Hindu Nationalists Accused of Conspiring to Usurp Church Property In India
Bishops support India’s Hindutva-led parliament in passing law on state regulation of Muslim properties.
Hindu ethnonationalists have been accused of conspiring to usurp the extensive properties owned by the Catholic Church after India’s parliament, dominated by Hindu supremacists, passed a law approving the state regulation of Muslim land endowments.
Catholic bishops joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in supporting the law targeting properties endowed to Muslims, thus paving a path for Hindu supremacist forces to scheme to seize the Church’s properties.
First They Came for the Muslims. Then They Came for Me
Catholics were alarmed after India’s largest paramilitary Hindu organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), published an article on April 3 in its magazine Organizer, prodding the government to target Catholic properties.
The RSS, a Nazi-inspired Hindu ethnonationalist outfit which has been blamed for being a major force behind the widespread persecution of Christians in India, produced figures claiming that the Catholic Church owned more property than the Muslim Waqf Board.
The controversial bill, which passed on April 4 after a heated debate in both houses of parliament, adds non-Muslims to boards that manage Waqf land endowments and gives the government greater control over the land holdings.
In Islam, Waqfs are charitable foundations in which donors permanently donate property for religious or charitable purposes. A key feature of Waqf is that the donated property cannot be sold, transferred, or used for any purpose other than the one for which it was dedicated.
Similarly, vast tracts of Catholic real estate throughout India were donated to the Church or to religious orders by wealthy Catholics exclusively for the purpose of building churches, hospitals, orphanages, or schools. The British, French, and Portuguese colonial administrations also left behind properties used by their chaplains and personnel for the benefit of Indian Catholics.
“While the Waqf Board does own significant land parcels across various states, it does not surpass the holdings of the Catholic Church in India,” the Organizer claimed in its article. “The Catholic Church of India holds the distinction of being the largest nongovernmental landowner, possessing vast tracts of land spread across the country.”
Allegedly basing its figures on the Government Land Information website, the RSS weekly said the Catholic Church owns 70 million hectares (172.9 million acres) of land throughout India, valued at 200 million Indian rupees (appoximately $2,311,264).
The Organizer said that India’s Catholic Church received most of its land from the British government before India became independent in 1947 and the Indian Church Act, which authorizes ownership of the land, was passed in 1927 while Britain was ruling India.
“The Indian government issued a circular in 1965 declaring that any land granted on lease by the British government would not be recognized. Nevertheless, because of a lack of adherence to this directive, the dispute over the legitimacy of these lands has not yet yielded a resolution,” it noted.
The Catholic Church owns land all over India, but this land is also contentious; the question of the church taking land by force is frequently brought up.
In 2012, there were 2457 hospital dispensaries, 240 medical or nursing colleges, 28 general colleges, 5 engineering colleges, 3765 secondary schools, 7319 primary schools, and 3187 nursery schools in India, all under the Catholic Church of India.
Slandering Missionaries
A day later, the Organizer upped its ante against Catholics by publishing an article titled “How did a Jesuit Robert de Nobili trick Hindus into accepting Christianity in 17th century?”
“Unlike earlier European missionaries who failed in their attempts due to cultural resistance, Nobili resorted to an elaborate mix of deception and adaptation, presenting Christianity as a lost Bharatiya [Indian] tradition rather than a foreign faith,” the authors claimed.
The Organizer deleted the article urging the government to target the Catholic Church’s real estate after Congress Member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi, who is also leader of the opposition party in the Lok Sabha (India’s lower house of parliament) and whose mother is the well-known Italian Catholic Sonia Gandhi, warned that Christians could be the next target of the RSS.
“I had said that the Waqf Bill attacks Muslims now but sets a precedent to target other communities in the future. It didn’t take long for the RSS to turn its attention to Christians,” Gandhi posted on X.
Catholic lay leaders and clergy slammed the bishops for supporting the bill while it was being debated in parliament.
Bishops Hope the Crocodile Will Eat Them Last
The bishops “may have overreacted on Muslim Waqf issue,” leading Catholic human rights campaigner John Dayal told The Tablet.
“The Catholic bishops in particular must understand that the Hindu nationalist BJP is quite capable of acting against anybody,” he said. Moreover, the prelates “may have overreacted on Muslim Waqf issue.”
The Indian Currents website, which is run by the Capuchins and has previously spoken out against the some of the stances taken by India’s Catholic bishops, warned that they had endangered the Catholic Church by appeasing the Hindu ethnonationalists.
“Alas, the Catholic Church leadership can’t see the woods for the trees,” Catholic lay leader A. J. Philip wrote in an open letter to the Minister for Minorities, Kiren Rijiju, published on the Capuchin media website.
The Catholic and other churches own thousands of acres of land and properties worth billions of rupees. Using the same argument, the government can easily take them over. In fact, many Church-run schools and colleges are situated on government land given by the British on lease for 100 years. The government has already started putting pressure on the church to vacate such properties, as in the Army Cantonment in New Delhi.
The Waqf law “has set a dangerous precedent and laid [the] groundwork for targeting other communities as well,” Fr. Gaurav Nair wrote in an editorial on the website. “The fears are not unfounded.”
Pagan Seizure of Christian Churches
Father Nair cited the October 2024 case of the Madras High Court consulting the Federal and Tamil Nadu governments “on making Christian institutions accountable by bringing their assets, funds and entities like hospitals and schools/colleges under a statutory board on the lines of Waqf Board.”
“On March 23, there was a protest against the construction of a ‘Heritage Interpretation Center’ on the ruins of the Five Wounds of Christ Church, which is also within 100 meters of the world heritage site of Bom Jesus Basilica in Goa by the state BJP-government,” Nair observed.
A source close to the Catholic Bishops Conference of India told The Stream that Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, major archbishop-catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, was mainly responsible for the bishops backing the Waqf bill.
The cardinal reacted to an incident in November 2024, where the Waqf Board in Munambam, Ernakulam in the state of Kerala, claimed 404 acres of land belonging to over 600 families, most Christian families.
“Unfortunately, this highly localized issue which could have been resolved by dialogue, was blown up by the bishops at a national level and has now become a major threat to the Catholic Church all over India,” said the source, who requested anonymity.
The Organizer has now also deleted its hit piece against St. Robert di Nobili.
Jason Jones is a senior contributor to The Stream. He is a film producer, activist, and human rights worker. He is also the author of three books, the latest of which is The Great Campaign Against the Great Reset.