Kochi/Thrissur: Leaving the Guruvayur Sri Krishna temple in Thrissur this January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held Suresh Gopi’s arm tightly, looked into his eyes and said, “I know you are coming to Delhi.” Modi was in the temple town to attend the wedding of the actor-turned-politician’s daughter.
Gopi, who unsuccessfully contested from Thrissur in 2019 and is once again the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from this seat, has been oozing with confidence ever since. Posters in Thrissur talk about Modi’s guarantee on Suresh Gopi becoming a minister in the central government.
A member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in college, Gopi maintained a good rapport with both Congress and the Left-led combines when he was a film star — in 2006, campaigning for Comrade V.S. Achuthanandan in Malampuzha and also for Congress’s M.P. Gangadharan, a confidant of K. Karunakaran, in Ponnani.
On Thursday, as ThePrint asked him about his ideological journey from the SFI to the BJP, he shrugged it off — “It was a long time back.” Incidentally, Gopi is facing the biggest heat from his Congress challenger in Thrissur — K. Muralidharan, Karunakaran’s son.
One of Gopi’s close aides told ThePrint later that he himself was in the SFI in college but attended the shakha of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). How so? “You had a lot of clout as an SFI member on campus but you also felt some sort of cultural affinity with RSS shakhas,” he said.
Having made the choice to take the political plunge with the BJP, Gopi is now confronted with another challenge — to woo the Church that has kept away from both the Left and the Right.
Gopi is the BJP’s biggest hope in Kerala this election, and so is the Church. In a state with around 26.6 percent Muslims and 18.4 percent Christians, a political party can’t hope to win a parliamentary election without the backing of one or both — or a significant chunk of them. Gopi and his party are, therefore, banking big time on the Church, especially the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.
Also Read: Just 25 candidates out of 194 — why Kerala still lags in women’s representation in Lok Sabha polls
Church & the spark of ‘love jihad’
Going by what one of the four archbishops in Kerala told ThePrint Thursday, the BJP has reason for hope.
He claimed that ‘love jihad’ was a matter of worry for Christian families. “There are so many cases but parents won’t talk to you about it. That’s why a section of them are looking at the BJP.”
Asked if he suspects Christians were targeted in an organised manner, the archbishop pointed out how Christians were the biggest minority in Kerala until Muslims overtook them in the 1981 census.
From the 1971 to 1981 census, Christian population went down to 20.6 from 21.1 percent while that of Muslims went up to 21.3 from 19.5 percent. The gap started getting wider after that.
From falling fertility rate to young Christians emigrating for good — there have been many studies to explain the decline in their population. “Because of their (Muslims’) numbers, they get institutional preference over us,” said the archbishop. It is this insecurity that has been feeding into the ‘love jihad’ narrative.
It’s not the first time that Kerala is witnessing a debate on this issue. It started way back in 2009 when the Kerala High Court asked the state police to look into the alleged conversion of two girls. The police subsequently ruled out the theory of ‘love jihad’ but it has continued to figure prominently in the state’s political discourse.
A communal dimension is creeping into the Church as priests, even some bishops, are ‘communally inclined’ and ‘teach hatred’, Fr. Paul Thelakkat told ThePrint in his Kochi office Friday. He rued how some bishops were becoming communal and talking about ‘narcotic jihad’ and ‘love jihad’ in Kerala. He was dismissive of their allegations but his advice to them was: “Why did the Pope go to Islamic countries? You should also go to them (Muslims) and talk if there is an issue.”
Fr. Paul is not an ordinary member of the clergy. He was spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church for 15 years, a post he was elected to by a Synod of 60 bishops. Until last month, he was the editor of Sathyadeepam/Light of Truth, widely circulated weekly of the Syro-Malabar Church. He held that post for 38 years.
An influential voice in Kerala’s Christian community, he had taken on Major Archbishop Cardinal George Alencherry whose pastoral letter on ‘love jihad’ in January 2020, read out in many churches, had triggered a storm, and remains a political hot potato to this day.
The pastoral letter had come amid controversies over Alencherry’s alleged role in shady land deals. “Growing love jihad is endangering religious harmony. Love jihad causes Christian girls to be recruited to terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State,” his letter read.
Last December, the Pope accepted Alencherry’s resignation but BJP leaders still see light in the spark that he reignited over ‘love jihad’.
On 4 April, the diocese of Idukki screened The Kerala Story, a film about Malayali girls being forced to convert to Islam and commit acts of terror as part of a catechism summer camp.
The Sanjopuram church in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese sought to counter it, screening a documentary on ethnic violence in Manipur — Cry of the Oppressed — thereby underscoring the division in the Church on the issue. These events are keeping the ‘love jihad’ issue alive this election season, giving the BJP some hope.
However, the Church has lately played down the issue on account of the elections. Father Jacob Palackappilly, spokesperson of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC), refused to comment and instead told ThePrint: “It’s a closed chapter. There is nothing more to add.”
Father Abraham Kavilpurayidathil, former spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Church, took a similar line although he suggested that the Church’s position on the issue was made clear by the screening of the film in the Idukki diocese.
Thalassery Archbishop Joseph Pamplany said that the Church’s anxiousness on ‘love jihad’ need not be conflated with support for any political party, especially the BJP. He added that he doesn’t agree with the terminology of ‘love jihad’ and that he doesn’t believe 99 percent of Kerala Muslims had anything to do with it.
Archbishop Pamplany had made news when he declared last March, before the Manipur riots, that the community could support BJP if the Centre were to raise the price of rubber to Rs 300 per kg.
He told ThePrint that the Church “cannot be seen endorsing the BJP or the RSS in any way”. Asked how it tallied with his comment on rubber prices, he said the two were “separate issues” and that he was merely speaking for the “rights of rubber farmers”.
Deepika’s anti-BJP editorial line
Lately, a consensus seems to have emerged within that the Church should not be identified in any way with the BJP. That explains why the screening of The Kerala Story as announced by members of the Kerala Catholic Youth Movement (KCYM) was abandoned in the Thalassery archdiocese and the Thamarassery diocese, once its political ramifications were brought to their attention.
Father Antony Vadakkekara, official spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Church, was guarded while speaking to ThePrint. He admitted to taking up the issue of the screening with Archbishop Pamplany and Thamarassery Bishop Remigiose Inchananiyil after the issue boiled over, and with elections round the corner.
Sangita Harry who teaches journalism at the prestigious Saint Teresa’s College in Ernakulam had a different take: “Why would the Idukki diocese show an ‘A’ certified film to impressionable adolescents?”
Father Antony Vadakkekara justified it by saying that Doordarshan, the national broadcaster, had telecast it a day later.
There is also a sense within the community that the Church’s evolving anti-BJP position is a reflection of the change at the very top — that of the Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil replacing Cardinal George Alencherry earlier this year.
Cherian Philip, the Congress veteran and former leader of the Kerala Students Union (KSU), recalled Archbishop Thattil as a member of the Congress student body in Thrissur.
However, a parish priest who did not wish to be named felt that the new major archbishop hasn’t really been asserting himself as yet. “It is true, however, that Cardinal George Alencherry had a soft corner for the BJP, and more than the cases that he was besieged with, it might have been a reflection of the people who advised him,” he stated.
George Kallivayalil, Delhi-based associate editor of Deepika — Kerala’s oldest daily (dating back to 1987) run by the Syro-Malabar Church — reckoned that ethnic violence in Manipur was a bigger factor influencing the anti-BJP position taken by the Church. He also ruled out any interference of the new major archbishop in shaping the editorial policy of the daily.
But one cannot discount the personal politics of individuals. For instance, Deepika has been publishing a spate of stinging anti-BJP editorials lately, and it is attributed to its chief editor Father George Kudilil. There has been a blowback to Deepika’s anti-BJP line from the RSS just days before polling is to be held in Kerala.
According to a senior marketing figure at Deepika, a full front-page ad to the daily worth about Rs 20 lakh was withdrawn at the last minute on 17 April after the RSS flagged the anti-BJP editorials to the Centre. “Editorials are translated on a daily basis by a Press Information Bureau (PIB) staffer sitting in Thiruvananthapuram”, he confided to ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Events happening outside Kerala — vandalisation of the missionary school in Telangana’s Mancherial on 16 April being the latest — resonate with the Christian clergy as also the commoners.
The archbishop quoted above (not to be confused with Pamplany) said, “Even those who are worried about ‘love jihad’ are watching what’s happening in Manipur, Chhattisgarh (ghar vapsi) or other states like Telangana. As many as 134 orphanages in Kerala had to be closed down because of various laws of the Centre. Just don’t quote me. You don’t want me to face the ED or the CBI, do you?”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: As Modi makes 6th trip to Kerala this yr, a look at constituencies where BJP aims to put up tough fight