GUWAHATI, India : The Church has great opportunities in northeastern India unlike other parts of the country, but it needs more committed workers, a Catholic priest says.
Father John Graviour, secretary of the North East Regional Biblical Commission, credits pioneer missioners, mostly from Europe, with creating the favorable conditions for the Church in the region.
"We can go and preach in any village in northeastern India and nobody would object as happens in other part of India," said the diocesan priest who has worked in the region for nearly a quarter century. Elsewhere Christians have to search for new ways and means to exercise this ministry, he told UCA News recently.
Northeastern India comprises seven landlocked states and shares borders with Bangladesh and Nepal to the west, Myanmar to the east and Bhutan and China to the north.
The region is home to 357 ethnic groups that speak at least 250 dialects. It is linked to the rest of India through the "chicken's neck," a narrow corridor at Siliguri in West Bengal state.
The region also suffers geographical isolation and political neglect from being so isolated from the rest of India. It is about 50 years behind the rest of country in development and developmental opportunities, the priest said.
In a recent ranking of Indian states, Assam, the region's biggest state, was placed second to last. The other states in the region fared little better.
Church workers have to help people meet various challenges in the region, Father Graviour said, listing poverty, unemployment, migration, drug abuse, drug trafficking, HIV/AIDS and ecological imbalances as some major problems in the region.
Secessionism and internecine wars among tribal groups also add to the region's woes.
Catholicism was introduced to the region in the second half of the 19th century. Now, more than a million Catholics live in the district, spread across 15 dioceses.
Father Graviour, who in March was the keynote speaker at a seminar on evangelization in the northeastern dioceses, says the "yeoman services" of the earlier European missioners helped the Church's phenomenal growth in the region. They walked long distances to reach remote villages in jungles to set up Christian communities. "Our pioneers ensured maximum output with scanty resources," he said.
The early missioners had also formed lay leaders, learned local languages and produced literature in them. "There was a missioner who could speak 14 dialects," Father Graviour said.
All those efforts have created "an open and friendly ambience" in the region to receive the Gospel, Father Graviour said. "People are ready to listen to the Word."
The Church has sufficient missioners and resources to provide various types of service. Church workers can associate with the upper class on equal terms even as they work among the poor.
"People who have experienced our services in schools and hospitals willingly support our developmental ventures," Father Graviour said.
What is required now is to replicate the dedication and sacrifice of the earlier missioners, says the priest who is also the secretary of the regional bishops' catechetical commission.
Most Church workers in the region now are Indians, but they ought to have more commitment and willingness to undergo sacrifices as did the pioneers, the priest says. Few missioners now show eagerness to learn the local languages, "which is essential for effective communication," says the priest who comes from Tamil Nadu, in southern India.
Father Graviour says the Gospel could provide an answer to the region's age-old tribal conflicts in which pent up anger is waiting to explode with the least provocation. "We still have to do much to make the Word become a means for ecumenical relations," he added.
What is needed urgently, according to the priest, is to encourage Church workers to learn as many languages in the region as possible so that local people understand Christ's message of peace and harmony.
The Church workers should also address the eco-crisis that poses a great threat to the region, he added. The region's forest cover is fast disappearing because of deforestation.