The Bharatiya Janata Party’s recent outreach to the Christian community has acquired more urgency keeping in mind Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion, after the party’s commanding performance in the Christian-dominated north-eastern states of Meghalaya and Nagaland, that Kerala was very much in their sights and the saffron party would definitely install a government there. A series of developments in the wake of that pronouncement lend more credibility to a claim that most interpreted as mere grandstanding about a state that has always voted either for the Congress-led United Democratic Front or the CPM-led Left Democratic Front with no space for any alternative. Even Nemom, the lone seat the BJP held in the previous Assembly, went to the CPI-M in 2021.
Amidst a spirited initiative by the BJP in Kerala to woo the Christian community, Thalassery Bishop Joseph Pamplany issued a controversial statement that the BJP would get an MP from the state if the Central government raises the price of rubber to Rs 300 a kilogram. While he was criticised by the Left and other Christian groups for his statement, the fact remains that many rubber plantation owners are Christians who are feeling the pinch of the recent slump in prices. Then came the induction of Anil Antony, son of veteran Congressman A K Antony, into the saffron party on its 44th foundation day. Though Anil Antony has little mass appeal and is unlikely to sway Christian voters in Kerala, the move was a coup of sorts only because of the AK Antony factor. His emotional denunciation of his son’s decision notwithstanding, the BJP definitely stands to gain some leverage in its Mission Kerala by the induction of Antony Junior.
The Prime Minister also received a visit from the supreme head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, to invite him to their headquarters at Kottayam in Kerala. Keeping the momentum going Modi visited the Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Capital on Easter in a grand gesture aimed at wooing the community ahead of the 2024 elections. His visit received accolades from Christian leaders who have in the past expressed reservations about the BJP dispensation in the wake of attacks on Churches. Simultaneously, BJP leaders in Kerala visited various Christian leaders on Easter, including Bishop Pamplany.
The icing on the cake was the interview Cardinal Mar George Alenchery, head of the Syro-Malabar Church and a prominent face of the Christian community in India, gave to an English daily praising Modi and asserting that Christians were not insecure in India. It is unlikely that the BJP will sweep elections in Kerala in the near future but it has surely succeeded in dividing the community in the state. While many are questioning the timing of Cardinal Alenchery’s interview given that he is facing a slew of ED, CBI and Income Tax cases, there is also a sizeable section which feels both the UDF and LDF have let down the community and the BJP may well prove to be their benefactor. The Left has pointed out that the community would be poorly served by reposing trust in a party that backed those who brutally killed missionary Graham Staines and his young children in Odisha. Critics of the BJP have also raised the ill-treatment meted out to Father Stan Swamy in jail. Christians in Kerala, however, have little or nothing to do with members of their community in other states. As long as their livelihoods and traditional customs are safeguarded, they are content. Amidst the bogey of ‘love Jihad’ and ‘narco Jihad’ raised by Christian leaders in the state, many of the less educated of the faith may be influenced by religious heads with their own vested interests to protect. It is this section that the BJP hopes to assiduously woo and slowly but surely make a dent in the community’s traditional voting patterns. Christians have generally voted for the Congress but the 2021 election showed a swing in favour of the Left. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, all bets are off in the southern state. The only certainty is the political awareness of the average Malayali. It is this that will hopefully hold sway at the hustings and lead Kerala to show the way.
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