KNANAYA INTELLIGENTSIA

 

Recently, the conversation during the weekend ‘happy hour’ (the hour that I spend on Saturday evenings with close friends discussing sundry issues over a couple of drinks) turned to the intellectuals of the Knanaya community.

Happy hour

None of us know for certain the real intentions of Kinayi Thoma in undertaking the long and hazardous journey to Kerala. If he had come purely for trading purposes, he would not bring along women and children on that dangerous trip. They were probably running away from some unpleasant or dangerous situation. These days there is a twist to the ‘trading’ tale: they came to evangelize the Kerala heathens with trade on the side for sustenance.

The level of intelligence required for evangelization is minimal. All that is needed is to memorize parts of the bible and speak fluently and convincingly in a loud voice. Sprinkle in a few threats of the hellish fire and brimstone and the everlasting joys of heaven. As far as trade in those days was concerned, it required a different set of skills, though nothing fancy. You buy cardamom at Re 2/ton and sell it at Re 3/-

Knanaya farmer in the 50’s

In the 1950’s when I was growing up, most members of the Knanaya community eked out a living from agriculture, something that did not require great intelligence. The recent spurt in income thanks to the Knanaya youth taking up professions in nursing, information technology and business administration does not seem to have brought about a corresponding rise in the intellectual levels of its members.

That probably could be the reason one of my drinking buddies during that ‘happy hour’ made the rather startling statement: “Knanaya intelligentsia is an oxymoron”.

An oxymoron is a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous and seemingly self-contradictory effect. E.g. extremely average, objective opinion, original copy.

Here is the first stanza of a poem I found on the internet, in which every line is an example of an oxymoron:

One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight,

Back to back they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

The rest of the group, all Knas, arrogantly assuming to be part of the intelligentsia, became very emotional and strongly objected to that statement. We told him in no uncertain terms that there exists in the Knanaya community an elite group of intellectuals. He told us to mull over the issue once the whisky fumes have evaporated from our heads.

Next morning as I nursed my hangover with a cup of strong black coffee, my mind went back to the previous evening’s discussion. Knanaya intellectual: is there a contradiction in terms? Who are the inventors, the creators, the thinkers, the artists, the writers of the community? Where are our Aristotles, the Ciceros, the Augustines, and the Einsteins? Do we have any media that encourage critical and creative thinking?

When I lived and worked in South Africa, the non-African foreign teachers would constantly refer to African children as ‘brain dead’, ‘stupid’ and ‘good-for-nothing’. As I studied the history of their colonization and delved deeper into their backgrounds, I realized that children of all races and castes are similar in intellectual capacities. It is the way humans are nurtured that determines what they become in life. South African blacks were repeatedly told by their white masters that they have been created as inferior humans by God Himself (some bible passages would be quoted out of context to this effect), that they have no aptitude for Math and Science and that they are fit only to ‘heave wood and draw water’. Through repetition and indoctrination, the African totally internalized this idea and behaved accordingly.

A similar situation is happening to the Knanaya community. From 1911, for one hundred years, its spiritual leadership has been indoctrinating its members and turning them into meek robotic lambs. The irrational fear of God and of hell and of eternal damnation is the tool used for this purpose. Any criticism of the clergy ipso facto rains down God’s curses by the bucket-load. Selective examples of accidental misfortunes befalling individuals are highlighted to demonstrate God’s anger for pointing out the wrong doings of priests and bishops.

The feudalistic set up from which the hierarchy refuses to budge has also helped. Knowledge is power, so keep the lambs in ignorance. So much so, this subservient and slavish mentality has become part of the Knanaya genes and seems to be passed down from generation to generation.

A former Knanaya Catholic Youth League president recently stated in an interview that he is not prepared to publish anything against the community, even though it may be true! This is the type of slavish leadership that is proactively promoted by the hierarchy and its sycophantic lay leadership.

The only official publication of the community is nothing but an avenue for singing the praises of the hierarchy, the clergy and their hangers on. In this less than mediocre publication there are negative comments aplenty about the government but not a word of self-criticism. It seems obsessed primarily with the twin issues of ‘drinking’ and ‘minority rights’.

This is in contrast to the rest of the country, where media is playing a great role as watch dogs and keepers of the society’s conscience. It enlightens the common man of his rights, helps widens his knowledge horizons, and exposes the corruption and mismanagement in society.

Omar Khayyam

The current prosperity of the community is leading its members to a hedonist lifestyle. As Omar Khayyam said, most of our brethren live for the moment.

O cleric, we are more active than you,
even so drunk, we are more attentive than you,
You drink the blood of men, we drink the blood of grapes [wine],
Be fair, which one of us is more bloodthirsty?

Drunkenness has become a cancer. The community is shrinking with many youngsters expelled for marrying outside the community. Time is not far off when this community is going to implode. Visionaries are lacking in the current leadership which is unable to see beyond the dollar notes dangling in front of its nose.

The need of the hour is for a few good members with vision, dedication and love for the community to come together to give the community intellectual leadership. It must help rediscover the humanizing vocation of the intellectual. It must use the power of thought to free the members from their irrational fears and to resolve the dichotomy between the spiritual dictatorship and the oppression of the little lambs. In this way it can lead the members in their attempts at regaining their lost humanity.

The only way to resolve this dichotomy is through education. Education can create awareness leading to praxis – reflection followed by action. Media in all its forms – print and electronic, audio and visual – is a powerful tool in this educative process. It becomes incumbent on the capable members of the community to take the initiate to develop a critical media that helps liberate the little lambs from the mental slavery that it is in now. The alternative is their continued meaningless, drink-induced existence, leading to the community’s disintegration and to its ultimate demise.

And of course ‘Knanaya Intelligentsia” will continue to remain an oxymoron.

[Published in the November issue of Snehasandesham]

 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ITS SHEEP

 

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”  - George Orwell

 

There is a reason for Catholics all over the world to be referred to as sheep. In the context of his times, Jesus began to be referred to as the Shepherd and his followers sheep or little lambs. He himself used the simile of the shepherd and his flock in his talks to the uneducated Jewish masses to make them understand Yahweh's love for His Chosen People. Times have changed; still the terminology continues to be in use. The reason these days seems quite different: it is the continued sheepish behaviour exhibited by the majority of Catholics.

A few weeks back, a ‘sheepish’ incident took place in my neighbourhood. My neighbour had tied a goat to a stake in an empty plot next door. Its little lamb was left loose to roam free. Somehow, the mother goat got untangled, and seeing the grass greener on the other side, climbed on to the wall and jumped into the next yard. Unfortunately, it landed in a well close to the wall, and its kid, with its sheepish brain, jumped right after its mother as well. The deathly bleating caught the neighbours'’ attention and both were pulled out to safety.

I must confess that till recently I too was one of the sheep. In fact, the years I spent as a seminarian made me one par excellence. It takes years of self-debriefing to change that mind-set. After retiring, with time becoming a luxury, I began to read up on the history of the Catholic Church – from its birth after the death of Jesus to its current state. It came as a big shock, brought up as I was on a diet of absolutely certain ‘dogmatic beliefs’, to learn: that the present Church was founded not by Jesus, but by St. Paul; that the original Church led by James, the real brother of Jesus (not cousin as claimed by Catholic Church to defend Mary’s virginity) died a natural death after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 A D; that there are three gods in One and one God in three; that Jesus’ virgin birth, his Resurrection, his Ascension, Mary’s physical Assumption, wine and bread turning into human blood and flesh and a host of such physical impossibilities are all copied from ancient myths, rituals and practices; that the Catholic Church is a big multinational establishment sailing on feudalistic lines in a sea of democratic practices. What baffled me was the ability of this Church to fool so many people for so long and still continue to do so!

As I delved deeper into the subject, I realised that the sheepish ‘blindly-follow-the-leader’ attitude of the vast majority of Catholics has been intentionally developed and purposefully instilled using a number of tactics. Fear stands out: fear of God’s anger, fear of priestly ‘curses’, fear of the unknowability of life after death, fear of the everlasting tortures of hell. Another useful technique is to present to the faithful myths and lies as truths. Repeat a lie million times and it becomes an eternal truth. The mother of all investment frauds is perpetuated by the Catholic Church: become its member, choose pain over pleasure and you will enjoy everlasting happiness after you die in a fantasy place called paradise.

A third technique is based on the dictum ‘knowledge is power’; if you keep the lambs in ignorance, you can keep them under control. One of the means used to oppose Luther, Calvin & Co was book censorship. In 1559 Pope Paul IV issued the first list of forbidden books, the Index Expurgatorius which included works by the humanist Erasmus, scientists Copernicus and Galileo as well as the Qur'an. In 1571 a Congregation of the Index was established to control and update the list. Canon Law now required the imprimatur (let it be published) and nihil obstat (nothing prohibited) to be printed on books allowed to be read by Catholics. This practice is still prevalent.

Galileo explains his discoveries to the Pope.

In 1521, William Tyndale, a brilliant protestant priest and linguist who could speak eight languages fluently, began translating the Bible into English. However, the Vatican did not want a wide readership of the New Testament. Access to the bible was reserved for the clergy, who could then interpret its message to suit the interests of Rome. In such circumstances, the translation of the Bible into English would be dangerous. Tyndale became a marked man; he was caught, tried as a heretic and garrotted by King Henry VIII at the behest of Rome.

A far more vicious and psychologically harmful technique used by the Church since its infant days to keep the little lambs under control has been to link ‘sex’ with ‘guilt’. Saul of Tarsus and Augustine of Hippo have been the two main proponents in the development and spread of this technique.

Based on the philosophy of Plato, Saul (canonized as St. Paul by voice vote) built his theology around an essentially dualistic view of the cosmos in which the earthly was denigrated in favour of the heavenly. Those who denied the body and lived a celibate life, placing emphasis on the higher spiritual things ‘above’, were viewed as holy and free from the taint of the lower material world ‘below’ (asceticism). He advocated celibacy as a higher spiritual way, though he did not absolutely forbid sex. According to Paul, marriage was an antidote for the spiritually weak who might be tempted toward sexual immorality.

Paul’s ideas were taken up by Augustine (354-430) of Hippo. In his youth he had led a life of debauchery. After his conversion to Christianity in 386, he developed a deep loathing and distrust of sex. His experience of sex was confined to illicit loves which left in his conscience a strong sense of guilt and misery. Extrapolating, he concluded that all sex, even in marriage, is wicked and sinful. He came to believe that God had condemned humankind to eternal damnation because of Adam’s ‘original sin’. This ‘inherited sin’ was passed down through ‘concupiscence’, the desire to take pleasure in sex rather than in God. Because we are born as sexual beings, we are sinners who deserve to burn in hell, and if we want to go to heaven, we must have sex only for procreation - and even then, God forbid, we should enjoy it. The man should embrace his wife as though she were a statue and the woman should recite: “I am not doing it for my pleasure but to give God a son.”

All this led to the elevation of virginity to the highest level of spirituality. For him the ideal marriage would be between two virgins. The institution of marriage was downgraded, since virginity was the ideal. This mode of thinking led him to conclude that the minister at the altar should also be celibate.

Augustine’s teachings were held as the basis of sexual morality for the next 1600 years. It is only recently that some form of recognition has been accorded to marriage as a loving union of two individuals. To the old genital approach to sexuality, the Catholic Church has added elements of mutual love and mutual aid; still the primary end of marriage is procreation.

There you have it. If you are nonsexual, you are spiritual!!! The consequences of this anti-natural mode of thinking, not found in the teachings of Jesus, but borrowed from Greek Philosophers, had wide ranging and dire consequences for the lives of Christians for centuries and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In the name of God, the belief that sex is dirty has perpetrated rampant cruelty, bigotry, and timidity; it has created religious sexual abuse in homes and in churches; it has generated intense shame about our bodies and desires; and it has fuelled the belief that parts of our bodies are dirty, fostering hatred of and confusion about pleasure.

Monasteries and religious congregations were founded on the idea that virginity and chastity were most pleasing in the eyes of Jesus and God. Priests and nuns took the vow of chastity, having been brainwashed during years of formation that the chaste life is a short cut to heavenly bliss. The Catholic Church stands accused of the psychological damage suffered by many in religious life forced to live against nature and for the guilt complex created in the consciences of little lambs in obeying dogmas based on outmoded moral philosophies of ancient men who were products of completely different social systems.

[Published in the January 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]

                   @unknown

BRIDE OF CHRIST – PART 2

In part-1 I mused on the startling results of a survey conducted by the Catholic weekly Sathyadeepam among nuns. It revealed that behind the apparently happy exterior, there is a lot of discontentment floating around in convents. The root cause of this state of affairs can primarily be traced to the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience that every nun professes. These vows are the pillars on which ascetic monasticism, the idea that full spirituality is best achieved by renouncing the world and its pleasures, is built. The vow of poverty compels the religious to detach herself from all material possessions; the vow of chastity forces her to kill off all the natural God-given physical urges that are part of His grand plan for the continuation of the human race; and the vow of obedience demands the individual to blindly subject herself to other people’s will turning her into part-zombie, part-robot.

Vow of obedience

The origin of ascetic monasticism goes back to the third and fourth centuries. There were many reasons for this idea to flourish at that time. Apostle Paul made Jesus a ‘salvation god’ on the lines of Osiris, the Egyptian god and believed in the fallen nature of man.

         Osiris

He turned Christianity into a ‘salvation religion’. Like Plato, whose ideas he freely borrowed, he also believed that every human was composed of an immortal soul imprisoned in a physical and mortal body. Salvation can only be achieved through a proactive suppression of the body for the sake of the soul.

            Augustine of Hippo

These ideas were supported and improved upon by Augustine of Hippo (354-430). In his effort to explain evil in this world, he invented ‘original sin’. The debauchery of his youth created such a guilty conscience in him that he declared sex the root of all evil. Only married couples should be allowed to engage in this ‘dirty act’. It should be done purely for procreation and not recreation. This mode of thought added to the prestige of chastity.

During its infancy, Christianity was unwilling to accept the practices of Rome. Many became martyrs for their faith. However, with the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 312 AD Christianity came into favour. The martyrdoms stopped. Christians had to invent new ways of suffering for the sake of salvation. Since the physical body was regarded as the root of all temptations, it had to be brought under control through voluntary physical deprivations and sufferings. The lack of opportunities for martyrdom and the need for controlling the physical urges of the body so as to save the soul led to the idea of monasticism. Hence the hair-shirts, the flagellations, the fasts, the bare-foot walking, the nightlong vigils and the blind obedience that was quite common in monasteries and convents until recently.

Self-flagellation

But times have changed. The last two centuries have seen a surge in secular thinking. Belief is giving way to reason. There is a realization that the promise of a heaven after death is the biggest investment fraud committed by two of the more popular religions: Christianity and Islam. At least, there are 72 virgins catering to the martyr in the Islamic paradise whereas the good Catholic can only expect to join a choir in heaven.

 

Angelic choir in heaven

It is against modern day thinking on human rights to make people enter into a contract to live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience till death. It reminds one of bonded labour that is still extant in certain parts of rural India. When a nun takes the vow of obedience she literally pawns her life to her superiors and to the Church hierarchy. The argument that she takes her vows only after she turns 18 is tenuous. It is well known that her indoctrination and spiritual hallucinations start much earlier, often as a preteen.

The vow of poverty is a double edged sword. One requirement prior to profession is the renunciation of all rights to inheritance. This is one of the reasons for relatives to encourage girls to become nuns. It saves the family the trouble of raising her dowry. Some senior nuns are of the opinion that poverty and the guarantee of a secure life are the motivating factors for many undeserving candidates now-a-days to enter the convent. Many among them turn out to be trouble makers.

The fact that the nun is forced to give away her rights to inheritance prior to her profession discourages any thought of leaving the convent. As an ex-nun, she has nothing in her name for survival. The perception that those who leave are perverts unable to control their sexual urges and/or rebellious brats is spread among the little lambs by convent authorities in connivance with the hierarchy. The unhappy nun is forced to continue in the convent against her will for fear of shame and unacceptability by her family and relatives. As per canon law 503 (a) those who leave the convent cannot claim anything for the services done there. Like used curry leaves, they are unceremoniously thrown out. With their prime past in most cases, marriage prospects are dim. Should one be surprised when reports of suicide in convents appear in the media? And are all deaths reported natural?

The vow of chastity goes against human nature itself. It is the cause of many of the problems the church finds itself in. “The devil never harmed the church so much as when the church herself adopted the vow of celibacy.” (Peter Comestor). The belief that when she becomes a nun, she also becomes the ‘bride of Christ’ is instilled in the young woman. Many in their teenage naivety take this twisted compensatory theology to heart and fantasize about their ‘first night’ with Jesus, as Sr. Jesme recalls in her autobiography Amen. The convent becomes the bridal chamber. After all, Jesus the groom is a handsome young man of thirty three, something that enhances the intensity of her fantasies. Some saints (e.g. Theresa of Avila) have taken this intense love for Jesus to the erotic level. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as ‘erotomanic delusion’, a disorder in which someone claims that a famous person is married to or is in love with her.

Theresa of Avila

Has anyone the right to deprive individual freedom in the name of obedience to ‘God’s will’ expressed through one’s superiors and the hierarchy? ‘God’s will’ is another fraudulent idea perpetuated on the little lambs to keep them in line. It has been observed that those engaging in continuous prayer, meditation and fasting in an effort to suppress their natural urges tend to develop neurotic problems. When such individuals are in charge, their administrative style often becomes neurotic as well and hence unbearable. However, under the vow of obedience, little can be done. Anyone who criticizes the rules and policies of convent authorities is accused of madness and confined to a mental asylum or they are ‘character-assassinated’. Surely, this is inhuman.

Mental asylum inmate

The empire building and the power seeking that the Catholic Church began after the conversion of Emperor Constantine continue today with much greater vigour than ever. These days it is run on the lines of a multi-national company. But unlike other multi-national companies, the Church, headed by a self-proclaimed infallible pope, continues to be feudal and dictatorial in its ways. A Global religious empire has been created. Religious congregations are part of the global religious colonization in the name of God. Its members, especially nuns, are forced to lifelong servitude bordering on bonded labour to maintain and support this establishment.

It is high time enlightened Catholics give a sympathetic hearing to the problems of our sisters and expose their exploitation in the name of religion/love of God/everlasting happiness in heaven/etc./etc.

[Published in the March 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]

BRIDES OF CHRIST

Part - 1

The person I admire most in this world is a Catholic nun – Mother Theresa. Her dedication to bring succour to the poorest of the poor is without parallel.

As a Catholic child growing up in rural Kaipuzha, my life was influenced by the good nuns, be it in the catechism class or at school. Nuns are sometimes referred to as ‘brides of Christ’ since they are spiritually married to Christ at the time of their religious profession.

As the vagaries of life forced me into the big bad world, I became more and more aware of the excellent work done by the different congregations of nuns. They run orphanages, hospitals and educational institutions; they take care of the handicapped, the abandoned, the sick, the dying. In South Africa where one person in three is a victim of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, I have seen nuns cleaning, feeding and being there even when their near and dear ones have abandoned them. The sight is so heart-renting, the stench so unbearable and deaths so frequent that one sister told me: “James sir, we cannot work like this for more than six months; we need to go away from this environment for the next six months to get our sanity back.”

There is no doubt that nuns all over are a force for good in the world. The question is: what goes on in the hearts and minds these individuals who always wear a happy-go-lucky attitude on their veils? Is this a mask to hide the rumblings of a storm within? Does the look of contentment exist within the high walls of the convent?

Up until recently, the little lambs in the Catholic Church were not privy to life within convents. There is very little in Malayalam literature dealing with the inner workings of a nun’s mind; much less regarding what goes on within the four walls of a convent. Joseph Mattom (Lokam, Pisasu,Sareeram) and Pathrose Ayyaneth (Thiruseshippu, Yahoodayude Paramparyam) are two authors who did make the effort. In some sense it was Sr. Abhaya’s murder that changed the status quo. The door was slightly opened with the publication of the details of her murder investigations. What the lambs saw within was not very edifying. These negative perceptions were confirmed by personal evidence when Sr. Jesme brought out her sensational autobiography Amen. An avalanche of skeletons fell out of convent cupboards. More than the salacious details, what shocked me was her revelation about efforts made by her own sisters and superiors to silence her by shutting her up in a mental asylum!

From last year, following the publication of Amen, Joseph Pulikkunnel through his monthly Hosanna has tried to delve deep into the matter. He has brought to public discourse the various dimensions of the life of a nun both as an individual and as a member of a community: their recruitment, formation, perpetual vows, their community life, and life as an ex-nun.

Why should the little lambs be interested in nuns of all people? Some would like to leave them alone to sort out their problems, whether they are personal or social, private or public. However, the fact remains that they are our daughters and sisters and nieces and aunts and above all, members of the Catholic community. What happens to them impacts us in one way or another.

A little digression at this point might spice up the discussion. One title in Ayyaneth’s short story collection Yahoodayude Paramparyam (Tradition of Judah) is Deiva vili (vocation/God’s call). Prasad, a government contractor, and George, a Math teacher, meet up in a bar after a long gap. Over a couple of drinks they update the events in their lives after they left college. George is the protagonist with a more colourful life. As a bachelor working in a rural school, he accidently comes across the beautiful seventeen year old Selinamma bathing semi-nude in a small pond. He falls madly in love with her and asks her father for her hand in marriage. Selinamma, mesmerized as she is with the lives of nuns in the convent hostel where she boarded as a student, refuses. Instead, she insists on becoming a nun. Her Deiva vili came on a Good Friday during the Way of the Cross when she felt she heard Jesus pleading for help in carrying his cross. George in course of time gets over his disappointment and marries Nazeema, a colleague. But Selinamma has not disappeared from his life.

She becomes Sr. Paul.

A few years down the line people wake up one morning to the tragic news that young Sr. Paul has died of a heart attack. But George tells Prasad that it was a suicide. He is sure, since he received a letter from Sr. Paul written a day before her death. She tells him that by the time he receives her letter, she would have escaped from this world. She is certain she is going neither to heaven nor to hell; she does not believe in heaven or hell or that she has a soul. It is a disbelief that has come quite late in her life.

As a seventeen year old, she was caught up in the emotional whirlpool of religious madness. But as she tried to get closer to God as a nun, her religious fervor turned cold and she became an atheist.

She falls in love with Dr Latif, a surgeon in the hospital where she works as a nurse. Latif wants her to convert to Islam, an act that would totally shatter her God-fearing Catholic family. So, if she cannot marry and find happiness with Latif, it is meaningless to live life in a state of hypocrisy. The only option left is take her own life. She asks George for forgiveness for refusing his marriage proposal, suffering as she was at that time from an intense bout of spiritual madness.

The story ends with George stating that he has not gone to church after this incident. He is not willing to face Jesus who is locked up in the tabernacle.

The above story may be a figment of the author’s fertile imagination. One must remember that imagination is a faculty that takes its raw materials from reality. The fact, however, is that there have been at least 14 cases of suicides by nuns in the recent past. The sceptic might argue that this is a reflection of what is happening in society at large. But society at large does not live in such close relationship with God as those in a convent. Contentment and happiness is assumed to be natural by-products of this closeness. So what went wrong?

According to a survey conducted by the weekly Sathyadeepam among nuns, it was found that 25% of them are discontent. The actual figure may be 75% if we are to believe ex-nun Prof Dr Regina Valiaveettil. According to her, the convent environment is short on mutual love and care and long on legalese. What are the root causes of this dissatisfaction?

An understanding of the historical rationale of ascetic monasticism is of help in analysing the problems faced by modern day nuns living in high-walled communities. Monasticism is an idea that full spirituality is best achieved by renouncing the world and its pleasures. This renouncement implies the three ‘evangelical counsels’ of poverty, chastity and obedience. One must detach oneself from all material possessions, abstain from sexual emotions, relations, and acts, and subdue one’s will through obedience. These three ‘counsels’ are now taken as vows for life by the religious including nuns at the time of their profession.

It is easy to trace some of the problems faced by nuns these days to the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience that they profess for life. Others can be traced to the rules and regulations by which they are to live as a group under one roof. Still others are due to loss of faith in general, the rapid secularization in thinking, the emphasis on individuality and the value system taking a nose-dive towards pure utilitarianism. I hope to muse on these problems in the next issue.

[Published in the February issue of Snehasandesham]

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND KNANAYA COMMUNITY

A few weeks back, a friend from UK described to me the case of a Knanaya gentleman there who has been arrested for wife battery! He also told me of rumours floating around in the rarefied British air of more such individuals cooling their heels behind bars. Mention was also made about research done into family problems among Malayalee Christian families in the UK. The findings are startling – incidents of domestic violence are much more pronounced among Knanaya families than among non-knanaya families. He asked me whether I have any thoughts on this issue.

I replied that I can only speculate, an attempt that will be totally subjective. My focus here is on domestic violence that often follow marriages of convenience. This happens everywhere, but a few incidences of this type stand out like a sore thumb in the extremely small Knanaya communities in the UK and elsewhere.

Domestic violence is a worldwide phenomenon. Social, political and religious groups that are male dominated appear to be the biggest culprits in this regard. I spent twenty five years living among blacks in South Africa. I have seen for myself the total dominance of the male and the consequent violence against women. The physical abuse starts in primary school. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ is one dictum that is followed to the letter. It is not uncommon to see women in the Emergency Room of a hospital with eyeball pierced with a screwdriver or jaw cracked from violent beatings. One of the reasons for the fast spread of Aids in that country is that women have no say in the matter of condom usage.

With few exceptions, Muslim families are male dominated. The Talibans of Afghanistan have taken female oppression to a new low. Judaism too was male dominated. Their Yahweh was an angry revengeful male God. Christianity had its origins in Jewish traditions and hence male superiority was a given. St. Paul urges wives to obey their husbands, since the husband is the head of the family. This instruction is repeated in all Christian marriage rituals to this day.

Knanaya boys and girls grow up imbibing Christian traditions of male dominance. Added to this is a social environment that favours the male at the expense of the female. It is the male who carries the family name; he is the one to look after the parents in their old age. Girls get married off and are often a burden since a fat dowry has to be found. Up until about thirty years back, the well-off minority of the community was proud to be part of the feudalistic system that was prevalent at the time; the vast majority was poor and survived on subsistence farming and were dependent on the well-off minority. The education of girls was secondary.

The feudalistic attitudes prevalent among the elite made many of their sons complacent. It made them believe the party would last forever. The poor on the other hand were looking for a way out of their miserable existence. The oil boom in the Gulf was a turning point. There followed unprecedented developmental activities in all areas. One key area was the medical field. Nurses were in great demand. The salaries were unbelievable compared to the pittance that their sisters earned in India. Knanaya parents realized the economic potential and began to encourage their daughters to take up nursing as a profession. Within a few years the trickle of nurses to the Gulf became a torrent. That era also saw great demand for nurses in the US and Europe, particularly Germany. Recently Britain joined the bandwagon, the attraction being ease of language.

In due course, problems began to emerge. Girls who migrated in their early 20’s soon came of marriageable age. But parents put off their marriage as long as they could, since they did not want to lose their ‘cash-cows’ (literally). Parents of both boys and girls took this as opportunities – the girls to marry into families of higher ‘status’ and the unemployed/able boys finding marriage to a nurse the rosy road to paradise.

Here we have the root causes of some of the future problems. In any Indian family, the male is normally dominant but the woman wears the pant if she is the main source of income. This is not generally true in the more liberated western societies where male and female roles are not clear-cut and compartmentalised. In the case of the Indian family in UK and elsewhere, where the wife is the prime earner, male dominance can and do give way to female dominance. With little or no worthwhile qualifications or language skills to grab well-paying jobs, husbands end up not working or working for the minimum wage while the wife brings home the bacon. There is a role-reversal. The husband ends up doing the ‘woman’s work’ at home – cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, driving the children to school etc.

Many women develop a superior complex, while the egos of their husbands take a beating, unable to adjust to this role-reversal. Then a kind of vicious circle starts – after dropping children off to school, the man left alone to his devices helps himself to a couple of drinks to drown his bruised ego. In time this becomes a daylong affair. The humiliation is complete if he has to ‘beg’ his wife for money for his drinks. A bruised ego drowned in alcohol is a sure recipe for domestic violence.

 

There is an unmentionable angle often whispered sotto voce that intensifies the viciousness of the circle. Alcoholism has an effect on male potency. Alcohol in combination with inferiority complex can be disastrous in the privacy of the bedroom. Some women are tempted to look elsewhere for comfort adding fuel to the fire.

What factors have led to this situation? Community’s strict endogamous tradition? Arranged marriages? Get-rich-quick greed? Lack of a sense of dignity of labour? Lack of understanding of what family life is? Lack of parental guidance? Still extant chauvinistic attitude and strict division of labour at home? Our alcoholic gene? Lack of creative pursuits? It could be a combination of one or more of the above in various proportions.

What can be done to help troubled families? Someone suggested that priests, nuns along with the hierarchy should get involved in counselling. But, what kind of counselling can come out of individuals who are supposed to be ‘virgins’, who have never changed a diaper in their lives, who don’t spend 3 consecutive sleepless nights caring for a sick child, (they can do it for one night of ‘adoration’ at most), who do not know what it means to live with an abusive partner 24/7. What the community leadership can do is to encourage through scholarship or other means suitable laymen, preferably married, to become family counsellors to help couples in trouble. The hierarchy with its priests and nuns can themselves give up their feudalistic attitude and become more democratic in their thinking and actions. They can (using the various resources available, from pulpits to personal contacts) spread the message of dignity of labour, sharing of responsibilities at home, need to adapt to new circumstances etc. The three-day ‘thamasha’ called ‘marriage preparation course’ is just that, a thamasha, part of the hierarchy’s game-plan to keep the little lambs under control.

It might be a good idea during this Centenary Year to formulate some concrete plans to help troubled families and to follow up with time-bound actions. Let us not be just content to beat our drums and make the proverbial cacophony passing it off as celebration.

[Published in the April 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]

MY AFRICAN ‘VISION’

 

I fell into a reminiscing mood about my life in South Africa the other evening during ‘happy hour’ (the time when I enjoy my weekly ration of drinks). Pliny’s (23-79 AD) observation on Africa was spot on: ‘Ex Africa semper aliquid novi - Africa will always bring something new.

During the latter part of my life there, I lived in a town called Louis Trichardt in the Northern part of the country but worked at the University of Venda situated about 65 km away in Thohoyandou (meaning Head of the Elephant) which was the ‘Capital’ of ‘The Republic of Venda’.

This was a ‘Country’ recognised as such only by itself and apartheid South Africa. For the rest of the world it was simply a ‘homeland’ into which the white settlers had herded the black masses after having stolen all their fertile land.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once jokingly said: “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” Earlier, I had spent two years in the parish house of a mission station as a tenant after the priests had left to live in the house attached to the new church. This mission compound, like the Vatican City State in Italy, was in South Africa while all around it was the ‘Republic of Venda’ with the national highway in front belonging to South Africa.

It took about 55 minutes to travel to work on the excellent road built by the Apartheid regime. The first 50km of the journey was one of the most scenic drives in Southern Africa. All along were large fruit and vegetable farms dotted with pockets of forests on undulating hills. The last section of the journey was through the ‘homeland’ of Venda. Here, both sides of the highway were dotted with densely populated villages where people lived on subsistence farming and remittances sent by relatives working in the big cities.

Along this stretch of the highway there is a place called Luwamondo. One day, as I drove to work, I see a small grass-thatched shed on a large plot. In two weeks’ time I see a group of people singing, dancing and praying there. On enquiry I learn that a fellow by name George Musondo has established a church called the “Church of the Tabernacle”. Musondo was a lecturer at a teacher training college. Realising that he would not make much headway financially as a lecturer, he decided to change profession to a more lucrative one – that of selling God. He called himself Pastor Musondo and got all his relatives and friends to gather at this place to dance and pray accompanied by loud African drums. In the ‘Republic of Venda’, all land belongs to the Chiefs. If you need some land for grazing your cattle or for starting a school or for building a church or for constructing your own house, all you need to do is to go to your Chief and present him a goat along with a crate of beer. A little money in addition would make things easier. These are not considered bribes as such. It is a kind of recognition of him as your Chief or boss. He is happy; you are happy. You get what you want and he gets his ego boost.

In course of time the shed changed to a large hall. A few years down the line it became a huge pilgrim centre with a large private school established within the compound. I was told that the members of the church contributed 10% of their gross salary for the upkeep of the pastor and the church. Musondo’s daughter, who was my student in the posh private school where I taught part-time, was chauffer driven in a very expensive car. All his sons turned out to be wealthy businessmen.

As I recalled these events of my African life, I asked myself what would have happened if I had resigned my job at the university and started a church to be called “Church of Heavenly Feast”. I do not have the gift of the gab; but that can easily be developed – look at politicians and priests. As I fantasised about the opulence in which I could have lived, I think I dozed off.

In my sleep I had a vision. It could have been caused by mixing drinking with reading about visions, those of St. Paul on the way to Damascus, Mohammed in the cave, Moses on the mountain in the burning bush etc. and reminiscing about my time in Africa.

In this vision, I am standing on top of a mountain. I see the outline of a figure on a flying saucer approaching me. Did he look at me closely, I wonder. Then ‘it’ disappears along an elliptical orbit. After a while, ‘it’ comes back. It passes me a second time. This figure again stares at me. The third time ‘it’ comes around, ‘it’ slows down and stops in front of me. “I am the Master and Lord of the Universe. Go down on your knees, bow your head and sing my praises. Bring all your relatives and friends here so they can worship me as I pass by. Those who praise and adore me, I shall make them wealthy and powerful against their enemies. After death, I shall carry you on my flying saucer to a paradise on the other side of the mountain where all kinds of sensual pleasures await you. You will have the tastiest of foods and the choicest of drinks. Everything will be totally digested so that there is no need for toilets in my paradise. Men and women can freely mix and enjoy but no woman will fall pregnant and suffer pangs of childbirth. There is no ageing. Now kneel down and adore me.” I do as he commands. On looking up, the flying saucer has disappeared.

I rush back home. I talk to the people about my vision. In time I convince them to come to the top of the mountain. I make them bow down and adore this ‘Almighty’ as He passes over us in His flying saucer. The word spreads and the hope of a paradise where all sensual pleasures are available makes millions of converts. Prancing around in fancy yellow attire with a hat in the shape of a flying saucer, I make myself the Infallible Supremo of the newly founded “Church of the Flying Saucer” and build an empire that spreads its tentacles to all corners of the globe. Many educational and charitable institutions are started under its aegis. All buildings are constructed in the shape of flying saucers. Members must contribute 10% of their GROSS income for the upkeep of the Supremo and the running of the institution. Donations too are welcome. The Supremo is not answerable or accountable to anyone regarding this money except to himself and to the Almighty in the flying saucer. In gratitude, statues of flying saucers are constructed everywhere; men are encouraged to style their hair in the shape of flying saucers and women told to wear flying saucer pendants.

After death, I am carried off on a flying saucer to the paradise on the other side. As I lay under the cool shade of the jacaranda tree by the smooth stream savouring a generous glass of Rémy Martin, served by nubiles in the altogether, I am suddenly awakened by a slap on my face. On looking up I see my little grandson Ryan who after trying to wake me up, slapped me as a last resort, since I was not responding to his yells!

DUST THOU ART, AND UNTO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN ( Genesis 3:18)

 

Of late, I have become a fan of Malayalam novelist Pathrose Ayyaneth. In the 50’s and 60’s, when the Catholic Church was at the glorious zenith of its feudal power and conservatism, he dared to expose its all-pervasive double standards, immorality and hypocrisy. In spite of Church’s efforts to harass and socially ostracize Ayyaneth, there are still many who admire his courage to take on the all powerful and almighty Church.

One of his books that I looked forward to reading was Manushiya nee mannakunnu (man, you are dust). This novel has been considered one of the more controversial of his works.

The back cover gives a micro synopsis of the book: ‘Father John bent down to gather a handful of the freshly dug earth. He then threw it over the dead body and prayed in an emotionally choked voice: thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. This novel is the sad and painful story of a seventeen year old girl returning to dust and a priest who wept as he threw that handful of dirt over her.’

In his brief introduction, Ayyaneth says that this is the tale of a naively simple man who had to suffer with Christ on Golgotha for having accepted, in a moment of weakness, the priestly cassock. The subplot is woven around a wealthy Catholic who managed to buy heaven at a price far below its market rate.

Here is the story in brief. John comes from a poor family. He falls in love with his classmate. The girl’s father opposes the relationship. She is married off to another man. John sulks for a few days falling into a kind of mild depression. In this state of mind he applies to the bishop for admission to the seminary. He is accepted. In the minor seminary he is raped by the Rector - an incident that leaves him psychologically shaken.

After ordination he is sent to a rural parish. There, Father John first falls in love with the melodious voice of seventeen year old Ammini and later with the girl herself. Ammini is the love child of the previous parish priest and a nun; she is being brought up by Varkychettan, the bachelor sacristan. Father John, unable to control his natural urges, makes midnight trysts with Ammini who soon finds herself pregnant. He vacillates between leaving the priesthood to marry Ammini and continuing in his calling. The former is an extremely difficult decision: it will bring shame to his family, the parish, the bishop and the clergy. Besides, he has no skills to earn a livelihood. The latter decision is even more difficult – his conscience keeps nagging him. In the end, he obtains a bottle of ‘medicine’ from a backyard abortionist and tricks his teenage lover into drinking it. She bleeds to death. As parish priest he is forced to officiate over her burial service.

The villain of the piece is Anthappan Muthalali. He owns all the rubber plantations in the area. Outwardly, he is a front-row mass attendant, prays loudly, confesses regularly and above all contributes generously to all the pet projects of the bishop. In gratitude the bishop has recommended and obtained for him the Church honour of “Chevalier”. Privately, he is a hardened criminal, wife-beater, womanizer and murderer. He is poisoned by his own daughter whom he has been sexually abusing for years.

By way of appreciation I would like to highlight and comment on certain issues raised by the author through his characters.

There is great sympathy for Father John who became a priest more by force of circumstances than by choice. The novel is an indictment of the Catholic Church’s strict rule of priestly celibacy. It is purely for administrative efficiency as well as for not losing church property to children of married priests that the celibacy rule was enforced from around the 10^th century. There is not a single sentence in the bible that priests should not be married – in fact, most of the apostles were married. The irony is that the church which vehemently claims homosexual acts and use of condoms to prevent AIDS to be against nature, is forcing priests to go against their very nature by not marrying and playing their role in the propagation of the human race.

The indoctrination during a priest’s seminary life is geared to turn him into a clog in the feudalistic church machine. ‘First obey, then question’ is the old style seminary discipline.

There is little or no difference between a seminary and a prison. Both are under the spotlight 24/7. Chances of committing sin by both sets of inmates are limited. However, once the individual is out, his morality often takes on the character of the bull in a China shop.

Nature in its mysterious ways has endowed all creatures with certain urges and tendencies for continuation of the species. In humans these urges of the flesh cannot be totally annihilated; they can be subdued and sublimated by brainwashing individuals in falsehoods based on out-dated ancient philosophical thinking: the virgin and the chaste are superior to the married; heaven awaits the pure of heart, etc. Once outside the walls of the seminary, these urges come back with a vengeance. The priestly class itself has prompted and manipulated the little lambs to place them on a high pedestal; so much so, to abandon the priesthood in response to one’s natural urges is considered extremely shameful. The perception that a priest or nun in a family raises its status is a myth that has been assiduously cultivated by the clergy themselves as part of their strategy of clinging to this artificially created high status.

The Church’s double standard in treating the faithful is clearly brought out by the honourable way it treats a hardened criminal like Anthappan Muthalali. The financially well-off who contribute generously to church coffers are held in high esteem by the Church. Their antecedents are irrelevant. Look around and one can observe many such Anthappan Muthalalis hobnobbing with the hierarchy.

A man’s basic nature does not change by the laying of hands or by wearing a cassock or when a priest is made bishop. Humans long for love, including the physical. Take the case of former bishop John Thattumkal of Cochin Diocese who has been kicked upstairs to Vatican. In 2008, under the pretext of adoption, he kept a 26-year old woman in his ‘palace’. ‘This relation is giving me spiritual refreshment’, he was quoted as saying. The priests of his diocese, however, felt that the ‘refreshment’ was more physical than spiritual.

“To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, but to be loved by the one you love is everything”

[Published in the June 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]

RESTARTING MUSINGS AFTER A BREAK!

Dear Readers

Here I am back with some of my musings.

Maani