The Latin Catholic Church’s call for action to create social awareness against increasing attacks on Christians and growing religious intolerance for minorities arguably held attendant electoral ramifications for the duelling political fronts in the hectic run-up to Lok Sabha polls in Kerala, especially in the coastal districts.
On Sunday, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Latin Catholic Archdiocese of Trivandrum Thomas J. Netto urged the laity to observe performative acts of prayer and fasting on March 22 as a benign form of protest and social action against the rising tide of religious bigotry and worsening prejudice against minorities.
The Churrch’s message is arguably a nod to the political narrative that the ascendancy of the Hindu far-right outfits posed an existential threat to secularism, democracy, and diversity.
687 attacks in 2023
The Archbishop noted that the attacks on Christians had jumped from 147 in 2014 to 687 in 2023.
According to the 2011 census, Latin Catholics constituted 13% of Kerala’s Christians (18% of the total population). They remained a crucial electoral bloc that could sway the prospects of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), the United Democratic Front (UDF), and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), especially in Thiruvananthapuram. The BJP and the Congress have fielded two political heavyweights, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Shashi Tharoor, MP, respectively, in Thiruvananthapuram. The Communist Party of India (CPI) has betted on party veteran Pannian Raveendran, who represented the Parliamentary constituency from 2012-2015.
Voting pattern
The Latin Catholic community has rarely behaved as a homogenous voting bloc, given the level of political fractionalisation, chiefly between the UDF and the LDF. However, the ruling front and the Opposition anticipate that the Church’s increasingly vocal concern about rising far-right majoritarianism might galvanise the minority community into adopting a more uniform voting pattern in the LS polls.
Nevertheless, the jury is out on whether the UDF or the LDF would benefit more from a probable consolidation of the Latin Catholic vote, which the Church has now brought into active electoral play because of its plain-spoken and visceral worry about the Sangh Parivar’s ascendancy.
Last week, the government sought to erase a sore point between the ruling front and the Church by withdrawing cases registered against fishers and the clergy for spearheading the anti-Vizhinjam port riots in 2022.
