Church Land Claim: 'Organiser' Misstep Or RSS Agenda?

After the passing of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, a new issue on similar lines is causing turmoil across the political spectrum. On April 5, posts by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on the social media platform X, highlighted an Organiser (RSS mouthpiece) article--now pulled down--which claimed that the Catholic Church in India had far bigger landholdings than Waqf boards across the country. According to the article, properties totalling nearly 17 crore acres come under the Church라이브 바카라 control. Both Gandhi and Vijayan raised concerns about the article being an indication of the Sangh라이브 바카라 move to marginalise and alienate other religious minorities of the country after targeting Muslims.

With the latest controversy, the BJP finds itself falling behind in its efforts to strengthen its grasp in Kerala, where it has been counting on the political backing by bishops and priests to stand as a dependable alternative to the Congress and CPI (M). Incidentally, on March 31, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), a national Episcopal body, issued a letter of appeal to legislators and political parties, endorsing the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. This appeal came in the light of the dispute over a piece of land in Munambam, Kerala that ancestrally belongs to nearly 600 Christian families. The local Waqf board has laid claims to this land as Waqf property and the issue has led to a legal quagmire involving the two parties. Prior to this, on March 29, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), an association of the Roman, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara churches, had also issued a letter in support of the Bill on the same grounds.

However, post the publication of the Organiser article, a church-run daily Deepika published a strongly-worded editorial on April 7, slamming its claims about the land ownership of the church. The editorial criticised the Organiser piece, stating that, “No one here is afraid of the RSS article questioning who owns more land.” Questioning the basis of the figures published in the piece, the editorial said that if the figures were to be believed, then more than 21 per cent of India라이브 바카라 land would be owned by the Church. “This is clearly exaggerated, as India라이브 바카라 total land area is only 3,287,263 square kilometres. The article claims that the Church owns 700,000 square kilometres (172.9 million acres) of land—183 times more than the 940,000 acres held by the Waqf Board,” the Deepika editorial stated.

The issue has further incensed Christian communities in light of the recent incident of a Christian priest being assaulted by right-wing groups in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. On March 31, a bus full of 52 Catholic pilgrims visiting Jabalpur was intercepted by a right-wing group and taken to the local police station on the allegations of forced religious conversion. The incident sparked outrage among Christians across the country and led to several Opposition members staging a walkout from the Lok Sabha on April 3 in protest of the attack. The Deepika editorial also criticised the Centre over this issue, stating that the anti-conversion law was being used as a pretext to harass and assault Christians and close down their institutions.

It remains to be seen what impact the instance of assault in Jabalpur, combined with Organiser라이브 바카라 claims about land ownership by the Catholic church, will have over the Catholic vote share in favour of the BJP in the upcoming elections in Kerala. What is clear, however, is that a dent a surely been made in BJP라이브 바카라 steady attempts to win their trust.