1916- 1986- 2016 Mary Roy and Mary John Akhouri: Overturning 100 years of discrimination

Mary is a very important name in the church and it includes St. Mary, first among saints, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Mary the sister of St. Martha among others. Mary brings to mind several things. It is a name that the church will never be able to wipe out. The name brings not just assurance, hope and obedience but rebellion, sacrifice and victory from oppression. Along with Mary John Akhouri who has managed to wake up the senses of the church and civil society in Kerala, India and the world, is Mary Roy who single handedly fought against an oppressive law and a patriarchal church and society which supported the law.

We are still looking at the merit and faults of denying a decent burial to Mary John Akhouri in the church of her choice and as per her last wish. But there is also another interesting aspect to this time and year. 2016 is an important date because it comes exactly 100 years after the act of 1916 which was discriminatory towards Syrian Christian women in India because it gave only 1/4th the share of ancestral property going to the son, to the daughter or Rs 5,000 whichever was less. In 1984 Mary Roy who also belonged to a Syrian Christian family and was separated from her husband and was going to be evicted from her house in Ooty, filed a case in a court of law, which came out with a favourable verdict in 1986. This was followed by several other cases which culminated in the 2010 verdict of the court granting the right to one part of the property to Mary Roy. 100 years after a discriminatory law and 30 years after a favourable court verdict for Syrian Christian women. This is what 2016 offers and the passing away of Mary John Akhouri and her wish to be buried in her parish brings to focus not just inter religious weddings, church membership and funerals but the key factor of rights of women.

I mentioned in an earlier write up that we have to have a lenient view to several parties involved in the recent issue. But how can we reason within the church that Mary John Akhouri deserved better? For this Mary Roy offers help to us. The Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916 was clearly discriminatory and it was tweaked to be even more so by the powerful Syrian Christian community. “Under Section 24 of the Act, a widowed mother has only a life interest terminable at death or remarriage, over any immovable property. Under Section 28 female heirs who had already received Streedhanam (dowry) were not to be given any share in the case of intestacy because the daughters have only a right to get streedhanam and it was fixed as ¼ of the share of a son or Rs.5000/- whichever is less, daughters could get shares in the intestate’s property only in the absence of male heirs. Even the unmarried daughters had only a right to get streedhanam which was to be calculated as aforesaid. Thus the Travancore Act contained several discriminatory provisions blatantly violating Article 15(1). The reason for the denial of the share in the family property was that the daughter was going to the matrimonial home and only the sons are contributing to the growth and betterment of the family.”

Venu Menon writes that the Supreme Court verdict brought about by Mary Roy’s court case brought the Syrian Christians under the more liberal Indian Succession Act, 1921. “The judicial order sent shock waves through the community, especially the patriarchal authority that influenced the lives of Christians. The verdict not only gave the female progeny equal rights in the father's property, it did so with retrospective effect. The retrospective clause promised to unleash chaos in the community. Every Christian household faced the prospect of an insurrection from within. All past land transactions became open to question. All titles to property derived from intestate succession now stood invalidated. There could be no precise estimate of the number of women who suffered injustice under the earlier law. The Supreme Court judgement provided an instant remedy.”

The church and the state tried to stall and circumvent the court order and has been successful to a great extend with changes in will and daughters agreeing to sign legal documents mentioning they have received their share. The court order should be read from the perspective of daughters being sent off from their house in the hope that they will never return. It is a once for all settlement. Perhaps this was what happened with Mary John Akhouri. Her being sent off or her going on her own was the part of the societal and church sponsored programme of making sure that the daughter of the house was settled and sent away. Mary John Akhouri’s wish to be buried in her mother parish can and must be seen as her return for her rights which were denied to her earlier. Even if she personally got something from her family her return is the return of a Syrian Christian woman for an equal share of the property of her family which includes a space in church and the cemetery as well. Here I am again sympathetic to the priest in charge as his denial must be seen as the denial of the church to accept someone like Mary Roy and her fight for her rights and the effort to circumvent any court order given otherwise.

The court order giving equal rights over ancestral property to women in the family was always fought by the church and the political class as well because they thought that the ruling patriarchal class would be offended if they did not circumvent the court verdict. It was also a case of holding on to power by the influential class of people in society. The church still has a chance to redeem itself by first of all accepting what Mary Roy, a Syrian Christian herself has done for the emancipation and equal rights of women. She should be honored for this fight and struggle that she has undertaken. Her fight and case should not be seen as anti-church but as a struggle for the church and its constituency of women. What the church has not done for various reasons was taken up and done by a church member and this should be appreciated by the church. The church finds itself at the cross roads looking at itself on what it means by equality, justice and peace. Is it only a slogan or is it something which suggests that all who are in the church are its members and deserve equal treatment from the church? In the Mary John Akhouri analysis it will help church members and others to understand that her burial is not just a burial of a church member who was away and therefore had given up her membership status but that she was a woman of the church who was collectively wronged by a patriarchal society and church together. Her wish to be buried in Kumarakom is her coming back and her journey for the justice which was denied to her because of a discriminatory law of 1916 which still seems to be hanging like a mill stone around the neck of church administrators.

The church and all of us together must understand that we have been hand in glove with all of this. We have not considered the work of women like Mary Roy and Mary John Akhouri because they were women and they tried to change the status quo of gender roles prevalent in the church. One did it through a life long legal battle to get a right to her ancestral property and the other did it through an end of life wish to gain access and right to her ancestral tomb and thus property.
In Numbers 27 the daughters of Zelophehad Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders and the whole assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting and said, “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among Korah’s followers, who banded together against the LORD, but he died for his own sin and left no sons. Why should our father’s name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father’s relatives.” So Moses brought their case before the LORD, and the LORD said to him, “What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father’s relatives and give their father’s inheritance to them. The five daughters of Zelophehad are the women who makes God change God’s rules. They go to Moses and the others and when Moses asks God, God tells Moses to give them the inheritance to their father’s property and name even though that was not the norm.

The year 2016 is a good year to remind ourselves about our commitment to women and that we owe them their inheritance which they will come to claim at a time they choose. Mary John Akhouri chose now and chose her way to do that. Mary Roy has already brought about a change through her struggles. Now it is time for us to go to God like Moses did and ask God what indeed we must do.




Pictures courtesy dnaindia.com and alcherton.com

The religiosity of an Indian Syrian Christian when faced with atrocity

The news of the massacre of Christians in Iraq still hits me hard. Several of my sisters and brothers being murdered in cold blood is not a pleasant sight or thought. My feelings go in the range of the Old Testament eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth only to subside with the different range of readings on love your neighbour also shining bright from within my holy scripture. I cannot settle down to one clear reaction though and my senses sweep the universe for an answer to this injustice on my people, even though I do not know them personally and my relationship with them is rooted to my historical and hierarchical connection with Antioch and the Syrians.

I felt a deep attachment to the protest organised by the Syrians in the U.N. in New York which members of the Malayali Syrian community also participated in. The world wide protest is not limited to the injustice in Iraq but also against a growing intolerance of fundamentalist Muslim groups all over the world. The hate speeches (sermons) delivered to young Muslims incite a growing flame of a jihad or war that has to be won at any cost. The Christian world and especially the Syrian Christian world are also reacting to this.

In India the Muslims comprise a larger group than the Christians but are not the majority group nevertheless. In Middle Eastern countries this is not the case, with a Christian minority existing among an overwhelming majority of Muslims belonging to different sects of Islam. This over riding presence in conflict zones even goes to the extent of ethnic and religious cleansing. The feeling there is therefore of survival and a day to day existence rather than arguing on a basis of equal terms.

Indian Syrian Christians including my church the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox church in India is at a position of advantage and has not suffered the enduring hardship of Syrian Christians in the Middle East starting from Turkey and extending to other places and ending in a systematic and concerted effort at wiping out an entire community. This story has been largely untold and the Syrian community in India has also not understood this historical context of our Syrian sisters and brothers in the Middle East. We have sought to be attached to the Syrian heritage but we have not had to endure the hardship that they have endured. Our hardships have been due to schisms which have divided us into various denominations, all laying claim to the same history and heritage.

The situation in India for the Syrian Christians has been different. Minority politics and political parties favouring Christians as a whole have meant that we have by and large not been put to such tests by the majority of this land. It is therefore a different experience for us. The Indian Muslim has struggled on two fronts. On the one hand they have had to prove their love to their country India and on the other hand they have had to prove their love and allegiance to their religion Islam. They have been called traitors from within and outside India. Their existence in India is therefore a difficult one and also one where they try to understand themselves. They have also suffered ethnic and religious cleansing battles by Hindu fundamentalist groups.

As an Indian Syrian Christian, what does one say to the atrocities against Christians in Iraq? A sizable population of Muslims in India will condemn the killings as much as we do. But the protests in the U.S. and Europe will have a totally different colour to it because of the support it will get from various groups. What has the Syrian Christian community in India done when children have been robbed of their childhood and education, women have been battered at home, dalits have been burnt alive, adivasis and tribals have been buried alive and branded as anti-state, and people with disabilities have been shunned into a corner? There have been occasional voices of protest but as a community we have not voiced our protest as we are still unaware of what happens in our own country.

Can this be a problem of illiteracy? It is unfortunately not possible to hide behind that argument as the community has a good literacy rate. The problem could then be a selective literacy which has been followed for decades by different Syrian churches in India. This selective literacy has also blinded our eyes to the sufferings of our Syrian sisters and brothers in Iraq and elsewhere. We therefore have to learn about our sisters and brothers everywhere, India included. It would be harsh and immature to jump at Muslims in India for what a certain sect of Muslims is doing in Iraq. But we also have to protest what a certain sect in Iraq is doing to Syrians there, as the right to live, the right to worship and the right to belong is intrinsic to one’s existence as a human being. We also have to join protests which are off line and online in different parts of the world to affirm the humanity of all. This is what we have been offered at the garden of Eden. And no one has the right to take it away.

From Thiruvalla to Bangalore: A trial of a horrific murder

One cannot fathom the dissection of a murder after it is committed. Everyone is an expert and they offer expert opinions on everything under the sun. The Bangalore murder of a 24 year old woman from Thiruvalla came as a shock to all. The reasons were several. One, how a strain occurred between a couple who were married for barely a week? How could a murder be committed within minutes of the couple arriving in Bangalore and being left by the boy’s parents just to get breakfast? Weren’t there tell tale signs that something was wrong? Didn’t the parents or other family members see any signs of an impending tragedy? How was this wedding arranged? Weren’t the facts implored and the couple given enough time to get to know each other?

There are two versions flashing around in the public post mortem. One is that the girl was too “forward” (meaning smart and confident on a positive note and ruffling a few traditional feathers on a negative note) for the boy and therefore this was a murder waiting to happen! One should think about this statement in slow motion to let the damage of this to sink in. Interestingly, the ammachi’s (grandma’s) and aunty’s (middle aged mom’s) are the ones who are spreading this version of the story. It is very sad that when the girl’s family will be looking for some solace all it is going to get are these behind the back comments from friends and near strangers, all claiming to know everything there is to be known. The other version is of the boy and that he had psychological issues even before the wedding. This is the opinion of few of the people in Bhopal who knew the boy’s family. What was an open secret for people who knew him remained a mystery to everyone else. Does this mean that Syrian Christians hide behind their history and tradition while in reality they face a host of important issues which they are not willing to discuss?

For me what is shocking is not the murder as such but the utter disregard for the two families and those involved. Kerala’s Christian population in its effort to move as far as possible from the tragedy is blaming everyone apart from itself. Priests, bishops, culture changes and even globalisation are blamed. Very convenient, considering that it sends everything back to its normal path and eases people into their comfortable existence. But this habit of time and again asking the wrong questions should be done away with and more relevant answers should be sought for relevant questions. Obviously the church has to discuss the question of what should be followed before a couple gets married. This includes offering pre marital counselling, taking a proactive interest in the wedding, giving an opportunity for the couple to speak and understand each other and for a couple to decide whether they like each other before they get married. But this is possible only with the help of the people in the church. Take for instance how a synod directive on how marriages should be conducted will be treated by the people. Some will be seen as unpractical, some against culture and some against family traditions and practices. Church members will then reject such directives.

The church population in Kerala has been quick to pinpoint the cause of the murder even before the investigation and the court trial. The media has reported based on hear say rather than investigative journalism. The usual reasons found were ‘the girl had a better salary’, ‘she was not happy with the wedding’, ‘she taunted her husband’, and ‘she refused physical intimacy’. All this suggests that the girl had murder written all over her face. What a travesty of facts. Fortunately rare voices begged to differ saying that the deceased girl was a confident young woman. Does this mean that by blaming the girl we can keep our Syrian-ness intact? We are definitely going to be found wanting on this front.

This being the case, what is the step forward? Are we willing to accept that the Christian population in Kerala is following one official faith but living another practical life? Are we willing to discuss the fact that both women and men should be given the space to take their own decisions and live their lives with respect and dignity? Do we have the courage to bring to the table the fact that the Syrian community has serious issues and we should be open about it rather than being closed and reserved? Does the church have an option of providing help for those who are going to get married, need help after marriage and want help in talking to and understanding each other at any point in their married life? Let us talk about these things and leave the bereaved families alone for the time being.