By Liz Mathew, IANS
New Delhi : Worried over the loss of precious Christian votes in Kerala, the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s (CPI-M) national leadership is asking its state unit not to confront the Catholic Church.
Already in a crisis in West Bengal, where the party has lost face after its activists “invaded” Nandigram to take control from opposition activists, Marxist bosses here do not want any trouble in its other bastion.
With the Catholic Church in Kerala distancing itself from the party after a bitter row with party leaders, the CPI-M is learnt to have warned its leaders in Kerala not to make any statements that may provoke the Church.
Kerala has been witnessing a string of Sunday pastoral letters targeting the communists. In turn, CPI-M leaders have launched a verbal offensive against the Church clergy.
Party sources said CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat and politburo member S. Ramachandra Pillai – both hail from Kerala – have initiated some discussions with Church leaders in the state.
“However, our Kerala leaders’ comments were worsening the already-soured relations. Our politburo has warned the Kerala leaders not to do or say anything that causes more problems,” said a source.
The source added that the party leadership would step up discussions with Church leaders after the CPI-M congress in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu ends March 2.
The CPI-M central leadership is also attempting a patch up with the community by intervening in Orissa, where Christians are facing communal attacks.
CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury was a member of the delegation led by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) – the supreme body of the community in the country – when it visited riot-hit Orissa last week.
In its editorial in the latest issue of the party mouthpiece People’s Democracy, the CPI-M has warned that the communal violence in Orissa was a part of an “overall strategy” by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) to subvert secular principles and urged the people to protect the minorities.
The CPI-M has organised nationwide protest marches against the recent attacks on Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district where three people were killed allegedly by Hindu mobs.
The communists are also concerned about the Christian community’s growing proximity to the Congress in Kerala. Although the community had supported the Congress for decades, it supported the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front in the 2004 parliamentary elections and in the 2006 assembly polls.
Christians constitute 19 percent of Kerala’s 30 million people.
Party sources pointed out that the state leadership’s war of words with the Christian leadership in Kerala has violated the party’s basic principle that it should not hurt the sentiments of the minority communities.
Kerala’s minorities, especially the Catholics, are upset with the CPI-M-led government over its educational policies, which Christian leaders feel amount to interference in their affairs.
Both the state and minority institutions have been locked in a legal battle over the government policy on self-financing colleges, which are mostly run by Christians or Muslims.
The CPI-M leadership’s worries deepened when the Kerala churches joined hands with a dominant Hindu group – Nair Service Society – to oppose the education reforms mooted by the CPI-M government.
Some bishops had even warned that there could be a second “Liberation Struggle” – a movement spearheaded by Christians, Nairs and Eazhavas and supported by Muslims that had led to the dismissal by New Delhi of the E.M.S. Namboodiripad government in Kerala in 1959.
Besides, the verbal battle between CPI-M Kerala secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and Church leaders over a deceased Marxist legislator, Mathai Chacko, reached a new low with the bishops urging the faithful to keep away from the Communists.
Vijayan called the late legislator a hardened Marxist, and thus an atheist, but bishops insisted that he had followed Christian rituals.
The state secretary, once seen as close to many Church leaders, then asked the Church to keep off political affairs and alleged that the community leaders were trying to mobilise forces for the Congress party.