the Talents’ is to keep creating opportunity for a small minority through the cheap and best educational institutions by the Jesuits and the Church so as to keep the vast masses in poverty and misery. Rao and the likes are mortally scarred that if the masses get educated and demand for their rightful place in India, this skewed, hierarchical, oppressive and exploitative structure would crumble.
As a Jesuit, I feel sorry for Jaithirath that he is deeply engrossed in a condescending attitude when he talks against ‘helpless tribal people’. Fr. Stan and others are part of the lives and struggles of the Tribals not because the Tribals are ‘बेचारा’ or people on whom we take pity. Nor we are part of the lives and struggles of the Tribals because we are friends of the Maoists. These are far from truth. Since, Rao has taken to spread falsehood, it is expedient to rectify this. Being part of the lives and struggles of the Tribals is by the motivation received from the Creation Story where it is stated that, “God created human beings in His own image and likeness” (Genesis 1:27) . But this does not seem to be real in the case of the Tribals.
Also, in the Manifesto of Jesus there is a program of action which states, “ … to set the oppressed free’ (Luke 4:18-19). Or in one of the last addresses of Jesus, he demands of his followers, “Whatsoever you do to the least, you do to me”. Among the least he counts the poor, prisoners, blind, the exploited who needed accompaniment. It is this accompaniment that the Jesuits universally chosen as one of their preferences for the next 10 years. That is, “To walk with the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated, in a mission of reconciliation and justice”. It is the Tribals, Dalits, children, women, most backward castes, minorities and all the other exploited and oppressed of this country who are the central focus of the life and mission of Jesuits and the Church.
Rao lets the cat out when he asks for ‘accommodative position of the Church and the order’. Basically what he and his likes are asking are keep the status quo-going, do not rock the boat. That is, keep your eyes closed to the oppression and exploitation of the Tribals, Dalits, minorities, women, children, youth and students. Only provide us cheap and best education which leads to gainful employment through which we can oppress our less privileged people.
Jaithirath’s divide and rule policy comes to the fore when he states, “They have also enthusiastically embraced ‘cultural Marxism,’ which in the West attacks white male dominance and in India has chosen to attack Hindu male dominance”. Jesuits and the Church where appropriate and necessary critique caste, class, patriarchy. In the last 2 decades they have also critiqued fascist, authoritarian, autocratic, anti-people, anti-poor policies and programs of governments of India and elsewhere. No where the Jesuits and the Church singled out Hindu male dominance. Further, it is not just the Jesuits or the Christians but the conscious citizens and committed activists cum academicians, students cum youth, women cum men, minorities cum backward castes who have been critiquing and opposing anti-people, anti-poor and anti-constitutional engagements. This is not acceptable to Rao and his likes.
As the saying goes, ‘the thief gets himself caught’, the statement of Rao clearly articulates his maliciousness. “A violent, revolutionary change is, therefore, considered necessary and desirable. They want to overthrow Indian society and specifically Hindu society”. Every Indian Christian and Jesuit would only laugh at this utter foolish and baseless statement. Every Indian Christian and Jesuit wants development, pace and justice. But this for all the 130 crore Indians and only for a few privileged dominant caste and class Indians. Even this wish is within the constitutional framework which Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and others who framed our Constitution wanted. To maliciously state that the Jesuits are against Hindu society is far from truth and trying to divide the Indian society for some ulterior motives. Millions of Indians who have been protesting against the inhuman treatment meted out to Fr. Stan and all falsely arrested by the present regime are Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains etc. religiously and people who have faith in Indian Constitution and not in divisive politics.
The seemingly simplistic statement of Rao at the end, “To manipulate tribals and set them up against a powerful State and against immediate neighbours may end up being the most cynical, sordid and dangerous of approaches” need to be responded with the words of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. “We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life, which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life… On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality…We must remove this contradiction at the earliest moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up” (Speech by B.R. Ambedkar on 25th November 1949, in Constituent Assembly Debates, New Delhi, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1989, Vol. IX, p 979). All the exploited and oppressed of this country stand together not to overthrow anyone or anything but to reinstate the Constitutional values of ‘Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’.
Fr Prakash Louis, SJ belongs to Jesuit Migrant Services
A befitting reply to Mr. Rao. Allthough I didn’t read the original article of Rao, I get a glimpse of it from his write up. Whenever priests and nuns are on the side of the poor and marginalzied, they were annhilated in India like Sr,Rani Maria of Indore. The systemic murder of Fr. Stan seems only to ‘dissuade’ Church and Christian missionaries from working for the liberation of the poor and downtrodden. I think,Mr. Rao should study Marxism in its ‘ooriginal flavor’ with its ‘ atheism and materialism’ the Church opposses tooth and nail and the same Marxism has been ‘instrummental ‘ in destroying the Church in many parts of the world in the past. Liberation theology is the ‘grass root’ ‘ social Democracy’ which our present reign has badly failed. I once wrote a letter to the Editor in Hindu agaisnt the article of the late Krishna Ayyar, who wrote, ‘ Jesus, the Glorious rebel’. Yes, He is Glorious in evolving a change, a spiritual chanage, affecting the material chiange. The communism, on the other, divorce spirit from the matter. Mr. Rao may be frightened to give education to the Tribals and Aadivasis that may question their existence.