Christian community facing tough phase in last few years: Archbishop

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: The Idea of freedom for a Christian in India comes from a beautiful sentence penned by Rabindranath Tagore - Into the heaven of freedom, my father, let my country arise.”

This is how Archbishop of Bengaluru Reverend Doctor Peter Machado summed up his vision of freedom for a Christian in India. Commenting on Thursday’s 78th Independence Day, Machado said that despite their comparatively lesser contribution to the freedom struggle, Christians in India have undergone a 'new renaissance.'

“We are trying to help the country come up with education and fight the poverty of the people and social structures. Christians will always be in the forefront in the efort to make this country look up and stand up with dignity,” he said.

The Archbishop also referred to the efforts made by Christians in the cultural field to make society a better place. Although the community hasn't faced any significant hardships for 50 years, Machado felt that things were not easy in the last 20 years.

“Especially when were expressed our faith, we are perceived to be forcefully converting NonChristians, which I feel is not true,” he stated.

He added that the community is apprehensive of the legislative changes made by state governments with regards to religious conversions.

“One example that I give is that of the state of Uttar Pradesh which had one anti-conversion law, which was not very pleasant for us,” he added.

On political representation of Christians, Machado felt there are four key reasons for the lack of leaders. “One is that communal trends have become very strong. Compartmentalization of Hindus, Muslims and Christians has happened. And, number wise, we don't count much.''

The second factor is the caste system. '' Those who have become Christians from the Scheduled Castes (SCs ) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) also carry with them the stigma of their castes, which in politics, does not help them much.''

''Thirdly, we see consumerist trends influencing Christians too. And finally, I would say one important factor destroying India is corruption. It has no religion. It has no caste, but it touches everybody. And by and large, people have been given an impression that you can't succeed in politics without being corrupt. So, by and large, Christians are the ones who stand aloof from politics,” he explained.

Lastly, Archbishop Machado held that the Christians need to be be back in the mainstream, and should be the first ones when it comes to help during disasters.

“We want our services to be acknowledged. We don't want to be separate. We don't want to be isolated, which is increasingly happening. We would like to offer our services as best as possible for the growth of the country, for the service of others. For example, here in Bengaluru, I've said it often that at our institutions, we open our doors for everybody, We’ve done that when Manipur was torn apart, and when COVID 19 hit the city. We want the government to consider us one of its revivers, be it schools or medical centres,” he concluded.