Kerala, India: Effort to Silence Catholic Voice in Political Life

Father Thelakat says Church has the right to intervene on public issues as indicated by the Pope in his latest Encyclical.

MUMBAI (AsiaNews) - The Kerala High Court has issued a notice to religious organisations on a petition filed to prevent them and community organisations from intervening in election campaigns. The petition also wants the court to declare illegal actions by such organisations in favour or against any one candidate. The notice was issued to the Kerala Catholic Bishop's Council (KCBC) but also to Hindu organisations like the Nair Service Society (NSS) and the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) as well as the Muslim association Jama-at-Islami.

For Fr Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the Syro-Malabar Synod, the Church has a "right to speak about politics even if religions cannot canvass votes in the name of religion. Politics we will do but not politicking. The Church or any religious organization has every right to intervene in politics as Pope Benedict XVI noted in his encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate."

For Father Thelakat, who is also editor in-chief of the weekly Satyadeepam, the latest papal document is useful to analyse recent events in Kerala.

"I live in India in a State ruled by Communists within a democratic frame of the Indian constitution. India is also a country which has a market economy but is also a land infested with violent revolts by Maoist groups for at least the past 40 years, fighting for the rural poor, Tribals and Dalits who are marginalised by the economic development.

For the clergyman Caritas in Veritate has something "very new" because it does not defend the poor by opposing globalisation and private property.

"Against the Communists the Pope does not see globalisation as bad." And unlike them "he does not want to abolish private property." The Holy father does believe that "private" and "public" interests can "be ethically harmonised by the state" so that the "globalisation of humanity" can be achieved "in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing".

The petition against religious and community organisations interfering in election campaigns was also filed before the State's election commission which said however that it did not have the authority to determine whether intervention by private organisations in favour or against a candidate was legal or not.

During the recent elections to India's lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, the Catholic Church and other religious associations were instrumental in defeating a number of candidates running under the banner of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which has ruled Kerala since 2006.

Kerala Communists have been at loggerheads with the local Church hierarchy over the Church's activities in the social and educational fields.

Bishops and ordinary Catholics believe that they have the right to freely operate in the social field and promote social activities at more than one level.

Church-Communist confrontation has a long history in this Indian State.

This year Catholics commemorate the 50th anniversary of what they call the liberation struggle (Vimochana Samaram) against the Marxist-Communist government in 1959, a struggle they fought along with Hindu Nair community.