I honestly believe that missionaries have done more for women’s education in this country than government itself. The women population of this country has been placed under a deep debt of gratitude to the several missionary agencies for their valuable contribution to the educational uplift of Indian women. Of course, at present India can boast of several other religious bodies such as the Brahmo Samaj, the Ramakrishna Mission, Arya Samaj, etc., doing work in the field of women’s education, but in the past the Christian missionaries were the only agencies in that field… Had it not been for these noble bands of Christian women teachers, who are the products of missionary training schools, even this much advancement in the education of the Indian women would not have been possible; even to this day, in every province, we find the missionary women teachers working hard in a spirit of love and faith, in out-of-the-way villages, where Hindu and Muslim women dare not penetrate.
— Dr. (Mrs.) Muthulakshmi Reddi, in her presidential address to the All–India Women’s Conference in January 1931.

Being a mission school we had a Bible class every morning which nobody minded attending even though the bulk of the students were Hindus. I happened to be a good student of the Bible and carried away many Bible prizes. This fact, and the fact that I was good in English made me a favourite of the Principal. Even in those days, however, there used to be scare-stories about missionaries trying to convert students to Christianity. I remember a wholly unfounded report having reached my parents that some of the teachers were trying to convert me into a Christian!
— Motilal C. Setalvad, first attorney general of India, in his autobiography, My Life — Law and Other Things)  

Christian schools have been able to inject a large number of non–Christians with a sense of dedication and commitment to education. That has been a very major contribution. Commitment to education that comes from commitment to scholarship is a good thing. But when it comes from a stronger motive, like service to society or religion or God, I think the commitment is raised to an entirely different level altogether; and such commitment is what you have been able to achieve for a number of years and to communicate to others.
— JP Naik, eminent educationist and a former educational advisor to the government of India.

Logic and reason, and even the most elementary notion of fair play should defy the grand lie. If the lie holds it’s own against lived experience, reason, and the harsh reality of statistics, there must be ‘good reason’ for its tenacity. If hysteria governs its currency, an emotion of unreason clouds clear–thinking and honest responses, the lie has hit upon an emotional chord or bed of support, however perverted. The kind of emotion that helps perpetuate the lie.

The grand lie that I speak of — and we have as a nation been piteous victim to a series of small and big lies over the last two decades or so — is the one unleashed against Christian institutions. It is alleged that the insidious intent of ‘conversion’ is the sole reason why,  in the service of their Lord, Jesus, Christians travel to regions ignored and neglected, to people forgotten and even brutalised, to educate, to nurse, to cure and to comfort — all with the missionary zeal that has come to be associated with their life–long work.

The lie took its toll in the past, too. But it has achieved unsurpassed success in the past five years or so, with chilling violence of varied kinds being used against Christians. This despite the dogged service that these women and men of faith continue to perform. We have as a nation allowed the burning of Bibles and the desecration of churches, just as a 400–year–old mosque was demolished to lay the foundation for mass violence against others in our midst. Worse, nuns and priests have been killed and terrorised, sexual violence, too, used to ram home the message.

All these assaults have taken cover under the grand lie. Why do I call it the grand lie?

We need to face our own shame and recognise that based on religion and scripture and the cultures and traditions that have evolved from these, we have created and allowed different levels of denials.

Consider this. As we enter the third millennium of human civilisation, as calculated by the Christian calendar, Christians of various denominations in India, totalling not more than 2.3 per cent of the entire population, are responsible for 25 per cent of the social services provided in the country. Consider this. Forty per cent of the total social work by NGOs undertaken in the country is undertaken by Christian institutions alone.

Consider also this. The UN Human Development Report, 2000, ranks India abysmally low in human development — at 128 out of 174 countries in the world. Low life expectancy (people not expected to survive beyond 40), high levels of adult illiteracy, deprivation in economic provisioning, counted by the percentage of people lacking access to health services, safe water and social inclusion (employment is one indicator) are the areas where Indian governance has failed it’s own people. 

A decade–old UNESCO figure tells us that we had 370 million illiterates amongst us. Literacy rates among women of all classes, castes and communities are lower than those of men; other figures of the vast disparities or differences between the opportunities and privileges available to one section as opposed to another tell their own tale:

For example, in India, the illiteracy rate among the scheduled tribes (about 7 per cent of our total population) is 70 per cent compared to 48 per cent for the country as a whole. What does this mean? That, whereas nearly half of all Indians are today denied the basic right to education, among scheduled tribes who live in remote and far flung areas, the deprivation is far higher.  

What else does this mean? That, the buzzword on development and progress notwithstanding, we need to dig deeper behind the cold comfort of numbers and see their social relevance. We need to face our own shame and recognise that based on religion and scripture and the cultures and traditions that have evolved from these, we have created and allowed different levels of denials.So that the poor and marginalised oppressed castes, were and still are subjected to inhuman levels of spiritual, physical and material denials; long–forgotten tribes who are the original, pre–Hindu inhabitants of this land were and are rendered even more illiterate; our women, whether Brahman to ‘atishudra’ or ‘mleccha’, were and are not only kept away from education and attendant empowerment, but also subjected to violent abuse, within the family and outside.

We do not, however, rise as a people in anger and shame even while these figures and searing tales of humiliation and cruelty stare us in the face. We are not outraged when the current–day perpetuators of the big lie travel long distances to perform ghar vapsi (return to the home) rites on children, women and men from whom their own forefathers have snatched land, food and shelter for centuries. And then, having forced the re-conversion on the tribal people, and unconcerned about issues like food, education, health and empowerment), say they will construct separate temples for them to pray!
Within this larger sphere of material and spiritual disparity, present day statistics and our history of the past centuries, lies embedded the contribution of Christian individuals and institutions,  of varied denominations but all driven by the message of Christ — in building schools to educate girls as well as boys, in reaching inaccessible areas and holding out a caring hand to sections brutalised and excluded by scriptural faith and certainly by living tradition. 

It was inevitable that the mission of Christians in India would take them where the Indian establishment, still shackled by caste–bound prejudice, dithers and even after Independence, gingerly refuses to tread. To provide succour and to empower the poor, the tribal, the Dalit, the women.
We turn a blind eye to both realities. And both denials together make up the grand lie. The first is the collective denial of present human development figures that stare us in the face and which are linked to the historical denial of opportunity and fair play to large sections of our population in the past. The second denial is our refusal to recognise the contribution of Christian institutions.

The second denial is indeed linked to the first because it is in the arenas of these past and present day inequities and injustices that Christian individuals and institutions have located their work, their mandate being to work for the most marginalised and underprivileged. To deny the existence of disparity now, and historically, is to deny Christian contribution, then and now, and to claim that its all nothing but convenient cover for conversion. To accept their role is to face our moral and cultural poverty, the rank injustice and marginalisation that we have perpetuated on sections of our people. To accept their role is to nail the grand lie.

It was inevitable that the mission of Christians in India would take them where the Indian establishment, still shackled by caste–bound prejudice, dithers and even after Independence, gingerly refuses to tread.

We have heard so much in recent years about the offensive language contained in the Minute of Macaulay (March 7, 1835). But what we refuse to accept is that elementary and higher education came in through different Christian missions long before the colonially driven and objectionable Macaulay edict, that spoke brazenly about the promotion of European literature and science among the people of India, and that referred to the indigenous people as persons of inferior (heathen) status.

There was a St Francis Xavier who trailed the path in elementary education by exhorting companions to build a school in every village next to which a church was built; today Christian schools number 11,801 (pre–primary, primary and village level); secondary and higher secondary schools total 3,614! 
Since as early as the 16th century, several Christian colleges have existed in western and southern India. These colleges were not only in the business of education, but they also created fine libraries and collected archival material valuable for oriental knowledge. Missionaries who set up these institutions of education got engaged and embroiled in the land they came to inhabit. The tracts on biological species, the first dictionaries in many Indian languages, the singular contribution to indigenous dialects, are some of the fruits of that engagement. 

It was the Scottish mission, begun in South Konkan in 1822, that inspired the young, Jyotiba Phule, a radical mind from the region of current–day Maharashtra, who was a strong critique of the Hindu caste system in the 19th century. Pandita Ramabai, a Brahmin widow who chose conversion to Christianity as a means of emancipation from the persecution and drudgery of life as a Hindu widow, gave her testimony before the Education Commission in 1882. Official estimates of the time stated that one hundred million women were uneducated, with both Hindu and Muslim traditions historically denying women these rights. Included in this were girls, married women and, worst of all, widows who were subjected to humiliation and denied the dignity of living autonomous lives. 

Testifying before the commission, Ramabai had remarked that in ninety–nine cases out of a hundred the educated men of the country were opposed to female education and the proper position of women. It was of little use to build schools without girls to fill them, or without a staff of female teachers. The teaching profession for women was thought to be incompatible with womanly modesty, she had said.  

As far back as 1823, the Church of England Missionary Society ran 23 girls’ schools in Calcutta. In 1824, the American Mission opened the first school for girls in Bombay, a school that, incidentally, was open to children of all castes. The threat of the democratising processes that these contributions unleashed are undoubtedly behind the violent resistance to their work, then and now. 

In South India, too, it was the missions who pioneered women’s education — the first university college, the first medical school and the first training college for women — the Sarah Tucker College, Palamcottah, the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1918 and St Christopher’s Training College, Madras in 1923 were set up by them.

In failing to nail the grand lie, we deny not just our past but also present day Indian reality. A few weeks ago, the RSS chief KS Sudarshan demanded, if you please, the ‘Indianisation’ of the church in India. It needs a great lie to hide the truth of the Church’s engagement with the marginalised people of India who are perceived by some as the real ‘problem’ of India. 

It is not my intention to uncritically glorify the role of the Church in India. It is definitely my intention to challenge the insidious attempt to deny and dismiss decades, even centuries, of compassion and commitment with a grand lie.                                    

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​Narayan Ananthakrishnan 

In his late 30s, Narayan Ananthakrishnan, a father of two, was suddenly faced with a medical emergency. He had to undergo a brain surgery at less than 24 hours notice. Which hospital should he choose? Guided by his neuro–surgeon, who consulted with three such institutions, Narayan opted for the low–key Holy Family Hospital at Bandra, Mumbai. Recalling those harrowing weeks, in conversation with Communalism Combat, during which his life hung in the balance, Narayan has warm memories of an institution that lived upto it’s calling — caring for a patient with dignity and compassion.

It was all such a shock. I was not even aware that I was bleeding in my brain. I merely felt an acute pain on the top of my eyes that was unbearable when I went in for the MRA scan. The diagnosis indicated that there was severe bleeding on both sides of my brain and I had to be operated upon immediately.

It all happened within the space of a few hours actually. I left home at around 9 a.m. in June 1999, went through the MRA  scan and by 12.30 the diagnosis was known. Things moved at lightning speed after that because there was no time to be wasted. My brother–in–law, a doctor, helped me identify and contact a neurologist, Dr RD Gursani, immediately. There were two options before me in the choice of hospital (to which my neuro–surgeon, Dr Harshad Parikh is attached) since the third, the Hinduja hospital, was beyond our budget.  
It was to be either Nanavati or Holy Family Hospital at Bandra. None of us were in favour of Nanavati. Faced with a critical operation upon which my life depended, we chose Holy Family because essentially I am a God–fearing person and we felt that being a Christian hospital, Holy Family Hospital, too, would at least be God–fearing!

It didn’t bother me which God or which religion. First of all, I had faith in the doctor recommended to me who consulted there. Secondly, though I am a Hindu it does not bother me which God or which religion I see in front of me. Be it a Muslim place of worship, a Christian one or a temple. It is the home of God. 

I was in the hospital for just under two weeks. The nuns used to make their rounds, the father would come every single morning, check on how I was and ask, “How are you, son?” He would then bless me and say, “Don’t worry, son”. The first time he blessed me was on the morning that my operation was scheduled.

You see, I was under severe stress and  pain. It was a critical operation. Soon after the surgery that lasted over four hours, the surgeon came and told my wife, Geeta, “Whichever God it is you pray to, go and thank him. Thank him that your husband is safe. The amount of blood that I have removed from his brain, it was not in my hands to save him. I operate with the same sincerity on all my patients. He survived because of God.”

For the first few days there was unbearable pain, so bad that I could not open my eyes. But my entire treatment there, the handling by the staff, the operative and post–operative care was impeccable. I had no complaints. Post–operative care in my case was especially important since I am diabetic. My blood sugar needs to be tested three to four times a day and the staff did not need to be reminded even one time.

I was in a non–AC room with two beds, but my room and the whole hospital was spotlessly clean, the atmosphere calm and all the rooms spacious and airy. The staff responded immediately to the bells by the side of every patient. The floors, the tables and the toilets were kept scrupulously clean. The staff is well–trained and conscientious about injections and cleaning wounds, the sort of thing that is vital for a hospital. 

The whole ambience and atmosphere of this hospital was enriched by the church just across. Patients can hear the mass as it is conducted and this is very soothing, you know. I noticed this only on the fourth and fifth day because the first three days were a living hell with the kind of pain I had to undergo.

The strange thing is that after my operation, we heard so many people bad–mouthing Holy Family Hospital because it is a charitable hospital and so on! I find this ironical because my treatment there by the staff from the ward boy to the nurses was faultless. What struck me most was that there was no indifference in their behaviour towards me. Be it someone in the general ward or the first class ward, they treated every patient with the same concern and care.

Every time my father visited me in the hospital he would say, “Whenever you are feeling sad and afraid, just look up there to the photograph of Jesus Christ. Just look at him and he will save you.

Some things from my harrowing experience have left a lasting impression. I have been to a number of hospitals. My father has been admitted two–three times for operations; we have even admitted him to the Ramkrishna Mission hospital that is also a charitable hospital. But there is a vast difference between the two hospitals. In the atmosphere, the treatment of patients, the caring and dignity, cleanliness, there can be no comparison.

One thing I remember clearly about the Holy Family hospital was the strict adherence to rules. They would not budge from the visiting hours rule, no body was allowed after the permitted time! Even my own  brother–in–law, who is a doctor, was not allowed to enter the operation theatre because
he had not taken prior permission from the surgeon. He finally had to approach the head of the department for the clearance. They were very strict about certain things which I think is not happening in all the hospitals and which is why standards are not being maintained.

My wife stayed with me most days. There was another strict rule of not allowing children into hospitals to guard against their picking up any infection. On the seventh or eighth day I approached the Father to give me special permission to let me see my children for just five minutes. I had been through a tough time, come out of it but not seen their faces. I promised that I would not even speak with them and finally they allowed them to come and see me. 

The only thing that I remember on the negative side was their inability to register my request for a pure vegetarian meal, be it breakfast or lunch. I made repeated requests to the dietician but the request just would not register! It might sound facetious but once I find either egg or fish in the plate I just lose my appetite. But all things considered I feel that this was a relatively minor complaint.

Above all else, I got this efficient and considerate treatment at a decent and affordable rate. My total bill for a serious brain surgery and fourteen days of hospitalisation, including the surgeon’s charges (normally we have to pay doctors separately) amounted to Rs. 70,000. We must have spent another Rs.15–20,000 on medication and injections purchased from outside. Can you ever contemplate such reasonable treatment in a so–called private hospital?

Besides, no section of the staff was on the look out for tips every other day that has become the hapless norm in most hospitals in the city. From the man or woman who swept the floors to any other member of the staff, they did not accept tips.

I wanted to give them a donation in cash or kind before I left the hospital as a token of my appreciation but they simply refused. My father even spoke to the head sister in Malayalam explaining that what we wanted to give was a token of our appreciation for the institution but she simply said that their rules forbade her from accepting. “The fact that you recovered well is sufficient for us,” she told my father.

We all left the hospital, extremely happy. The greatest happiness of course was in my recovery itself from a critical and sudden brain surgery. Coupled with the warm treatment I received there.
Every time my father visited me in the hospital he would say, “Whenever you are feeling sad and afraid, just look up there to the photograph of Jesus Christ. Just look at him and he will save you.” The photograph of Jesus hung just above my hospital bed.               

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Xavier’s Social Service Society, Ahmedabad

Among the young and the middle aged of Ahmedabad, a city bitterly scarred by hate and venom, Father Ramiro Erviti has his band of followers and devotees. They maybe silent, afraid to speak out against the insanity and irrationality of hatred. But given a small opening, these young and not so young men speak highly of the man who tried to make them “Men for Others.”

This ability to reach out to the young and his great compassion for the poor drove Father Erviti, a Jesuit priest. He came to India in the early fifties leaving his native Basqueland in Spain and enrolled himself as a teacher at St. Xavier’s School, Ahmedabad. 

Any project for the underprivileged living among the squalor of the slums in Ahmedabad today automatically draws in the institution set up by Father Ramiro Erviti, the St. Xavier’s Social Service Society (SXSSS), in October 1976. The institute was a direct response to the educational, health, organisational and environmental needs of poor and marginalised communities of the slums and villages of Gujarat.

For the young, energetic students who were privileged to know Fr Erviti for his ability to take them away from bookish knowledge to the real and experimental, he is missed for the rock climbing and mountaineering courses for the youth, both rich and poor. His successful expeditions to Hanuman Tibba in the Himalayas are talked of with nostalgia. Fr. Erviti’s love for the environment arose not only because of an appreciation of the beauty of nature; he also wanted to do something about the rampant destruction of the environment. So, wherever he could, he began social afforestation programmes, encouraged children to grow trees, save water and protect the environment.

However, it was the way in which he reached out to the poor and marginalised of the slums and villages of Gujarat — week after week he took batches of students to visit the slums, the leprosy hospital, the government hospitals, and the villages around — that was exceptional. He believed that our ability to listen to the poor and the suffering was an integral part of education. He hoped that being sensitised, the students would one day become not merely benefactors, but agents of social change.

Whenever any natural or manmade disaster struck, Fr. Erviti was always there, with a dedicated band of students, colleagues and well-wishers, equipped with tonnes of material help. When thousands were affected during the floods in the River Sabarmati in Ahmedabad or the River Narmada in South Gujarat earlier, during the Morbi dam burst; or during communal riots which rocked Ahmedabad so frequently, relief and rehabilitation was always Fr. Erviti’s top priority.

After setting up the SXSSS, under his inspiration and guidance, a group of young architects and other professionals, came together to form the Ahmedabad Study Action Group (ASAG). The floods of 1973 on the River Sabarmati washed away the hutments of thousands of slum dwellers who lived on the banks of the River Sabarmati. Thanks to the initiatives of Fr. Erviti and the expertise of ASAG — thousands of those rendered homeless were rehabilitated in a unique project called ‘Sanklitnagar’.

Work initially began in Sanklitnagar and then spread to other slums of the city. Around that time, Fr. Erviti also reached out to thousands of adivasi migrants who came to Ahmedabad in search of work. He was instrumental in helping them start an organisation for themselves.
Fr Erviti met with an untimely death — due to dehydration, exhaustion and other internal complications — while on a mountaineering expedition. Fifteen years after his death, however, as it nears its Silver Jubilee, SXSSS still continues in the tradition set by its founder, with greater zeal and enthusiasm. It is involved today in 20 slum settlements and in several rural areas. Its work focuses on advocacy and human rights with a strong bias on the promotion of communal harmony, justice and peace.              

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I do not think that I can ever de–link myself from the influence of my formative years spent in the cradle of that whole culture with the Salesian priests and their commitment to the education system. The institution that they ran with caring and a deep sense of values, the grooming I got to grow into the kind of person that I am today. All that is part of the unconscious. Something that I carry wherever I go.

This experience goes with me, colours my vision, influences the way I look at things, at the world, the way I act, react and think. It is part of the collective unconscious, in the bloodstream, in the marrow of my bones.

We have millions in this country who are a product of these missionary schools. I grew up with the saga of Mary and Jesus inside of me. My mother, a Shia Muslim, took me to seven churches, every Friday, the month of Lent.

And I was very happy that I came to know of Jesus and his way of looking at the world at Bosco. That whole dimension that is deep inside me was perhaps imbibed from my days at Bosco. The way of looking at things, celebrating Christmas, after which comes the month of Lent, followed by Easter. In many ways I am a truly Christian boy.

Through all my growing up years I never ever felt that a faith was being forced upon me. There was a clear distinction made between the Catholic boys who had to attend Catechism classes while non–Christians learnt had to attend moral science classes. Christianity was never paraded, never imposed. There was not even the faintest such streak among the priests or teachers. The teachers, too, never put especial emphasis on anything ‘Christian’. This harmful propaganda is petty paranoia on our part.

In any case, if Jesus is injected in my consciousness it is not going to disempower me. There are many highs in Christianity that you can draw from. Jesus as a person had a unique way of looking at things. A life assertive outlook, compassion and conscience, who’s appeal is not limited to Christians alone.

The concept of Santa Claus lives on for my children. It is a fairy tale from which all of us are rudely awakened as life dishes out its offerings, but all of us need to keep the concept alive for the young, for the next generation. We should all play Santa Claus till we are rudely woken up!
Now this is something I inherited from my Christian upbringing. And I am grateful for my mother for having chosen to send me to a missionary school.

I owe my formative years to them. Bosco has contributed to my being what I am and I am thankful for the teachers and fathers for being so caring, tolerant and patient with me. I was a troublesome boy, not easy to handle. I was an anti–power and anti-authority kind of guy. But they showed me tolerance and compassion.

We also, by the way, had the best church built through my school that was completed during my school days. It was, and possibly still is, one of the best churches that we have. The marble for it came from Italy. We had some great and meaningful times in that church; I used to go inside and spend long hours. We used to play on the rocks and stone slabs.

Even though I left school many years ago, over the past 20 years or so, since I became a film maker, I have kept visiting and re–visiting the spot, the Church for shootings.

Now, you only revisit what is pleasurable and memorable and my memories of years at Bosco are nothing but that. That upbringing has also made enormous contribution to me as a person, a creative artist and this lasting impression manifests itself in my films, in my work.             

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While the name given to it by the young Catholic students who founded it in Paris in 1833 is the St Vincent de Paul Society (patron saint of charities), modern day members would like to remind newcomers of the true meaning of SVP — service for victory over poverty. 

To renew the church’s commitment to work for the marginalised, Indian branches of the SVP have been active since 1863. In Mumbai, there is a unit of the SVP active in many of the parishes, adopting families, encouraging them to become self–reliant and on a larger scale, setting up leprosy hospitals and homes, and an Aids hospice to provide treatment and a home for families affected by HIV/Aids.

Encouraging traditional talents has also been part of the focus of the SVP. An early scheme begun in the late 19th century was a project to encourage the traditionally highly reputed pottery on the island of Moolampally. The SVP unit called the Verapoly Central Council began this. 
Presently, the society runs tailoring and embroidery classes, education schemes, handicraft centres, small scale agricultural projects, the distribution of goats and cows for dairy produce, schemes for knitting of fishing nets, providing fishing boats and nets, homes for the homeless, medical clinics, homes for the aged, and holding eye camps. All activities concerned with self–empowerment and livelihood, in a nutshell.

As far back as 1885, one of the first leprosy homes set up in the country was the one founded by the St Vincent de Paul Society, in Trombay, a Mumbai suburb. The home was erected on a palatial property donated by the well–known Albless family of Bombay and subsequently conveyed to the Society as a gift in trust to be used for a lepers’ asylum. 

This was the beginning of the Eduljee Framjee Albless Leprosy Home a major medical relief centre. Since 1992, both men and women are being admitted as indoor patients here.

Apart from the dispersed activities within the 80–odd parishes of the Mumbai Archdiocese — adopting families, providing material and other aid with an aim to encourage self–reliance — the Shanty Bhuwan, Home for the Aged, located at Kalyan and the newly–conceived, 15–bed Aids Hospice (constructed in 1996) at Trombay, today constitute it’s major presence in the region. 

Ninety per cent of the ‘beneficiaries’ of all the society’s schemes are non–Christians even though funds for the construction of the Aids Hospice or for any of the other social service projects or schemes are collected largely from the Christian community. 

The last fund–raiser by the SVP was a unique method to involve partnership and involvement from the community, justifying the new-found motto of the SVP — Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM). 

A total of Rs. 63 lakh was raised from the Archdiocese of Mumbai by enlisting the help of Christian parishioners in seeking “partners in the common cause”. Over 30,000 flyers were distributed through the church to solicit monetary support. A few thousand enthusiastic participants contributed amounts ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 5,000, to become “partners” in this unique scheme that reaped rich dividends. 

Now, the society aims even higher to build a 100–bed full–fledged Aids Hospice for men, women and children, suffering from the dreaded disease. The Rs. 4 crore project is ambitious but when completed it will fill a crucial and gaping void. 

Yet another instance of a Christian institution, stepping in critical areas where neither government institutions nor private enterprise show any desire to tread.             

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Three ex-students of Don Bosco school, Matunga, Mumbai, who are even today actively involved itself in the past pupils’ association spoke to Communalism Combat about an institution that shaped their life and vision, firmly yet unobtrusively, through their formative years. Carrying the genuinely Christian belief that within every child there is that something just waiting to come out and flower, the staff and management of Bosco have conveyed to their alumni that caring for others, looking outside narrow concerns of our own lives, engaging in burning social issues are all part of a learning process that never ends. It means a life long engagement with the world around you. 

Dr Ram Chaddha
Spine surgeon, Mumbai

I do believe that Bosco is probably one of the premier educational institutions with a history of strong commitment to education. What I appreciate the most about this school is that despite having a prominent shrine next to us through all our schooling days, a shrine that dominates the campus, I never ever felt that Christianity was in anyway being imposed on me. 

I am happy to tell you that I come from basically an Arya Samaji Hindu culture where there is no idol worship. 

We as non-Christians had the moral science class, and the boarders, who were mostly Christians, the books on religion. My closest friends were boarders and I have gone through their books on religion. The moral science and religion books were almost the same. The only difference between the boarders and us was that my Catholic colleagues visited the church more often than we did and got the chance to taste the Holy Communion which we missed! It was only later in life that I realized that the Holy Communion was something very interesting that we should have shared!
I did not feel in any way different from them. In fact, I was very happy with the fact that I belonged to a school that had, and still has, a committed set of workers so utterly dedicated to education. I’ve noticed that there are only a few communities which have a committed set of workers — Christians, Parsis, or some Jains — who have a tradition of grooming a set of people who have given up a lot of their domestic daily chores for a commitment. 

It may be education, it may be health, rehabilitation or whatever. Christians have invested so much on education while Parsis have invested in helping students with educational scholarships, for the alleviation of poverty etc. Many of us who have needed help at various points of time, for medical expenses or other higher education courses, have got it from Parsi trusts, the Tata trusts or the Godrej trusts. They also encourage sports a lot.

For me, being a good human being is more important than being a Hindu or a Christian or a Muslim. I strongly feel that the way they developed my personality from an ordinary child, who probably may have had an inferiority complex elsewhere into an outgoing and confident person, was amazing. Hell, at 10 or 11 years, I was put up before an audience of 3,000 at the Shanmukhananda Hall, the largest auditorium in Bombay! I had to perform in front of the entire auditorium for almost three hours. If I could do that I can face anybody in the world! 

‘Why should you point fingers at the Christian institutions instead of learning from their outstanding  example?’

Dr Ameet S Patki
Gynaecologist

I came to Don Bosco because my family had a long association with the Don Bosco Salesians. My grandfather was instrumental in building this school so it was the obvious choice of school for me. We never saw this as a Christian school. As Ram says, we were never even asked to go to the shrine even once. I repeat not once and I am talking about 20-25 years ago. Never even once were we told to visit the shrine. 

The school never once discriminated between us, we were all encouraged to bring out the best from within us. At the time, the staff was 70 per cent Christian and the long hours of dedication that these persons spent with us, training us after school hours, in gymnastics, elocution, in preparation for these huge mega shows. Their dedication was amazing.

 We are all proud to say aloud that we are from Bosco. They make you into a complete person. We were each one of us made to feel special. As Father Adolf used to say, there is something in each student just waiting to come out. In Bosco, each child grows up believing this.
Those who are casting these unwarranted aspersions on Christian institutions should recognize this tremendous dedication and contribution, value it and learn from it. Persons of other faiths should pick this up, emulate from it. Why should you point fingers at the Christian institutions instead of learning from their outstanding example?

‘For my Brahmin marriage by Vedic rites, a Christian priest came all the way from Spain to bless us’

​Dilip S Bhatt
Chartered Accountant

What could be a better illustration of what Bosco stands for than to imagine that even though I am a Hindu, I am the past pupils’ president of the school; I am on the provincial committee. I formed the national federation of Don Bosco Past Pupils and I am its national treasurer. Does this not show that this is not a Christian institution, it is an institution for everyone?

It brought us all together irrespective of caste, colour and creed. 

Some of our lifelong mottos we learnt from here — how to help others and help in the Bosco style, to empower the needy, to comfort the sick. This message is so important to remember in the India of today. When we carry such a message out of Bosco into the wider world, and we follow what we have learnt, we not only repay the alma mater for their devotion but also contribute to society as a whole.

The education stressed upon here is one of relevance to the world, problems and issues around you. I really feel that I am proud to call myself a Boscoite and I will continue to feel so until I die.

I got married as per Vedic rights years ago. My marriage took place in Dakor, a Brahmin stronghold in Gujarat, with 95 per cent Brahmins. You will be surprised to hear how the marriage took place. Father Mariotta flew down from Switzerland to attend my marriage in Dakor; he came over there and after our marriage ceremony he blessed both of us. In front of the large village crowd. Not one person gave it a thought. Even though mine was a traditional Brahmin marriage by Vedic rites, a Christian priest came all the way to bless the couple! The whole town was thrilled. 
My father happens to be the president of the Brahmin Parishad there. And yet, on that day all of us went through a beautiful experience; it was as if a communion marriage between Hindus and Christians was taking place.

I learnt here that there is no difference between human beings. Even today I go to the temple, mosque, a church.

‘A pride laced with humility is what every Boscoite has’

​Jatin V Paranjape
Cricketer, played for Mumbai and India

I come from a family that is a blend of academics and sports. My father is a cricket coach, my mother heads the English department at Ruia College. My parents put me into Bosco because of the emphasis on sport.  There was always a very good balance between education and sport there. 
When I started playing for the school I was in the fifth standard; it was actually my vice-principal who spotted me one day playing rubber ball cricket. He used to take care of the hockey and football teams but without my even knowing it, he recommended me to the cricket coach. The very next day I found myself playing from the school team! Everything seemed to just follow from there.

At the same time, the teachers took so much pain in the classes to help me keep track of my studies. Unknowingly, this is what this institution has taught me, that you can do a couple of things at the same time.   You can both pursue your dream and also academics. I did well in Std X and XII, completed my Company Secretary course while I was already playing for Bombay. I played for India thereafter. At present, I have taken a few months’ sabbatical since I am appearing for the IIM Management entrance examinations.

What was instilled in me at Bosco has stayed within me: yes, Jatin you can play cricket and you can study as well. That is what the class teacher used to tell me. Nothing was actually done to tell me this, but the message has been lasting and has stayed. So apart from being in the team, I was also the class monitor, helping with other kinds of organizing and so on.

Some of my best friends have been the boarders and I am happy to say that I am still in touch with them. There is one unmistakable thing that every Boscoite has, a pride in his institution. It is an unshakable pride. It is not a pride bordering on the egoistic. It is a pride laced with humility. That is what Fr Lionel taught us. It was all done unobtrusively; the message getting across without the other person even knowing or understanding it.

Was Christianity imposed? This is laughable, farthest from the truth. We have a beautiful church here that is the landmark of the area, the city. It does not just belong to the school, but to all of us. It is part of our collective history.      

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Father Hugh Fonseca

One of six children from Mumbai, I have been a priest for 33 years now. For all the years that I have been a priest, I have believed in getting involved with the problems of the people, in the real life issues that matter.

From 1975 until 1983, I was at the St Pius seminary, Goregaon (Mumbai), with Fr Raymond, his brother, Fr Alvyn and Fr. Alex Carvalho. It was while we worked there that ideas began to take shape and move in a particular direction. In 1980, when we had the consultation for priests, we started the social justice cells.

This work continued as we went into the parishes. I was in the Kurla parish for six years but I lived and worked in Saki Naka. Saki Naka was a very important experience for me as the parish was being controlled by a group of people, Catholics, who were under the sway of slumlords. Over a five-year period, we managed to get it out of the hands of the vested interests. Ultimately people began to take charge of their own lives. 

We were, the four of us, idealistic, with strong notions of what faith should be and the role it should play in people’s lives. This churning and reflection within us was against the solely ritualistic faith that was prevalent at the time. The result of this reflection was a paper that we came out with to nudge the Church in the direction that we were going. It was titled, ‘The Faith that has Justice’.

We then took up two parishes, the Jeri Meri and Saki Naka parishes, as experiments; the result was the Jagruti Kendra established in 1989. All four of us worked as a team. There was the handa morcha that we took out to the ward office to protest on the question of water; we protested the shabby collection and depositing of garbage. Each protest sent out a deep inner message to people to take charge of their lives, not to feel helpless and insecure and empower themselves to get what is their due.

In the beginning there was resistance, too, to such a novel approach. At one meeting in Saki Naka where parish counsellors were present, vested interests who had controlled affairs for too long tried to show their strength. They threatened to attack me. That was a real test for the local population. When all of them stood up refused to be cowed down, stood around to protect me, that was the first public show of our victory. 

Until then, no one had publicly challenged the authority of the vested interests. This was during 1992 and 1993. Thereafter, I was in Orlem, Malad, another suburb where I spent six years. There, too, a powerful local group, VOTE (Voice of the People Exploited), emerged. 

The incident that initially motivated people was the demolition of a chapel at Srilankapada. This became an incident to rally against the local corporation officials, the Shiv Sena corporators and to establish healthy links with the police. The local people took up the initial mobilisation and what we see now is the existence of a strong voice of the laity in Malad. There is the VOTE group, there is also the Lourdes Community Centre that contributes to community service and health works in the area.

Now at Borivli, we are, laity and church together, involved in firming up yet another group, HELP. Here also the aim is to work together on issues that concern all of us, be it attacks on minorities or broader human rights issues. 

As a priest, I have always believed that we must guide persons to take control of their lives and to fight for justice. When we began as priests, there was more emphasis on the spiritual and the ritualistic. Today, I see that spirituality lies in working against injustices, for truth. Without this emphasis what use is ritualistic faith alone?

The Church has played a historic role in this country providing education, health and other services. But it is a huge institution that gets tired and lumbers along. It, too needs to be nudged with new ideas, new pushes. We need to look beyond formal education, look at the question of values, civic values, values concerning justice, becoming good and responsive citizens.

In the broadest possible sense, following as we are the work of Christ, we must be prepared to think beyond ourselves, look at the misery and poverty around and do something about it. Like other institutions, the Church here and elsewhere has had aberrations, reflecting the concerns of only the powerful and the rich, the influential, echoing the caste biases that prevail. Yes, we have had our share of aberrations.

There were parts of India where only upper caste priests were accepted, in another case we have had a history of different castes being buried separately. This is something that violates the basic tenets of Christianity. We had one instance, in Goa, of the body of a person callously removed after burial, simply because he belonged to the ‘lower’ caste.

This happened because when the Portuguese came, there were actually mass conversions without any real change in attitude on questions of caste. In other words, your conversion did not change your attitudes. 

But having said that, there are people within the church hierarchy and the laity who are trying to make a difference.

Under the theme, “He came to set us free” (the first sermon of Christ in the synagogue) we have recently begun a movement for civic and political cells in each parish within the Mumbai diocese. Through this the conscientisation of people will happen.              

(As told to Teesta Setalvad).

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I am an MA in politics. My first appointment when I became a priest in 1975 I was in Vakola, Santacruz (E). Initially I was caught up in traditional priestly work. But slowly, faced with the realities of the world outside, I began to realise that faith has to be linked with justice. Especially, because there was little relation between what happened within the Church to was happening in society. 

I remember, for example, that while I was vice-principal of a school at Vakola, I noticed that during the first period itself, students would be trooping out of class and roaming about in the school. Two years later, when I began some community work in the slums where the youngsters lived, I realised that there were no toilets there and so, naturally, they spent the first period releasing themselves. 

A cloistered approach from the priest and parish need not get you involved in issues like these but if people are suffering outside, how can we not get involved?

This was also about the time that some four-six priests like us began reflecting on the role of the Church in the community. We used to call it a think tank. Slowly we evolved into an inspirational group concerned with making faith more relevant. This then slowly evolved into the social justice cell of Archdiocese of Bombay in 1981. Finally, a decade later, the official body of the Church accepted it and it now exists as the justice and peace commission.

The guiding principle of this mini-movement inside the Church was that people’s lives, rather than merely ritualistic faith, needs to be stressed. We got inspiration and guidance from Dominque and Nafisa, professors in social work from Andhra Pradesh –- from whom we evolved the idea of working within a community – the idea being to link faith with justice. There were four of us in this movement. My brother, Hugh Fonseca, Alex Carvalho and myself.

Initially there was scepticism from the Church, there was also resistance to work with other communities. But we were clear. That, when we are dealing with social and justice issues we have to get involved with all communities. Jeri Meri, one of our experimental parishes, was where we had a children’s group, a women’s group, a youth group. The main thrust was on the organisation of people, encouraging them to solve their own problems.

There were also difficulties with the hierarchy; but it was a new understanding of faith and action so there were bound to be questions and some friction. I recall an incident when a bishop, Bishop Bosco Pena, was quite supportive. He actually challenged me to begin work with other communities. 

So we took up this challenge, managed to work out the dynamics and succeeded. Within Mumbai we had some type of community organisations like Seva Niketan and Bandra East Community Centre. But they were not linked to the parish, they were individual centres. Here the idea was to link each parish with such a cell. 

Today this sort of idea has become part of the official mandate; it took us 10-15 years to convince the hierarchy that we need to move with the times. Now we have 35 centres all over Mumbai. (Mumbai has about 80-odd parishes).

In the recent past, with increasing attacks on democratic freedoms of different communities, it becomes even more pertinent that the Church and its units are alert to questions of justice. During the 1992-1993 communal violence in Mumbai, many men and women of the Church opened their church doors for relief and rehabilitation. Now that nuns and priests are also under consistent attack, we need to mobilise on the issue as a threat to democratic freedoms.

The fact that Christian institutions are working in education, health and other areas, with the most marginalised sections and in the context of our country this means oppressed castes, it is inevitable that our work itself comes under attack. However, these women and men of faith are not dithered; at the Seminary I meet them from all parts of the country and they are unshakeable in resolve, determined to complete their life’s mission.

A true Christian believes that it is only under threat, martyrdom and pressure that the church grows –- not necessarily quantitatively but qualitatively. So we have to carry on.

The Church, both as a link with faith and as a physical presence in the parish, has tremendous potential to be a genuine link with the people who live there. To show compassion and caring for their problems. While acceptance to this approach is not 100 per cent, it is slowly growing as the centres become successful, identify with people’s problems and attract young and fresh talent. 

Basically it boils down to this. What should faith stand for? Justice issues, real life issues or should we only concentrate on the ritualistic dimension of faith.

While this is a positive development, as in other faiths, the conservative and inward-looking traditions within Christianity are also visible. These persons with a narrow definition of faith and worship don’t see their involvement or the involvement of the Church in politics and civic life. It is growing everywhere; it is a type of spirituality, which is only concerned with personal salvation.

However all said and done, I feel that partly because of the community centres started by some of us, partly because of other pulls and pressures, lay persons increasingly feel that the Church should get involved in politics, in civic issues. These lay persons are taking the initiative. The first step is get people involved. 

(As told to Teesta Setalvad).

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