A group of five Kerala nuns walked out of a service in protest after a priest asked the congregation to boycott Muslim owned businesses.
The service at which the statement was allegedly made took place last weekend at the St Francis Mission Convent, Kottayam, Kerala, which is known as one of the most religiously diverse regions of India.
The nuns – who Tamil Nadu newspaper The Hindu identified as Sister Anupama, Sister Alphy, Sister Ancitta and Sister Josephine – said they were standing in opposition towards hate speech.
The Hindu also reported that the Kerala Branch of the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have sought protection for Mar Joseph Kallangrat, Bishop of Palai, after he came under the spotlight for a “cautionary sermon” on Islamists “using narcotic drugs” to corrupt Catholic and non-Muslim youth”.
The ruling BJP party have been accused of failing to condemn Islamophobia across India, with a rise in discrimination being attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A viral video last month showed a Muslim girl clinging onto her father as a Hindu mob assaulted him in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and another showed a Christian woman being forced to burn an image of Jesus.
Critics have described the situation as a symptom of increased nationalism and say that it has grown since the Modi government came to power in 2014.
The Kerala sisters had previously carried out a protest in 2018 calling for the arrest of former Delhi Bishop Franco Mulakall after he was accused of raping a fellow religious sister. Another Kottayam nun, Sister Lissy Vaddakel, had to brave threats to her life to make her testimony. Bishop Franco Mulakall, who was arrested in 2018 and formally charged in 2019, had statements made against him by over eighty different people, including cardinals, three Bishops, eleven priests and twenty-five nuns. The group Save Our Sisters, which helped set up the 2018 protest, seeks to raise awareness of social justice causes and the abuse suffered by nuns in India and beyond. ensure that
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