The lack of a Christian state minister in Karnataka has forced the community´s political leaders in this southern Indian state to bury their differences and seek ways to promote lay leadership.
The Karnataka Christian Social Welfare Association (KCSWA) organized an all-party meeting of Christian leaders that resolved to uphold Christian identity despite political differences.
The May 23 meeting in the Christian stronghold of Mangalore, some 2,270 kilometers south of New Delhi, proposed a new organization to help form lay leaders and evolve Christian responses to emerging socio-political situations.
Christian leaders claim their community provides 80 percent of health and education in the state´s non-governmental sector, helping mostly the low castes and socially neglected.
But they were dismayed when no Christian was chosen for the state´s newly expanded ministry lineup, reorganized after former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Deve Gowda became India´s prime minister on June 1.
Some of the leaders blame Christians, who comprise 2.08 percent of the state´s 44.8 million people, for putting themselves in a bad situation.
"If the government is apathetic toward Christians, it is because Christians are apathetic toward politics," said Blasius D´Souza, a former state minister and a Catholic.
Initiating a discussion on "Christian response to politics," D´Souza said Christians bemoan their lack of representation in the government, but many do not "even bother to vote."
KCSWA member Vitus Pinto told the interdenominational, interparty meeting of some 100 leaders that Christians can gain socio-political rights only if they make their presence felt in public life.
D´Souza quoted media-published data saying that Christians receive the least care among religious communities in various government welfare programs and from the state-funded minority welfare commission.
"These things happen because we don´t react," said Ronald Colaco, a lay leader, who presided over the meeting.
The Christian leaders reiterated their commitment to community and resolved to form local committees to promote better Christian responses to politics.
One of them, J.V. D´Mello, said Christians should not hesitate to become members of even the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian people´s party) if possible. "After all Christians are Christians, whichever party they belong to," he added.
BJP Mangalore secretary Richard D´souza, a Catholic, told UCA News May 25 that he did not sacrifice his Christian identity to become a politician.
He asserted that one cannot reform a party by avoiding it and added that he is "able to give Christian testimony and argue for our rights inside the BJP because I am in it."
Merito Sequeira, a leader of Catholic Sabha (council), a Mangalore diocesan lay movement, said his organization has branches in most parishes and gives priority to building political awareness.
Father J.P. Tauro, who supports KCSWA efforts, stressed "a creative and meaningful involvement of laity in political and government affairs."
However, Rolphy Mascarenhas, a college lecturer here, noted a decreasing youth interest in politics and warned that "unless youth are encouraged to enter politics, we may not get representation in government affairs."
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