For Christians worldwide, Holy Week, culminating in Easter, is a profoundly solemn period that celebrates the resurrection of the crucified Jesus as the ultimate triumph of hope over suffering. However, this year, it left them with a deep and irreparable loss: Pope Francis, one of the most beloved pontiffs in history, passed away the day after delivering what would be his final Easter sermon.
For Christians in India, the week brought further disquiet. First came the Delhi Police’s ban on the traditional Way of the Cross procession on Palm Sunday citing traffic concerns. This move triggered protests from the Christian community. Coincidentally, on the eve of Easter, Mahendra Hembram — one of those convicted in the gruesome 1999 murder of the Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two young sons — was released from an Odisha prison on the grounds of ‘good behaviour’.
In Kerala, where Christians make up over 18% of the population, Holy Week carried an added sense of disappointment. Many in the community had harboured hopes that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Narendra Modi government would respond meaningfully to their aspirations and concerns — both real and perceived. In recent years, the BJP had made visible efforts to reach out to the Christian community during Easter, with leaders, including the prime minister, visiting churches and Christian homes. Instead, during this year, Christians were left with a lingering sense of betrayal.
At the heart of the issue lies a long-standing ownership dispute over 400 acres of land in Munambam, a coastal village in Ernakulam district, where 610 families — mostly from the Latin Catholic fishing community — have been living for decades. The Kerala State Waqf Board has staked a claim to the land, asserting it as waqf property. Many Christians who had placed their faith in the recent amendment to the Waqf Act pushed through Parliament by the government now feel betrayed. The new legislation, they have realised, may not help resolve the Munambam dispute, unlike what BJP leaders had promised them, because it will not have a retrospective effect.
The residents of Munambam claim to have legally purchased the land during the 1960s from the Farook College, an educational institution run by a Muslim management in Kozhikode. They have been holding an agitation led by Christian priests for more than six months, protesting the KSWB’s claim. They show revenue documents to prove that the land had been legally registered in their names.
The Munambam issue surfaced in 2019 when the KSWB registered the land as waqf property, claiming that it was gifted by its original owners, and sent notices to its residents. The residents have since been challenging the claim in the courts. In 2024, with the Lok Sabha election underway, the quiet fishing hamlet became the epicentre of religious and political tensions as the BJP weaponised the issue. It perfectly aligned with the BJP’s ongoing attempts to woo Christians and to strengthen its moves to amend the Waqf Act. The political turmoil led the Left Democratic Front government to appoint a judicial commission to inquire into the matter. Although a single-judge bench of the Kerala High Court quashed the judicial inquiry this March, a division bench upheld it later.
The Syro-Malabar Church, Kerala’s largest Catholic congregation with about five million members, held protest meetings across the state against the KSWB’s claim. The Farook College’s Muslim management, too, challenged KSWB’s claims in the State Waqf Tribunal, stating that the property was gifted to it by the descendants of the original owners in 1950. The origin of the dispute dates back to the beginning of the 20th century when the Travancore royal family leased this land to a Gujarati trader, Abdul Sattar Musa Sait. According to the KSWB, the property was transferred to Farook College as waqf land to be used only for educational purposes, and its sale by the college was illegal. The present members of Sait’s family, too, have approached the Waqf Tribunal seeking a legal survey of the disputed land.
While the ruling LDF and the Opposition United Democratic Front endorse the rights of the coastal residents, they accuse each other of fishing in troubled waters. Most Muslim organisations, including the Indian Union Muslim League, the second largest party in the UDF, have also opposed the eviction of the residents, even though they endorse KSWB’s claim.
However, the BJP emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the imbroglio. It vigorously backed the residents of Munambam and slammed the Waqf Board. This provided the sangh parivar with yet another weapon to strengthen its ongoing efforts to endear itself to the Christians and divide the two minority communities, which together form over 45% of Kerala’s population and constitute the BJP’s biggest electoral hurdle. The BJP’s growing clout among the Christians — once staunchly pro-Congress — became visible when it won its first-ever Lok Sabha seat, Thrissur, in May 2024. For the first time, the BJP appointed Christians this year to head the party in three districts, including Thrissur. Some time ago, the sangh parivar spiritedly backed the Catholic bishops when they accused the Muslims of indulging in ‘love jihad’ and ‘narcotics jihad’.
The passing of the Waqf (Amendment) Act led to celebrations in Munambam, and its residents announced joining the BJP. On April 16, a grand reception titled “Thank You, Modi” was held at Munambam and attended by the Union minister for minority affairs, Kiren Rijiju, the party’s new state president, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and other BJP leaders. Rijiju reiterated the promise he made earlier in Parliament that the Central government would protect the land rights of Munambam residents. However, when he met the media later, Rijiju revealed that the Munambam residents may still have to go to court to win their rights. He could only promise that once the new Waqf rules are framed, they would help the Munambam people.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of India had supported the Waqf (Amendment) Act; its Kerala chapter appealed to all the members of Parliament to support it to end the “illegitimate and unconstitutional” Waqf Act. Only the backward Latin Catholic Church and some critics within SMC opposed its support for the BJP.
But now, Archbishop Varghese Chakkalakal of Calicut Archdiocese of the SMC laments that the Waqf (Amendment) Act has not benefited the residents of Munambam. Mar Joseph Pamplany, another Archbishop of the SMC, who had declared that Christians would vote for the BJP if the Modi government increased the support price of natural rubber (its cultivators are mostly Christians), has proposed a new political party for Christians. Fearing a backlash, the BJP cancelled this year’s Sneha Yatra, which it has been holding during Easter time to Christian homes.
However, the Christian Association & Alliance for Social Action, the most vocal pro-BJP Christian organisation — often derisively called ‘Chrisanghi’ — continues to claim that the Waqf (Amendment) Act will eventually deliver justice to the people of Munambam. CASA is aware that, irrespective of the Munambam issue, the rising Islamophobia among a section of Christians offers fertile ground for aligning with the sangh parivar.
M.G. Radhakrishnan, a journalist based in Thiruvananthapuram, has worked with various print and electronic media organisations
