BISHOP ASIR’S DAY OUT AND THE STEAM BATH

 

          Yesterday the 6^th of April was Bishop Asir’s day out in Madurai.  He made big news too.  He met Chief Minister Karunanidhi who was campaigning at Madurai and declared his support to DMK.  He also urged all the CSI Christians to vote for DMK.

            This was certainly a surprise.  Only two days ago he made all eye-brows raise. He sent a group of cassock clad CSI monks to perform acrobatics before Jayalalitha in an attempt to lay a new foundation to his brand of minority politics.  All of us know that Asir used to unabashedly swear in the name of  Thaliavar Kalaingar, Thazhapathi Stalin and Annan Alagiri.  Many appreciated Asir’s overture to Jaya as a well calculated move  riding the anti-incumbency wave.

            When Asir went on his reverse gear and reached Karunanidhi, a few confused Christian souls called me and wondered whether American College was part of the deal for Asir to come back to DMK.  Another one sounded so awestruck and believed the story that the Big Man of Madurai himself had to go to Dental College to coax for hours the arch priest to come back.  I will tell you later what really happened.  Now, let us try to fix Asir in place.

            In Madurai, especially in the Christian circle, people read too much into everything the Bishop does.  They have long forgotten their good smiles and exuberant jokes.  Even an involuntary splitting-of-wind due to a bad stomach, is heard only as a mighty roar of this Lion of Madurai Ramnad Diocese.  It is all the haunting fear now, which makes the Christian crowd misperceive.

Unlike other charitable Bishops of CSI, Asir with impunity has built a Christian samastan of his own.  With  majority of Christians dependent on church-based employment, many thousand crores worth of estate, hundreds of educational and other service institutions with vast social and economic tentacles and millions of rupees in monthly income, it is easy for any unscrupulous bishop to turn the church  into a fiefdom.  And he can become its tin-top dictator.  It is a painful paradox that with six decades of freedom in India and constitutional guarantee of Minority Rights, the CSI church is returning to its medievalism.

Once a Chairman of State Minorities Commission told me with a sardonic tinge “Minorities mean people in different kinds of robes and stoles and not ye the faithful”.  While the Minority Rights have only empowered the leaders, they have enslaved the ordinary citizen-Christians.  The political parties have further alienated the ordinary citizen-Christians by going behind these unscrupulous leaders of the Church for the sake of short term gains and money.

Today, a Bishop of CSI Diocese can rule his constituency like a medieval bigot with three elements:  1. money 2.muscle 3.right alliance with powerful politicians.  Many police complaints and court cases have provided indications of how Asir makes money.  Less said the better about the corruption involved in appointments and transfers.  His muscle power has acquired a new patent and brand name after the dastardly acts he orchestrated in American College.

Now, the political alliance.  Asir’s political zigzag infact is a costly mistake for him. The whole world knows how he was patronized by DMK leaders throughout his career, of course for a price.  But the idea of riding the Jaya wave came primarily due to his larger than life-size political image which he started believing in.  Thanks to sycophants, the afraid and the demoralized who for their own psychological reasons created the monster image of Christopher Asir.  This monster image of Asir, then acquired a life of its own and started walking freely, of course creating fear over the city.  Ironically Bishop Asir himself started believing in this MONSTER OF HIMSELF which was not he.  He unfortunately forgot himself. (Some analysts say that it is the usual syndrome of the final hour of any dictator).  No wonder he challenged the mighty leaders of DMK. 

Now let me tell you what happened on Asir’s day out.  The peeved DMK leadership only arranged for a steam-bath for Asir.  He in no time presented himself before Karunanidhi, ofcourse properly escorted.  What an embarrassment to dear athan Ezra Sargunam who cradled this country cousin in the DMK circle.

Before I close, I must also express my sympathies to both DMK and AIADMK  for wasting their energy on Asir.  As we all know, Asir commands no Christian vote.  Not even his son’s. Son says he has joined AIADMK and is busy procuring the remaining 2900 of the 3000 youth he failed to bring before Jaya, the other day.  Reliable sources say that he was already given an oil-bath by the DMK youth wing and is presently absconding.

08.04.2011                                                                              SCORPIUS

Madurai