OTHER MINORITIES

Indian Succession Act, 1865: Christian Case for Repeal

The II Vatican Council stressed:

In India, since 1986 nobody can become a Christian without renouncing the Indian civil law and accepting the English law which has come to be known as the Christian Personal Law.

What Happened in the Year 1865?

The Moghal Emperors, applied the Islamic Law only to Muslims and to the rest of the people the traditional Indian law. When the British became the dominant power in India, they also followed the rule introduced by the Moghal Emperors and applied the Islamic law to Muslims and the Indian law to the rest of the people. The question came up which law is applicable to Hindus who become Christians. In 1863 this question came to the Privy Council. The Privy Council replied: "Since Jesus did not preach any civil law, and Christians, therefore, can practise their faith under any system of civil law, there is no difficulty for a person who has enounced the Hindu religion to continue to live under the Hindu Civil Law".

In 1865 they passed the Indian Succession Act which applied English Law Section 331 of this Act states that it does not apply to Muslims. Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. Thus, practically all Indians ere exempted but Indian Christians were not exempted. The British Government, however, had no intention of forcing the English Law on Christians who preferred to remain under the Indian law. They provided, therefore, for any group of people who preferred to remain under the Indian law an option to apply for an exemption from the Indian Succession Act. Section 332 of the Indian Succession Act of 1865, states:

"The Governor-General of India in Council shall have power by an Order to exempt from the operation of the whole or any part of this Act the members of any race, sect or tribe, to whom he may consider it impossible or inexpedient to apply the provision of this Act. "

The Christians of the province of Coorg in Mysore State did object to being brought under the English law and applied for an exemption. Accordingly, by a notification dated July 23, 1886, the Governor-General exempted all native Christians of Coorg with retrospective effect.

Many tribals such Oraons, Mundas, Garos etc. also were exempted from this Act and remain under their tribal laws.

After Independence, the Supreme Court has insisted that every person professing the Christian faith must be judged according to the Indian Succession Act.

After Independence most British residents, for whose benefit the Indian Succession Act had been introduced, left India. So it happened that the English law of the Indian Succession Act became known as "the Christian Personal Law".

The Witness of Converts

Manilal C. Parekh, the well-known Gujrati convert states:

"It is to no exaggeration to say that today the most difficult question facing the Church of Christ in India is the baptism of the new disciples. That this is so is largely or altogether due to the fact that baptism has become associated with a number of things which are not only unessential but are even harmful to the spiritual life of such disciples. Baptism has come to mean absolute severance from one's own community, from one's own birth and kin, from one's own cultural and spiritual inheritance.

Christianity in India has become a Civil Institution

In India Christianity itself has become a civil institution, spreading Christianity as a civil institution is not a good thing, for it means spreading an institution whose members renounce the Indian law and follow a foreign law. Jesus Christ does not expect his followers to renounce their national civil law, nor is it in the interest of India.

An important question, therefore, is: Is it possible to free Christianity in India from being a civil institution and restore to it the character of being a religion pure and simple? The simplest way of getting rid of the Christian Personal Law is to follow the example of the erstwhile province of Coorg: to ask for exemption from the Indian Succession Act. This way is open to us Christians in India even today. Section 3 of the Reformed Indian Succession Act of 1925 states:

"The State Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, either respectively from the 16th May 1865 or prospectively exempt from the operation of this Act the members of any race, sect or tribe, in the State, or of any part of such race, sect or tribe, to whom the State Government considers it impossible or inexpedient to apply this act or any of its provisions".

The Christians of any State could point out to their State Government that it has become inconvenient to them to be under the Indian Succession Act and. therefore, ask to be exempted from this Act.

By being exempt from the Indian Succession Act, Christians automatically will be under the common Indian law and no longer under the Christian Personal Law and thus Christianity would cease to be a civil institution and will be seen as a religion pure and simple. Christianity in India would then be seen more clearly as a truly supernatural and supranational religion which every patriotic Indian could join without renouncing his national civil law.

(Source: The People's Reporter. 16-28 February, 1297)

Hinduisation of the Catholic Church in India

Peter Julia came to India from Spain in 1948 as a 23-year-old Jesuit priest. Today, at 71, he has taken the name Shilananda, built and operates a church in Nasik, Maharashtra, which resembles a Siva temple and is called Sanjivan, "True Life". A small cross sits atop the tower. On the sanctum walls inside hangs another cross, and below that a stone Sivalinga covered with a metal sheath. An "Aum" and a cross are engraved in the brass. A second container shaped like a Sivalinga holds the consecrated hosts (bread wafers) used in the Catholic Mass.

Some Hindus are perplexed and a few are downright incensed with this kind of amalgamation of religions.

Shilananda no doubt lives an exemplary and austere life. He is a vegetarian, well-versed in Hindu scripture and devout in his daily practice. And there are more like him in India, sincere Christians attempting to create an indigenous form of a faith too Western for most Indians and too Indians for most Catholics.

One such place the Saccidananda Ashram founded by two French priests in 1950 a blending of Christian and Hindu monasticism and follows the customs of a Hindu ashram. Their Church is built like a Hindu temple, with a high gopuram. The altar is on a raised stone platform where a silver statue of Jesus is placed. Sandalwood paste is given in the morning, kumkum after the mid-day prayer and holy ash after the evening prayer. Each prayer is accompanied by Marati and chanting of the Gayatri Mantra. To the local people there does not appear to be much difference between Hinduism and worshipping Jesus in the Hindu way.

Still another is Angelo Beneditt, who came to India from Spain with Shilananda in 1948. He is in Bhavanagar in Gujarat as Swami Shubhananda. Ordained a Jesuit priest in 1959, he is fluent in Marathi, Gujarati and Sanskrit, and has a BA in Indian classical music. The church he established in his Tapovan Ashram is called a temple.

Such attempts at amalgamation are not new. In the 17th century Father Robert de Nobili learned Sanskrit, put on orange robes, became a vegetarian and wrote an apocryphal fifth Veda referring to Jesus. He converted tens of thousands in Madurai. Nearly all drifted back to Hinduism after his passing.

A likely eventual long-term result may be their own unwitting absorption into the all-embracing arms of

Land Rights of Australian Aborigines

For tens of thousands of years, aborigines gathered food, hunted and visited sacred sites on lands now controlled by ranchers, farmers and mining companies.

Do they have any land rights on this territory, amounting to 42 per cent of Australia? Last month, Australia's High Court said "Yes"

On Wednesday, Prime Minister John Howard called a summit of state and territory leaders to try to thrash out a political solution, balancing aboriginal land rights with the need of ranchers, miners and farmers to use the land.

The summit broke up after 90 minutes of inconclusive debate ... The dilemma arose last month when the high court gave qualified support to aboriginal groups. Such "Pastoral" leases cover about 42 per cent of Australia's total land mass.

The High Court, which is Australia's highest judicial body, recognised for the first time in 1992 that aborigines have the right to lay claim to Government-held land on the grounds of traditional ownership.

Before European colonizers arrived in 1788 Scientists theorise that aborigines lived on the continent for more than 60,000 years.

Aborigines number about 3,30,000 in a total population of 18 million and are regarded as Australia's most underprivileged social group.

(Source: The Pioneer, 23 January, 1997)

USA: Political Role of Arab Americans

During the Democratic National Convention, Arab-Americans celebrated their growing influence in the U.S. political system and cheered as Jesse Jackson exhorted them to take full advantage of that power to push their interests.

Sponsoring the event was the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based group, set up in 1985 with the announced goals of encouraging Arab-American participation in electoral politics and distributing information on domestic and foreign policy issues of interest to their constituency.

Under the leadership of James Zogby, it has become an increasingly potent counterweight to AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee), which pursues Israel's interests through the U.S. political system.

(Apart from) Democratic Representatives Nick Rahall of West Virginia, Pat Danner of Missouri and John Baldacci of Maine and Richard Ieyoub, Louisiana's attorney general, all Arab-Americans, the Jesse Jackson, perceived as one of their biggest supporters on the American political scene and widely considered one of the most effective orators in the Democratic Party, (addressed them and recalled that) as recently as 1984 "the idea of Arab-Americans being involved in the political process was a source of shame (and they) "denied a chance to serve on the committees of political parties".

But 12 years later "your place in the American political community in both parties is firmly established". He appealed to them to intensify their efforts. "You lose your dignity when you forfeit struggle and don't fight back. If you don't vote, you are irrelevant to the process. If you don't vote with regard to your self- interests, you are cowardly and stupid".

(Source: USIS)