Abstract
With psychoanalytic vision, traumatic patterns in individual or collective life, carved out by wounds of the past, become increasingly visible. One such pattern in the Indian socio-political narrative is woven out of the silenced voices of its minority community. This paper picks up on experiences of being a Christian in a predominantly Hindu State, in which Christians, as perceived descendants of the coloniser responsible for the nation’s traumatic history, are unthinkingly relegated to the role of the ‘outsider’. Although India is taking leaps in its economic development, the diminishing tolerance for ethnic diversity is emerging as a blot of shame on Indian society. In recent times, attacks on Christians have become rampant, worsened by the callousness of law enforcement agencies. These attacks, typically carried out by masked assailants, serve to magnify the paranoia this community experiences. The eminent Indian social psychologist Ashis Nandy (1988) notes that, behind such movements to homogenise a society, is the political use of ‘religion-as-ideology’ (p. 178). Nandy’s countervailing concept of ‘religion-as-faith’ (p. 178) preserves space for plurality and makes everyday existence increasingly meaningful. However, religion-as-faith is dying a slow death. Fluidity in definitions of Indian selfhood is giving way to rigidification. The Christian response to these attacks typically remains ‘We are blessed, for we are tortured in His name’. In leaning on psychoanalytic thinking, this paper is a reflection on the intermediary space where the majority’s intolerance of and the minority’s submission to a ‘higher plan’ meet to co-create a narrative of terror.