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Indian Ecumenical News (IEN)			      No. 1/2003

Indian Ecumenical News 
(IEN)
National Council of Churches in India
Christian Council Campus,
Post Bag # 205, Civil Lines
Nagpur  440 001, (M.S.) India

Editors email: nccindia@nagpur.dot.net.in

Press Release

NCCI CONDEMNS MATHUNGA ADIVASI FIRING, DEMANDS JUDICIAL PROBE

The National Council of Churches in India condemns the killing of innocent 
Adivasis in police firing on hundreds of protestors. The official death 
toll is put at two by the Government but many Adivasis are still missing 
and not accounted for. Along with the ecumenical community in Kerala 
spearheaded by the Kerala Council of Churches and the Student Christian 
Movement of India, the NCCI demands a judicial probe. We also understand 
through our contacts in Kerala that NGOs and individuals working with the 
Adivasis are also harrassed . We demand an end to all forms of violence 
against Adivasis and against people who are working with the victims. The 
land rights of the Adivasis is a fundamental right.  The A.K. Anthony 
Government should immediately take steps to restore justice and explain 
their stand on the Adivasi land issue. The National Council of Churches in 
India expresses its solidarity with the Adivasis of Muthunga and all the 
Adivasis struggling for land and resources.

The  Kerala Council of Churches will be sending a fact finding team to meet 
and discuss the issues with Adivasi leaders, NGOs and the Government. The 
NCCI will explain its plan of action after the fact finding team's report. 
We request the Member Churches in Kerala and in other parts of the country 
to pray for the victims, express their solidarity through press releases 
and send telegrams to the Chief Minister of Kerala to this effect and play 
a prophetic role. Member Churches and ecumenical organizations can also 
write to the Kerala Council of Churches expressing  your solidarity.

H.G. Geevarghese Mar Coorilos
Rev. Dr. Ipe Joseph
Rev. Chandran Paul Martin
President, NCCI
General Secretary, NCCI
Press Secretary, NCCI

March 20, 2003

Press Release

INTERFAITH AND SECULAR LEADERS AGAINST WAR IN IRAQ

We the leaders of different faiths, heads of institutions, leaders of civil 
rights and human rights movements and citizens of Nagpur, remain extremely 
concerned about the continued calls for military action against Iraq by US 
and European governments. As people of different faiths and ideologies, our 
love of neighbours compels us to oppose war. We are extremely concerned and 
pray for peace, freedom, justice and safety for all the people of Iraq and 
Middle East as a whole.

We deplore the fact that the most powerful nations continue to regard war 
as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy, even in spite of the lessons 
learnt in the past. War simply creates an international culture of fear, 
threat and insecurity. The ideology of preemptive military strike and 
regime, change of a sovereign state, are not only immoral but also in 
violation of the UN Charter. All the designed mechanisms of the UN weapons 
inspections must be given the time needed to complete their work.

We also call on the government of Iraq to destroy weapons of mass 
destruction, cooperate fully with the Weapons Inspectors and guarantee full 
respect of civil, political, economic, social and cultural human rights for 
its citizens. In the possibility of a war, hundreds and thousand of Iraqis 
will suffer for a second time even after twelve years of sanctions.  All 
religions are against war and American aggression should not be contrived 
as a Christian war against a Muslim world. This affirmation should be 
categorically rejected.

Leaders of different faith, ideologies, citizens of Nagpur, heads of 
Institutions, members of civil rights and human rights movements, are 
joining in an ALL NIGHT PEACE VIGIL  at the Church of North India  
Industrial Service Institute - ISI (Opp. Smruti Theatre, Sadar, Nagpur 440 
001). All participants will keep the vigil to express their solidarity, not 
only with the people of Iraq but also the people of America and Europe, and 
all who oppose war. Kindly visit the Vigil venue on the 16th March, 2003 
any time between 6:00 p.m. and midnight. Let us join the  Global Vigil 
which will be observed throughout the world on the same date.

Rev. Dr. Ipe 
Joseph								       Mr. 
Vilas Shinde
General 
Secretary, 
Director, CNI-SSI
National Council of Churches in India

Rev. Chandran Paul 
Martin							   Dr. D. John 
Chelladurai
Executive Secretary, 
Communication						Director, India 
Peace Centre

Mr. Arvind 
Gosh 
Mr. J. Narayana Rao, Sec.
Anti-War Peoples 
Forum								 All India 
Peace & Solidarity

									     
		   Organisation

March 15, 2003

National Consultation on Media & Violence

6-10 February 2003, Chandigarh

DISCERNMENTS

We the participants of the National Consultation on Media & Violence held 
at Chandigarh from 6-10 February organized by the National Council of 
Churches in India (NCCI), Department of Communication discern the following:

We have dealt with political and theoretical framework of media and 
violence.  In the process, we had to deal with the basic and conceptual 
issues that formulate the general descriptions about media and violence.

I.	    Ethical questions

There is a powerful mediation process encoding and decoding the norms.

Therefore, the dignity of the human person does not occupy the central 
position.

Media in their multifaceted presentations of themselves, and about 
interpretations regarding the societal organization have assumed important 
status.

There is an emergence of a new Life Style, in the society.  Media are 
important contributors to the new life style.

The participants in media, the readers and watchers, participate as
consumers.

The citizen now has many allegiances.

Discernment is not possible in the given model.

II.	    The Political Concerns

The political space is the ground for bloodshed, arson, riot, plunder and 
death.

Militarised ideologies are percolating to garner legitimization.  The right 
wing proposition of political philosophy addresses affiliation to religious 
and cultural practices in the country.

The international political imbalance has built the crisis leading into a 
situation of war.  Eventually the unipolar power has constructed, 
terrorism, which has been invested capital and with military arms.

Terrorism has been imported here in India and has been dealt with, at the 
level of State and at the level of civil society.  Terrorist has become a 
legal entity.

The cultural groups and religious affinities are awarded new 
identities.  These identities operate across social formations, thus giving 
rise to conflicts.  The social conflicts are violent, claiming political 
mileage.

The historical imagination of nation is handed over to the present 
political coalitions.  In times of conflict, nationalism is invoked to 
manage violence and to give new directions.These are variations in 
imaginations about nationalism from cultural nationalism on the one 
extreme, to sovereignty of nation-state on the other.

Media serve the interests of the rich and powerful groups, in the 
stratified society.

Finally, the tenets of democracy are in question.  The increase in 
incidence of violence allows an evasion of principles regarding 
democracy.  The democratization initiatives are slowed down.

The possible connector between media and violence in the political space, 
would be right to information, because, access to information is 
considered as knowledge, where as the empowerment emphasizes on assertion 
of rights.

III.	    A critique of the Development Model

Media mirrors the society, in its accentuation of inequality.  Inequality 
is just not the widening gap, but a series of actions, implementations and 
furthering of interests.

Inequality is the basis for all violence.  Inequalities are always misread 
as discontent, but inequality builds exclusion.

The uneven international exploitational development model has a compatible 
counterpart.  It is the Commercialized Global Medium.  Media creates and 
nourish, pleasures and desires.  Media offer hope, imaginations and new 
relations.

The development model at work is primarily engaged with speed.	The speed 
of the developed societies is the bottom-line for development.	The 
non-developed societies are slow in movement and in thought.	Speed in 
itself is violence on these dispossessed communities.

Technology is amazing; at the same time it is bewildering.  Technology 
cannot be autonomous, therefore technology proposes infrastructure  
highways, dams, power grids, internet  an infrastructure for 
development.   Technology is presented by default as media.

IV.	   Engagement of Media in Social Construction

There is a basic conceptual consideration that needs to be resolved.  That 
is regarding, whether media is a social institution, or not.  Media 
representatives argue that media still continues to be an organ of the 
modern society.Moreover, media have become a family member representing 
national politics and global economy.

Secularism is the most used term in the current political parlance.  But 
there are more than a dozen political connotations, ranging from separation 
of politics and religion, to separation of state and theocracy.  Secularism 
is confidently used by all shades of political spectrum.

Pokhran, Kargil, Ayodhya, Godhra are some of the readily identifiable 
visuals in the Indian media, just like the advertisements for shampoo or an 
automobile.General Mushaaraf and the Pakistani Cricket Team are added to 
the list, to which the India consciousness reciprocates.

Media familiarizes.  Many of the regions in India, where the state has 
become very oppressive and violent on its people, are shown as normal and 
regular happenings.  By repeatedly showing such images, which are 
politically showing that the people are wrong, and terrorism is high at 
work, media familiarizes people.

Media does not reflect realities.  But media constructs images.  Images are 
perceived to be realities.  By transacting with images, people are 
desensitized.

A good case in point would be, the depiction of women and issues relating 
to women.  But the demarcation of tradition is not well set.  Media 
operates in a similar fashion while handling every political description of 
identity.

It is believed that media cannot be free and fair to all sections of 
people.  State has come out with a series of legislations regarding media 
and communities.  However, the media regulation seems a distant dream.

It has been accepted that the following would be initiated:

,A media club comprising people with similar perspective

,An online forum following the declaration of the consultation, and leading 
to further discussion

,A study to monitor media, with a different perspective

- Participants

Ecumenical Church Leaders Conference on HIV/AIDS
Organized by India Watch Desk, NCCI
5-7 February 2003, Mumbai

STATEMENT
of the Ecumenical Church Leaders Conference on HIV/AIDS (E C LC)

Preamble:

The statistics shows that India would move from its present 4 million cases 
status to 25 million by 2010 with regard to the number of people living 
with HIV/AIDS.	The Government of India and the NGOs have taken some steps 
towards combating this pandemic.  However these steps are totally 
insufficient when compared to the size of the nation and the increasing 
number of HIV/AIDS victims.

Being challenged by this situation, we the 96 delegates of various Indian 
and other Asian churches, have come together in the oneness of Jesus Christ 
our Lord and Saviour, for an Ecumenical Church Leaders Conference on 
HIV/AIDS organised by the NCCI at Mumbai, from 5-7 February, 2003.

Affirmation:

At the very outset we affirm that human sexuality is a gift from God.

We acknowledge that although some Churches have initiated responses to 
HIV/AIDS for over a decade some have not yet given this issue its due 
importance and priority.

We endorse the vision, affirmation and commitment expressed in the previous 
statements made on HIV/AIDS issues by the following:

i.A series of statements made by the Salvation Army in April95, June98 
and June2001.

ii.A communiqui of the AIDS Conference organized by Christian Conference of 
Asia (CCA) and World Council of Churches (WCC) at Chiang Rai, Thailand in 
November 2002.

iii.The Commitment of Churches in response to HIV/AIDS crisis in India 
made at New Delhi in June 2002

and other similar documents.

Recommendations:

We expect NCCI to take the initiative and leadership in charting the united 
course of the Churches in India in the field of HIV/AIDS.  To this end we 
have collectively decided to request the NCCI Working Committee to take the 
following steps in a time bound manner as a unified response of the 
churches in India to the HIV/AIDS epidemic:

1.To form a Working group/commission (eg. HIV-AIDS Mission) which is an 
ecumenical body comprising of representatives of all churches.	This will 
include the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) and the 
Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI).	This body will:

i.Meet regularly for planning initiatives, sharing experiences and mutual 
learning in the field of HIV/AIDS.

ii.Encourage and assist all churches (including church bodies, parishes, 
and individual	churches to develop locally relevant projects to affirm the 
dignity of HIV affected, to care for them and also take up preventive
activity.

iii.Gather and share information from and to all such activities mentioned 
above in a spirit of networking and coordination.

2.	 To form a theological commission to do an indepth study on human 
sexuality and the suffering in the world in the context of the HIV Pandemic.

3.	 To form an Advisory Body which will keep the churches informed and 
updated on the latest technical, scientific and medical matters related to 
and arising out of HIV/AIDS.

4.	 To form working groups for developing material and model teaching 
programmes for spiritual organizations in each parish eg. Sunday Schools, 
Youth Groups, Womens Groups, as well as for pastors and even theological 
colleges.

- Participants

Convener:

Fr. Philip Kuruvilla,
Executive Secretary  India Watch Desk

__________________________
News letter : N C C India