The Chink In The Church’s Armour

Some in the Indian Christian hierarchies may well be more afraid of the duo of the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation than they are of the Triune God.

And there are good reasons for this. Many a Protestant Bishop has spent nights in jail before being bailed out. One, caught in ‘flagrante delicto’ was sacked in New Delhi but escaped a prison term. A senior Bishop of the same church denomination in Madhya Pradesh was defrocked, and is currently in jail as a common criminal, bringing shame to the community.

And in the Catholic church, the sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of a couple of Cardinals — the highest ecclesiastical rank, and member of the electoral college that choses Popes — because of the stink of corruption in their property-management offices.

Corruption, where properties and cash are involved in institutions, is as debilitating for the church — a minority community in India numbering no more than perhaps three crores — as are instances of moral turpitude, ranging from a case or two of serial rape, to having a wife on the side where celibacy is the religious norm.

But it is money, more than the sexual skeletons in the religious cupboards, that makes the church leadership vulnerable. The government, in recent years has quite used the threat and actual unleashing of the ED and CBI to bring to heel anytime there seems to be a confrontation.

The “knowledge of the threat” is itself enough not only to get children of officials and politicians admitted into elite schools and colleges, but to keep congregations from agitating against communal incidents, or showing solidarity with Muslims and civil society when they are victimised. That makes the Church quite lonely with a diminishing in the numbers of its supporters.

Bright exceptions among individual Bishops, Fathers, Sisters and Pastors, and the occasional lay faithful, keep the spirit alive to an extent.

It is not just the Church. Religion itself is big business in India as it is elsewhere in the world. Across the globe from pious India and the Philippines to Middle east theocracies and the secularised Western Europe, money gives religion clout and political purchase.

But money is also the biggest chink in its holy armour. Religion, denomination, sect and cult no bar.

In the United States where they keep better records, and where even the President is not a holy cow for the media, it is computed that the Christian church and its institutions are collectively a larger economy than Facebook, Google and Apple combined.

The 2016 study, quoted many times in succeeding years, by Georgetown University’s Brian Grimm and Newseum’s Melissa Grimm said the the annual revenues of faith-based enterprises — not just churches but hospitals, schools, charities and even gospel musicians and halal food makers — send more than $378 billion a year into the US economy.

The largest chunk comes from church hospitals, followed by faith-based schools, colleges and universities, where 2 million students pay more than $ 46.7 billion in tuition annually, plus the Christian book, music, radio and TV industries. It must be added that the American church charities extend aid across the world, Africa and India are two major recipients.

India keeps no such records of religious wealth, nor does it encourage any official or private research into the finances of religious establishments. Temples, mosques, gurudwaras and churches are exempt from paying income tax, though some other incomes including commerce will come under general services tax.

The “Hundis” at Hindu temples and Sikh Gurdwaras are almost entirely confidential, and their dealings even more so. The more popular temples make news once in a way, when some film star or billionaire gifts a crown for the gods richly encrusted with diamonds and rumoured — always rumoured — to be a few tens of millions of Indian rupees. South Indian temples including a major one in Kerala are known to have gold whose value is still to be calculated.

An indication of this came into the public arena when Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one midnight announcement demonetised currency notes of Rupees 500 and 2,000. The cash collected at religious places were hastily converted to the new currency. Banks were complicit. So were politicians, and government officers.

The Muslim ‘Zakat’, or tithe and charity, is also confidential, and like the properties entrusted to the Wakf Boards, makes news only when some thieves fall out and accuse each other of corruption, defalcation and outright thievery.

Christian organisations are the most vulnerable, not only because much of the money from western donors comes into their accounts through the notorious FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) or as income from educational and medical establishments, but also because corruption is so easily detected.

Elements in the Church can be corrupt, and sometimes are, but it has not yet achieved the sort of structure where people can be in mortal dread of being killed. Cult killings in Punjab, for instance, don’t happen in Christian groups, other than the infrequent suicides by women religious and sometimes, young clergy.

The major sources of corruption in churches in general have been traced by government agencies as money collected through illegal sale of church properties, land grab of defunct churches in north, central and even south India, or properties donated by people as for instance in the old Madras region of Tamil Nadu, or in the hills of north India.

And finally, the cash collections in schools and colleges where, other than the school fees and disbursals by way of salaries and maintenance, there are illicit transactions at the times of admissions and recruitment of staff. Bribe is the ugly word for it.

The scale of transactions in some institutions can be gauged by the fact that the former Bishop of the Church of North India mentioned earlier, he was in fact also the Moderator, was caught by the police red-handed with a pile of currency notes.

Protestant churches, possibly because of the excessive control of the man at the top, have found themselves trapped by the Central Bureau of Investigations. Perhaps greed overwhelms common sense. Or perhaps their political connections are not strong enough to provide early warning, or reduction in charges. Private minority institutions are more careful in managing their money, and their connections.

In the Catholic Church, big money transactions were traced in a north Indian diocese where a priest was found with a stack of currency notes. The police came in. The status of the case is not known. Anyway, it was overtaken by a major scandal with allegations of sexual violence.

Much more is known of alienation of land in various dioceses across the county. Even the archdiocese of Goa and Angamaly, both headed by Cardinals, find themselves in a seemingly unending controversy of selling land owned by the church. There are cases in all three Rites, and in dioceses in each of the regional conferences.

Many are with the police, or in court. The church authorities are almost always the loser when someone, an outsider or even a parishioner, grabs a section of its property and refuses to leave.

Narendra Modi’s government knows all this, and possibly much more including properties given by the colonial British government on lease whose term is long over, and the ownership is now contested.

All these give enough material to the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigations to keep Church authorities on a tight leash. And while Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, and some smaller towns have witnessed protests and demonstrations seeking protection against persecution and violence by state and non-state actors, several heads of Catholic and Protestant churches have been seen cozying up to the ruling Bharatiya Janata party.

They know the authorities can close the trapdoor anytime they find convenient.

JOHN DAYAL is a veteran journalist and human rights’ activist. Views expressed are the writer’s own.