Return of the Inquisitor

Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose revolves around a series of murders that take place in a Benedictine abbey of the fourteenth century. One of the intriguing structures in the abbey is the library. Except for the librarian, no one else is permitted to enter this library. If anyone attempts to enter, they are murdered. For the library treasured not only texts that proclaimed the ‘truth’ but also texts that discussed matters that are ‘heretical’. What if an innocent monk driven by curiosity exposed himself to the latter? What if he comes to know things he should not be knowing? What if he turned into yet another rebel, conspiring to bring down the Catholic Church? Such was the fear.

Some days back, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) was overcome with a similar fear. They came out with a public statement demanding the withdrawal of the new Class 10 Social Science text book brought out by the State Council Educational Research and Training (SCERT). The bishops’ council alleged that the text book was part of a conspiracy to malign the Catholic Church and undermine the secular fabric of the nation, and therein, an act of treason against the nation. It was feared that the text book would mislead students and generate a bad impression about the Catholic Church. Hence, the demand for the withdrawal and rewriting of the text book.

The text book under question was written by a thirteen member committee, and was approved by a sub-committee and a committee comprising of experts in the discipline and teachers belonging to different political persuasions and biases. It was also approved by a textbook commission, that was set up on the recommendations of the K. N. Panikkar Committee following a similar uproar made by the Catholic Church in 2008. This commission not only had some of the distinguished academicians of the country but also a Catholic priest who is the headmaster of PEM High School, Thiruvanchur. It is after going through such a rigorous process of scrutiny that the text book came to be finalized and published. The attempt of the bishops’ council to write off this process as a premeditated ‘conspiracy’ is an indication of its contempt for democratic norms and processes – and also a blatant attempt to hold the entire state and its people ransom to their particular agenda.

The statement brought out by the KCBC is rather vague as to what in the text book offended their sensibility. One of the allegations is that the text book portrays feudalism in Europe as a creation of the Catholic Church. Besides proving that the church leaders have not read the text book themselves, this allegation is unfounded and baseless. The text book utters only two statements about the relation between feudalism and the Catholic Church: While one talks about the Catholic Church having enforced strict control over access to knowledge and rational thought during the feudal period (p. 10), the other talks about the feudal lords and the Catholic Church having suppressed the Graeco-Roman culture (p. 12). Except for these two assertions, there is no other mention or any effort to indicate that feudalism was the creation of the Catholic Church.

As per the KCBC statement, it is the first chapter of the text book that has caused much discomfort to the Catholic Church. This chapter narrates the history of early modern Europe, covering themes such as ‘Renaissance’, ‘Reformation’, ‘Counter-Reformation’, ‘Geographical Discoveries’, ‘Scientific Revolution’ and ‘Enlightenment’. It is primarily in the context of discussions on ‘Reformation’ and ‘Counter-Reformation’ that frequent references are made to the Catholic Church. These references include the systemic corruption and intolerance that had crept into the Catholic Church, the prevalence of practices such as the sale and purchase of holy offices and the sale of indulgence against which reformers like Martin Luther spoke out, and the brutalities of counter-reformation manifested in the inquisition and forced conversions around the world. In citing these references, the text book has only mentioned what several historians, including Catholic historians, have come to acknowledge and write about over the years. None of these facts and events of history are unfamiliar to readers and writers of European history. The accounts of numerous men, women and children subjected to the worst kinds of torture; the numerous women cast as witches and burnt at stake; the murder of reformers, scientists and philosophers; the persecution and massacre of Jews, Muslims, Atheists and others; and the use of civil authority to instil terror and fear in the minds of people, are all there in the public domain. In fact, if at all one was to raise any complaint, it would be that considering there is so much more information now available on the horrors of inquisition and counter-reformation, the text book could have shown less restraint and said much more.

In raking up this controversy, it is the art of history writing that has once again become the casualty. The wounds inflicted by the Sangh Parivar on it less than a decade back has still not healed. And now, the Catholic Church wants to follow suit. Both these institutions share a common feeling of threat as far as history is concerned. Both fear that if history is written with honesty, in accordance to the rules and procedures of the craft, many ghosts from the past would come to haunt them. Thus, both feel the need to tamper with the craft, and invent a history that would meet their narrow political and religious agendas. What makes the present demand of the Catholic Church in Kerala to rewrite the text book even more ridiculous is their enthusiasm to suppress that history for which even Pope John Paul II had offered a public apology and asked for forgiveness. In 2000, from the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and again in 2004, during the launch of a book on the inquisition in Vatican, Pope John Paul II asked forgiveness for the series of torture, trials and executions unleashed by the Church across Europe in its hunt for ‘heretics’; for the sins it committed against people of other faiths and cultures; for the sins it committed against the dignity of women and minorities; and for its violation of human rights. However, this acknowledgement of sins committed and pleas made for forgiveness by the Pope seem to have had no effect on the Catholic Church in Kerala.

History as it is presented in the text book is not the only way in which the past may be understood. As in every writing of the past, it is only an interpretation of the past, albeit one that is reached through a consensus among various practitioners of the discipline, by following certain rules and procedures of the discipline. It doesn’t have any pretensions of providing the final word on matters of the past. In fact, right through the text book, the writers pose several questions to the students so that they would not be just satisfied by what the text says but would take an initiative to probe further and reach at their own conclusions about the past. However, the Catholic Church, for whom canons and dogmas are integral to who they are and what they are, finds it difficult to comprehend this democracy of interpretations.

This is not the first time that the Catholic Church in Kerala has demanded the withdrawal and banning of literature from the public domain. It has done so before. And what it points to is a deep-seated insecurity. The crisis that confronts various religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church, is while its unconscious self knows that it has failed in living up to what it originally set out to do, its conscious self does not want to acknowledge that and wants to remain in a state of denial. Hence, any idea or text that reminds them of their unconscious makes them extremely uncomfortable and defensive, therein bringing out the inquisitor in them alive. The Catholic Church has to come to terms with this reality rather than chase the ghosts of its imagination.

The Pharisees of Today

There are many things which disturbs us every now and then, and there are certain things which disturbs us more than others just because there is something about it which makes us feel extremely betrayed and cheated. The recent instance where several Church leaders in Kerala were prostituting themselves at the altar of power and making a mockery of the Christian faith was one such instance. At a time when witch-hunting of minorities in my country has been on a phenomenal rise; when large number of Muslim youth are being picked up and tortured without any shred of evidence that is sustainable in a court of law in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’; when the degree of fear that has taken over the Muslim community has reached such levels that some of my Muslim friends would rather not go out of their homes after dark; when many Christians, especially Dalit Christians, have been hunted down, raped, killed and rendered homeless; when many Christian churches, homes and schools have been burnt down; when fear of an imminent attack looms large; some prominent church leaders in Kerala, apparently representing me, were sitting in a hotel room, making a pact with leaders of the Sangh Parivar under the guise of “inter-faith” dialogue. Yes, the same Parivar that has been perpetrating all these crimes mentioned above.       

They called it an “inter-faith” dailogue. Inter-faith? On the one hand there were church leaders, who apparently represent Christianity, and on the other hand there was the Sangh Parivar. Which faith do they represent? Hinduism? Most of my Hindu friends would feel insulted if I ever told them that Sangh Parivar represented Hinduism. But, I guess for the church leaders in Kerala that did not matter.

During this “inter-faith” dailogoue, church leaders and the Sangh Parivar resolved to thrash out their differences, have mutual respect for each other’s religious beliefs, prevent forced conversions while upholding the right of individuals to embrace the faith of their conviction and work towards “communal harmony”. Most interestingly, they even asked the believers to be beware of the machinations of politicians who are “out to take advantage of religious sentiments and to instigate communal passions.” I wonder which politicians were being refered to here. Surely, they were not pointing their fingers at themselves. They are all too self-righteous for that.

According to Archbishop Baselios Cleemis, head of the Malankara Catholic Church, the attacks that have been going on in the country for the last few months are not attacks on the Christian community but on persons bearing Christian names. Following the “inter-faith” dialogue, he loudly proclaimed that “an attack on a person bearing a Christian name need not be construed as an attack on the entire Christian community”. In other words, Christians should not panic over the recent spate of violence against them, those are just an attack on persons bearing Christian names. The representatives of the RSS, VHP and Hindu Aikya Vedi present at the meeting could not agree with him more.

At the core of this nefarious alliance is the common interests that the Church leaders in Kerala share with the Sangh Parivar, namely preserving the status quo and resisting any progressive change. Till very recently, these same church leaders were in the forefront fighting for their right to educate the rich and the affluent and not educate the poor. When the government told them that even the poor needs education, they shamelessly proclaimed that it was not their responsibility. Needless to say, Christ went through another Good Friday on that day. Similarly, when the left government brought out new social science school text books as per the guidelines set by the National Curriculum Framework, these same church leaders were in the forefront defending caste and tradition. They wanted chapters that critically discussed caste and communalism removed from the text book altogether. In all this, it is needless to say,  they had the tacit support of those who, today, they sit with and talk about “communal harmony”.

As a Christian, I often wonder what Christ would have done in a situation like this. Would he have again taken that whip and driven out all those who had turned the house of prayer into a den of thievery? Would he have ranted at these ‘high priests’ and ‘Pharisees’ of today and exposed their hypocrisy? Would he have called them a “brood of vipers” or “wolves in sheep’s clothing” as he once called Pharisees? I think he would have. 

A Stubborn Pride

IT IS with a laugh that Sanjay Kumar narrates his story — not because it is an amusing story to tell, but because it helps him confront his past and move ahead in life with dignity. If it were not for laughter, he would very likely have given up, letting ‘fate’ decide the course his life would take, like so many others in his community do. Sanjay, a chamar by caste, was the first in his family to pass the Intermediate. He grew up in Kolkata, where his father Guru Prasad was a migrant labourer at the Bata factory.

Forced to take voluntary retirement in the early 90s following the mechanisation of the factory and the related cutting down of work force, Guru Prasad then shifted to Japla, in Palamau district of Jharkhand. He eventually settled down there, barely sustaining himself and his family as a vendor of satthu or roasted gram flour. Even as a child, Sanjay was determined to study as much as he could, regardless of the poverty at home and the hostile environment created by upper caste teachers and peers at school. Much to his classmates’ envy, he consistently came first in class from elementary school onwards.

Having developed a love for reading, but with little access to books, he would often stand by magazine stands reading, until shopkeepers shooed him away. Many a time, he would borrow money from friends just to buy books; Premchand was an early favourite. Used to the relative anonymity of Kolkata, it was in middle school in Japla that he first encountered the demon of caste. On his first day at school, the upper caste class monitor and teacher demanded that he, like other Dalit students, sweep the classroom floor. Angered by the demand, Sanjay firmly refused, for which the class teacher beat him. He did not budge, and finally the teacher withdrew his demand. He would need to demonstrate this resolve again and again in the tough years that lay ahead.

In class seven, disturbed by chronic teacher absenteeism in his school, Sanjay organised some of the students and did a successful signature campaign demanding that teachers take their classes regularly. The reaction of an upper caste teacher to this act of ‘rebellion’ was revealing: “Saale bahut padakku bante ho, utake patak denge ki kohre ki tarah phat jaoge.” (“Trying to act studious? I’ll slam you so hard you’ll break into pieces”) Around the time he got to high school, his family was hit by an acute financial crisis. There were times when money would not come for months, and Sanjay often had to survive on just milk and bread.

The situation got worse when he entered Intermediate in Patna. Caste atrocities on Dalit students in the hostels made him opt for a rented room, which meant more expenses. His father being unable to support him now, he took up jobs, first as a peon in a film distributor’s office, later, as a courier boy, and so on. In between jobs, when the pocket was totally empty, there were days when he would go without any food whatsoever. During his undergraduate studies, the situation got so desperate that he went to Silwasa in Dadra Nagar Haveli to work as a watchman at a factory. Disgusted by the abuses his supervisor hurled at him for reading, he soon left his job and returned to Patna. Ridicule, especially on caste lines, was something he could never tolerate, even if it meant losing a job.

THROUGH ALL this, Sanjay kept himself up to date with studies, wrote exams and pursued his love of reading. He completed graduation and post-graduation with a first class, yet, when it came to finding a job, his caste once again posed a problem. He finally landed a job as an ad-hoc lecturer in a private college run by an upper caste management in Noida, but only because he had concealed his caste identity. Sanjay went on to do a B. Ed from Delhi University and an M. Phil in Education from Jawaharlal Nehru University; he now looks forward to a career in academics.

He’s grateful to some of his teachers in both institutions, who created a conducive atmosphere for him in a system that is unfriendly to his dreams. Yet, finding himself illequipped in an academia where ‘excellence’ is often measured by one’s knowledge of the English language, he had toyed with the idea of dropping out. But he knew that to do such a thing would be to go back on all that he had struggled for since his childhood.

In a sense, Sanjay’s story itself is a form of laughter. Laughter tinged with irony, directed at a situation where upper caste students, faced with reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in higher education, try very hard to portray themselves as ‘victims’ of an unjust situation.

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 14, Dated April 12, 2008