On November 29, Tuesday, Kerala state’s minister for ports V Abdurahiman came down heavily on those carrying out the agitation against the Vizhinjam international sea port by terming the Latin Catholic church-led protests as anti-national.
“Hindering construction activities which are crucial for the nation’s development should be examined as an anti-national move. I don’t think these demonstrations are protests, it is something else,” the minister was quoted as saying by media houses.
Protests against the Vizhinjam Transshipment Hub in Kerala, led by the Latin Catholic Church, became violent on Sunday night (27 November).
On Saturday, a rowdy mob rushed to Vizhinjam police station and held police personnel hostage, demanding the release of five protestors detained for obstructive protests (26 November).
At least 29 policemen were seriously injured and police vehicles were damaged in the attack.
The Latin Church, which is spearheading the ongoing agitation against the under-construction Vizhinjam port, attempted to rationalise the weekend violence by stating that it was merely a natural response to government-scripted provocations. The church asserted that the protest would continue.
While we continue to discuss the latest Latin Catholic Church-led protest against Vizhinjam Transshipment Hub in Kerala, it is vital to revisit numerous other instances in which churches and foreign-funded NGOs have been instrumental in stalling development projects in India.
How Church-backed activism fueled the Kudankulam protest in Tamil Nadu
The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, which was developed in collaboration with Russia, also saw a lot of protests. A similar situation emerged in the year 2011 when Church-sponsored rabble-rousers and hooligans delayed the critical Kudankulam power plant, hitting us at a time when energy requirements were rapidly increasing.
The majority of those who took part in the Nagercoil protest marches were from various Catholic churches. The Idinthakarai St. Lourdes Church complex was repurposed into a protest camp for the plant. Several churches advised people to participate in the protests against the Kudankulam facility.
The Kudankulam Nuclear Power situated in the state of Tamil Nadu was conceptualized as the largest Nuclear Power plant in India with a total capacity of 6000 MW. The construction of the plant began way back in 2002 but it was marred by constant protests.
This protest reached a boiling point in 2011 when the villagers reportedly feared that a Fukushima-type disaster might befall the Nuclear plant. One of the prominent leaders of the anti-Kudankulam movement was SP Udayakumar, who led the People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy.
Incidentally, this whole protest had come under suspicion way back in 2012 when there were reports about the protest being allegedly backed by the Church and various foreign parties emerged. In 2014 there were further allegations after an alleged IB report had claimed that Udayakumar had been working on the behest of various American and German entities in order to subvert the development of India.
The then-Union Minister V Narayanasamy asserted that Bishop Yavon Ambroise of Tuticorin had received Rs 54 crore and was the driving force behind the demonstrations. Many Christian organisations, such as People’s Education for Action and Liberation and Good Vision, were identified as troublemakers by the HM.
The Union Home Secretary said in 2012 that four non-governmental organisations’ bank accounts had been seized after it was determined that they had been utilising money from foreign sources to fund anti-nuclear protests. The CBI filed two cases, while the Tamil Nadu police Crime Branch filed two.
Moreover, in 2017, Republic TV came up with a sting operation on Udyakumar and various members of the Tamil Nadu Church, which seemed to further corroborate the ” foreign-funded protest theory”.
The reporters then followed the Church-backed protest angle and zeroed in on a Church in Idinthakarai which according to them was a hub of anti-nuclear protests. They reportedly stung a Parish priest named Jayakumar who managed the money used in the protest. He had apparently selected 70 people who were set up as a front while he and the Diocese controlled things from behind the curtains. Apparently, he took care of all the protests in Idinthakarai and there were 13 other Fathers who similarly managed 13 other villages.
The report also claimed that this whole church involvement was orchestrated by a Bishop who had suggested that Jayakumar operates from the background. The Bishop was incidentally the person who was withstanding all the external ‘pressure’ like the cancellation of their FCRA license.
The reporters also interviewed a villager who claimed that all the NGOs were actually run by Bishops who paid money to Christian people if they took part in the protests.
Through these sting operations, it appeared that the main motivation for the whole protest was not an aversion to Nuclear Power but a desire to earn money.
Role of Catholic churches in shutting down TN’s Vedanta-owned Sterlite Copper factory
Similarly, the Vedanta-owned Sterlite Copper factory in Thoothukudi (formerly Tuticorin) was eventually shut down by the Tamil Nadu government in 2018 following protests by locals over purported environmental concerns caused by the plant. The shutdown of the Sterlite Copper plant dealt a huge blow to the country’s copper trade and India slipped from being one of the top five exporters of copper cathodes in 2017-2018 to becoming a net importer from 2018-2019. In this case, too, Catholic priests and nuns led demonstrators calling for the factory’s closure.
Several myths were disseminated about this facility at the time, such as how it was harming the environment and affecting the workers. Various churches banded together to speed up the protests by proclaiming Sunday as Protest Day.
Pastor Lazarus led a march from Our Lady of Snows’ church to the collector’s office for members of the Catholic Fernandez community living in a hamlet off the coast of Tuticorin. Following that, the church and foreign NGOs applied pressure on the government and the judiciary, resulting in the plant’s shutdown.
In fact, TOI journalist Lalita Nijhawan wrote a detailed article about how the protests against the Sterlite Copper Plant in Thoothukudi and the Kudankulam protests were orchestrated by a complete pact between all denominations of Christian Churches to bring the key industries to a halt under the guise of environmental pollution without any kind of basis.
She asserted that when complaints of environmental damages caused by the plant were raised, scientists from the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) visited Sterlite and certified that emissions were within the limits set. Despite this, Christian leader Brother Mohan C Lazarus went on YouTube to claim that Sterlite was a toxic factory, without any basis. He announced that a protest against Sterlite will be conducted on March 24, 2018, in Rajaji Park Tuticorin, with all Catholics, Pentecostals, and the Church of South India (CSI) participating.
Apart from local job loss, the Sterlite plant closure has cost the Indian economy a whopping Rs 14,749 crore till now.
All Saints Church members protest against Bangalore Metro Rail
Last year, a protest erupted over the Bengaluru metro rail project. In this case, too, the protest was led by ‘All Saints Church,’ which had opposed the metro’s construction under the pretext of conserving trees.
Popular Twitter user Anshul Saxena listed some of the instances where major developmental projects in India have faced opposition from Church organisations.
7) Bengaluru Metro:
— Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul) August 24, 2022
This is interesting.
Defence land was given to Church of South India (CSI) on lease.
CSI sold land to Bangalore Metro for ₹60 Cr.
‘All Saints Church’ protested against Metro construction asking to Save Trees.
And, CSI is parent body of All Saints Church. pic.twitter.com/AGsDGrVwS5
According to reports, some of the defence lands were purchased for Rs 60 crore from the Church of South India (CSI). The ‘All Saints Church’ then protested the metro’s construction and urged that the trees be saved. It is crucial to note that the CSI is the All Saints Church’s parent organisation. This means that one organisation took the money by selling the land, while the church under the same organisation opposed the project, inciting the locals to oppose it.
Likewise, the Church of England had impeded the Indian conglomerate Vedanta Group’s proposed project to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha.
Vedanta was already in substantial business in this part of Odisha’s Kalahandi district. It operated a 5000-crore alumina refinery plant set up in 2006 in Lanjigarh, at the base of the Niyamgiri Hills to process alumina from bauxite ore. The company use to buy the bauxite from 14 different mines in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Gujarat. The transportation costs were formidable – so Vedanta wanted to mine the bauxite that it said lay just three Kilometres from its refinery.
Catholic churches stall Odisha’s Niyamgiri bauxite mines
In 2009, agitation against the Niyamgiri bauxite mines was spearheaded by the local tribals who are supported by foreign NGOs and churches. They instigated the local tribe by asserting that Vedanta’s plan to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills will displace 8,000 members of the Dongria Kondh tribe and destroy the ecosystem.
Then it had to face the ire of international campaigners such as Bianca Jagger and controversial writer Arundhati Roy. Soon, the Church of England sold its stake worth 3.8 million pound stake (5.9 million US dollars) in the group.
In 2012, Vedanta also announced the closure of the Lanjigarh refinery. The refinery was built at the base of the Niyamgiri mountains to process the 78 million tonnes of bauxite deposits found there.
