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The BJP launched an outreach programme on Easter Sunday as part of its efforts to gain a toehold among Kerala’s Christian community, with party leaders visiting Bishops of the Catholic Church and a few of the selected faithful in several parts of the state.
Senior leaders flitted in and out of Bishops’ houses, sharing Easter greetings from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On social media, various official pages of the BJP were filled with images of a resurrected Jesus and Easter eggs.
BJP state president K Surendran visited two Bishops in his home district of Kozhikode while senior leader and Union Minister of State V Muraleedharan conveyed Easter greetings to Thiruvananthapuram Archdiocese head Thomas J Netto. In Kannur, party national vice-president A P Abdullakutty met Thalassery archbishop Joseph Pamplany along with senior leader P K Krishnadas.
Surendran said the party was receiving overwhelming support from Christians and that they had great faith in the Modi-led government. He said Christians in Kerala were witnessing the benefits of good governance in Northeastern states and Goa, where members of the religious minority group are numerically strong. Christians in Kerala were also looking forward to a similar change, he added.
The BJP’s outreach was mainly confined to prominent Catholics who are the most influential and numerically strong Christian group in Kerala. The Catholic Church had been at the forefront of the campaign against “love jihad”, an issue that brought the Catholic Church and the Sangh Parivar close long before this recent outreach.
However, Orthodox Church head Baselios Marthoma Mathews played down the BJP’s Christian outreach mission. “The Easter Day visit will not make any change in Christians’ approach towards BJP. When churches were attacked in the country, the BJP didn’t deplore it. This led to the suspicion that the party silently backed those attacks,” he said.
The Sangh Parivar’s outreach programme, being carried out with an eye on the next Lok Sabha elections, has come under fire from both the ruling CPI(M) and the Opposition Congress, which raked up the incidents of the Hindu rightwing’s attacks on churches in north India.
The CPI(M) state secretariat, in a statement, said the RSS had declared minorities, including Christians, and Communists internal threats to India. The RSS attempt to take the minorities along with it now is ludicrous, the party added. “During last Christmas, Christians faced widespread attacks across the country. BJP leaders in Kerala have started visiting the Christian clergy and institutions at a time when attacks on churches in North India are not completely over. Enlightened people of Kerala would realise the attitude of BJP,” it said.
The CPI(M) said it was only recently that Christian groups elsewhere had begun agitating after realising the dangers of the Sangh Parivar’s politics. “Intimidation and temptation, which the Sangh Parivar had used against several opposition leaders, is now deployed to bring Christian segments to its fold. BJP leaders’ visits to the bishops underscores it,” said the party.
Congress legislator and Opposition leader V D Satheesan alleged that the BJP had called for attacks on Christians and so its “newfound love” for the minority community exposes its double standards. “The BJP has disrupted worship in hundreds of churches. Sangh Parivar organisations have vandalised scores of churches in recent years. BJP leaders are going to Christian homes in Kerala at a time when several Christian organisations have approached the Supreme Court, seeking protection from Sangh Parivar attacks. Christians in Kerala would not fall into this trap. The BJP had conducted a massive Hindutva campaign in Kerala, yet 90% of Hindus in the state are against it,” he said.
