Coming as it did amidst Christian outreach programmes, the arrest of three Sangh Parivar workers for having attempted to disrupt the Christmas celebration at a school in Palakkad has come as a setback for the BJP in Kerala.
Compounding matters for the party, the incident was reported at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was attending the Christmas celebration hosted by the Catholic in New Delhi on Monday.
According to a top source in the BJP, the party’s central leadership had asked Union Minister George Kurian and state BJP president K Surendran to openly condemn the act of the three Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) workers.
“The Christian outreach programme was organised not as the state BJP’s programme. It was decided after detailed deliberations between RSS and BJP at the national level in 2021,” a top Sangh Parivar leader told.
However, political analysts view the developments as an example of an emerging paradox in the Hindutva forces and its ideology. “Lately, RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat has been asking the various Sangh parivar organisations to put a halt on their claim over mosques,” said Ajith Sreenivasan, a political analyst.
He said the opposition has come from within the Sangh parivar organisations, with seer organisations like the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti even criticising him. Meanwhile, the RSS now realises that the reaction that could arise if courts agree to Hindu groups’ demand to inspect whether mosques had been built by demolishing Hindu shrines will be catastrophic, Ajith said.
“There will be huge law and order issues and social impacts. They realise that the government might not even survive that situation. VHP’s act is to be seen in this background,” he said.
The state BJP had also started its outreach programme ahead of Christmas, on December 20. The leaders will be visiting church heads and 10 lakh Christian homes across the state till December 30.
However, fear has been created within the Catholic Church and in the Christian community as the VHP has endorsed its workers’ action. Orthodox Church Thrissur Diocese Metropolitan Youhanon Mar Meletius has criticised the VHP act.
The powerful Syro Malabar Church is also unhappy with the developments. “Everyone knows that they are active workers of VHP,” said Fr Joby Kachapalli, the public relations officer of the diocese. “When an incident like this happens, we have to understand that this is part of a strategy to display dominance over the minority community.”
The Church leadership is also disappointed as no leader has contacted them till Tuesday evening.
However, VHP state general secretary V R Rajasekharan has played down the BJP leaders’ criticism of VHP workers. “They are denouncing the action of VHP merely as a political party. The parents of Hindu children in the school had submitted petitions to the education department authorities saying that the children were paraded without their consent. We will deal with the police case legally,” he said.
