Perspectief 2018-41

2018 - 41 The Rishi People and the Catholic Church 65 Reag eer ask me to remember Pakistan...I too have the right to save my soul," 19 such had been his disillusionment and bitterness after 2-3 years in which he had been parish priest in Sat- khira. Continuous quarrels, irregularities in marriages, power struggles between the matobbors (i.e. village elders) and the fathers, endemic poverty of the people and their begging attitude were what wore down little by little even the more determined among Xaverians. On top of this the all too easy policy of shifting fathers from one place to an- other within short spans of time did not contribute to stabilise the Rishi Christians who more than anything else were looking for security and protection. Things started to change after the celebration of the Second Vatican Council in the mid sixties. The theological con- ception of mission was being changed and conversion, although remaining a possible outcome, was no longer considered as the sole outcome of any missionary endeavour. Individual Xaverians started taking into serious consideration the socio-economic plight of their people, being convinced that before talking about religion the search for daily rice was to be addressed first. Suffice here to mention perhaps the biggest attempt at socio- economic development ever attempted by Xaverians. In 1967 Fr. Mario Veronesi, the then parish priest, was joined in Shimulia by Fr. Valeriano Cobbe. Together they revolutionised the Christian community in Shimulia by starting cooperatives, credit unions and a very ambitious irrigation project aimed at freeing the small farmers of the area, Christian, Hindu and Muslims alike, from the greed and the dominance of big landowners. Unfortunately, both these fathers encountered a tragic end few years later. In 1971 Fr. Veronesi was killed by Pakistani soldiers while trying to protect his Christians in Jessore. Two years later, Fr. Cobbe was shot at by unknown assailants, likely enough, paid for by those same people who could not stand the economic independence gained by the poor of Shimulia. The two decades following the war of independence saw a great deal of discussion among Xaveri- ans, that this time on a communitarian bases started to think about the Rishi and about new ways of being present among them. The Xaverians, as a community, positively chose the Rishi as a privileged target of their mission in Bangladesh. As a result of this new think- ing new ways of presence were devised. Fr. Paggi Luigi and Pierluigi Lupi started their presence in Chuknagar towards the end of the 70s with the explicit project to bring salva- tion to the Rishi through education. Conversion was not contemplated at this point. But it was not just a question of starting new activities, it was the task of renewing old ones as