The politically powerful bishops’ lobby in Kerala is opposing the Bill. By doing so, it is only pushing Christians away from the mainstream
Published: 01st July 2019 04:00 AM | Last Updated: 01st July 2019 01:26 AMhttp://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2019/jul/01/in-support-of-keralas-church-bill-1997633.htmlSpiritual leaders are expected to have discernment. Discernment is the ability to look beyond reckoning short-term advantages and interests in order to see the given issue in the larger context. Protection and perpetuation of vested interests is a blatant contradiction of spiritual discipline. It mocks truth and justice. With that, the last pretension of being ‘godly’, or even, ‘humanly just’, is lost.
It is obvious that the politically powerful bishops lobby in Kerala is blind to the implications of the stand they have adopted in opposition to the Kerala Christian Church Properties and Institutions Trust Bill (2009). In doing so, they are not only discrediting themselves, but also exposing the Christian community to greater alienation from the mainstream. It is imperative, therefore, that Christians, cutting across denominational divides, unite and redeem the situation by undoing the harm done by the bishops and the anti-Bill lobbyists incited by them.
What the bishops don’t seem to realise is crucial, and it needs to be stated clearly. What is involved in this issue is not merely the control of various parcels of land owned by churches. This is not, fundamentally, a property issue. The issue pertains to the relationship between religion and state, between church privileges and the rule of law. How material assets are managed or mismanaged is a legal issue in the secular public domain, where it is being debated.
If at all we value secular democracy, it is imperative that ‘religious issues’, when debated in the public sphere, are defended on the basis of reason, and not of religion. The state is ruled by law, which is ‘reason fortified by force’. So, if the Church Bill is to be countered, it has to be countered on the basis of reason. If the custodians of various religious interests bring their arguments into the public domain insisting that religion is above reason, they would render a rational discussion of issues impossible. They would degrade democratic space into a sphere of strident anarchy. It takes no spiritual enlightenment to militate for vested interests. Dons of the underworld do it better with bullets as arguments.
Look a little deeper into the implications of the stand the bishops have taken in this matter. Because they assume they enjoy political clout, they think they can stifle a long overdue legislation meant to protect the Christian community from aberrations and illegalities in managing their assets. Huge scandals have surfaced and many more are probably in the offing. So, the stand of the bishops in obstructing this remedial piece of legislation amounts to insisting that they have a right to mismanage community assets, free from any vestige of accountability even to the community. It is as though ‘the right to administer’ is the ‘right to maladminister’, just because the political climate is susceptible to the organised might of a lobby.
One principle is well settled in minority law and it needs to be taken note of because the Bill also covers minority institutions. While religious minorities have the right to administer their institutions, matters pertaining to finance, eligibility requirements for appointments, and service conditions, are outside the ambit of minority rights. So, minority rights have to be reconciled with the basic tenets of the Constitution. If this principle is extrapolated to the provisions of the Bill, it is impossible to fault or resist any of them. The bishops who oppose this Bill need to come out with a reasoned statement on why they do so and for whose sake. They also need to tell their fellow Christians and the rest of the society what it is that entitles them to secrecy in managing material assets.
One thing is clear. The bishops read the situation not in terms of rule of law, but in terms of communal privileges. Privileges are apt to be seen as beyond the reach of reason. But there is a huge danger lurking behind them. To claim such legally indefensible privileges —and this is an argument that Bruno Bauer, the German philosopher advanced in his essay on the Jewish Question (1843)—is to pit oneself against the state on religious grounds.
To do so is to encourage other religious blocks to do likewise. The only outcome of this purblind process is to pave the way for the communalisation of the state and the emergence of a majoritarian, theocratic state. If holding the state hostage is legitimate for the Christian hierarchy, the same is even more so for the Hindu majority community. Ironically, the stand of the Kerala bishops affords an implied justification for Hindu rashtra. The fact that the bishops are blind to this does not dilute the danger they are scripting unwittingly.
The religious minorities in this country have a greater need to shore up the rule of law. They cut the branch on which they sit, if they resist reason and accountability in managing material assets on religious grounds. Christians cannot, and shall not, claim any special right in respect of anything that is superfluous to the authentic practice of their faith. Justice Krishna Iyer, in formulating this Bill, made it clear that interfering with the practices and doctrines of the community is alien to its intent and scope. The provisions of the Bill bear this out. Admittedly, there are details that need to be spelt out, which are open to discussion. So, the summary resistance to the Bill is not meant to defend the faith, but to defend the right to maladminister, which is a slur on the Christian faith and community.
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