Image retrieved from: https://religionnews.com/2018/01/10/north-korea-is-worst-place-for-christian-persecution-group-says/
Advocacy Plan
Counselors can advocate for Christian Indian clients well-being, through both assisting the clients to develop their own self and community advocacy and engaging in community and political activism themselves. When working with Christian Indian clients, counselors can educate their clients on the topics of power, bias, and oppression so that the clients can assess whether they or their community experience oppression and need to advocate for themselves. Particularly for those Christians who are in India, or have Christian family members still in India, counselors can encourage engagement in interfaith dialogue with the dominant Indian Hindu culture and other non-Christian groups (to create understanding between the groups) and to engage in political activism that seeks to secure protection of vulnerable minorities like Christians in Northern India. Counselors can also assist clients (including those in the U.S.) to be able to advocate for themselves by discussing issues of bias and oppression with others when they are encountered. On their own part, counselors can work to increase community and public awareness of bias, persecution, discrimination, and oppression that are placed upon Indian Christians. They may also engage in or support political activism, especially related to foreign policy and international diplomacy, which advocates for actions that encourage the removal of systemic oppression in India and the protection of minorities in India and elsewhere.
Servant Leadership
Professional Counselors –in addition to being leaders in the community–are called to be servants of those clients with whom they work. They are to dedicate their lives and careers to the well-being of those whom they serve. In order to properly do so, counselors must listen with docility and humility to their clients and learn what problems they face and in what ways they desire assistance. Particularly with clients of a different cultural reality than the counselor, it is essential that the counselor understand their reality before creating a counseling and advocacy plan. In the case of Christians from India, it is critical to understand their individual experience (if any) of oppression as Christians in a Hindu majority nation. While violence and oppression can be severe against Christians in Northern India (Bauman & Ponniah, 2017; Gowen, 2014), Indian Christians from some southern states of India, especially Kerala, report very little discrimination or oppression; such is the case of the Syro-Malabar Catholic community in Columbus, whose members came from the Malayali state of Kerala. They also report little discrimination since coming to the U.S. as other Indian immigrants have experienced.
To assist this ethnic and religious community moving forward, it is important as servant leaders that counselors encourage Christian Indian Americans to utilize their Christian faith, church community and resources, and family structures as support in their personal struggles, including acclimation to American culture. Counselors can work to decrease the stigma of mental health in Indian communities through education. They can also make these communities aware of mental health counseling resources that are available to them, should they need resources outside their normal family and community-based resources; this most especially should include family-based counseling, for those who are not comfortable with individual counseling more typical to Western cultures. And in cases where community members have experienced real oppression and discrimination, it is important to assess how much these experiences impact the clients’ presenting problems and empower them to address their oppression and advocate for themselves
Photo retrieved from: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/10/11/pope-francis-creates-new-syro-malabar-dioceses-in-india/
Strengths-Based Needs
Indian Christians face many challenges as a religious minority in their homeland, which include systemic discrimination, oppression, and violence (Bauman & Ponniah, 2017; Gowen, 2014). As such, this religious population in India needs protection of their religious freedom through their government as well as the Indian society at large and their Hindu neighbors and fellow citizens. They also needs support from professional helpers who can empathize and understand their oppression and struggles and effectively incorporate Christian faith and Indian collectivist values into a family-based therapeutic approach that will be more readily accepted than standard psycho-analytic techniques (Chadda & Deb, 2013; Das & Kemp, 1997). Despite the great persecution that they face, many Indian Christians maintain hope and strength through their faith and church communities. They have responded to religious oppression by engaging in interreligious dialogue –particularly with the Hindu majority –as well in political activism to fight for their rights (Bauman & Ponniah, 2017). In the image above of an Indian wedding in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, I see the strength and resilience of this population grounded in their Christian faith. I feel strongly for their situation of oppression, I have become aware of their struggles and strengths as a population, and I believe that they need protection and advocacy. Professional helpers will do well to encourage Indian Christians to be engaged in their faith and to seek religious community resources (e.g. pastoral counseling), as well to be engaged as in political and interreligious dialogue and advocacy. Those Christians who have emigrated from India to the United States must adjust to American culture and experience cultural/racial discrimination and social isolation (Das & Kemp, 1997); and they are not likely to seek out mental health counseling (Narikkattu, 2017). Christian Indian-Americans need encouraged in their faith and cultural identity –which is central to their strength –emboldened to engage in dialogue about their cultural discrimination, and assisted by professional helpers who encourage the use of faith-community resources and can apply family-focused therapy techniques.
Systemic Challenges
Indian Christians face systemic challenges both in their native country as well as their new countries if they have emigrated from India. Christians in India have been and continue to be attacked and persecuted by Hindu nationalists (pictured bottom right) who view religious minorities as threats to India, its national strength, and its national identity, which they vehemently assert is necessarily Hindu (Bauman & Ponniah, 2017; Gowen, 2014). Discrimination and violence against Christians in India has included legal discrimination and underrepresentation, attempted forceful “reconversions,” vandalism and destruction of Christian homes and churches (shown top left), physical beatings and occasional killings (Bauman & Ponniah, 2017; Gowen, 2014). This persecution causes Christians in India great turmoil (image top right) and has led this population to fend for its protection and rights (image bottom left) as Indian citizens (Bauman & Ponniah, 2017). For those Indian Christians who have emigrated from India to the United States to escape violence and economic hardship, a systemic challenge they experience while assimilating to American culture is bias against persons of Indian heritage and culture (pictured middle right), as well as difficulty maintaining their Indian culture (Das & Kemp, 1997). Looking at these images, I feel a great empathy for the suffering that Indian Christians have experienced both in India and in America. I believe that great injustice has been done to this population, that they need help to cope with their experiences, and they need assistance to advocate for their safety and acceptance as equal persons of dignity deserving respect and religious freedom. Through viewing these images of their systemic challenges, I have gained more awareness of their struggles, more empathy towards their plight and experience, and more motivation to advocate for their well-being.
References:
Photos obtained from, starting top left and going clockwise:
https://feminisminindia.com/2017/09/12/angry-hindu-nationalist/
http://ugchristiannews.com/christians-in-india-suffered-23-attacks-over-christmas-period-report/
Annotated Bibliography
Bauman, C. M., & Ponniah, J. (2017). Christian responses to discrimination and violence in India and Sri Lanka: Avoidance, advocacy, and interfaith engagement. Review of Faith & International Affairs, 15(1), 68–78. doi:10.1080/15570274.2017.1284395.
The premise of this article was to discuss the discrimination and violence that Christians experience in India from an ideology that India’s nature and strength as a nation necessarily includes “Hindu-ness.” The article reviews several articles, some quite recent, which discuss the experience of Christians within the Indian social caste system and culture at large. The authors discuss the legal discrimination Indian Christians face through denial of inheritance and child custody rights, denied access to representation in educational and governmental bodies, and subjection to anti-conversion laws that can be used to broadly harass Christians. They also discuss the physical violence, vandalism of homes and churches, forcible displacement, and even killings that Christians have endured. The article then describes the Christian response to these oppressions through migration (to other parts of India or to other countries), increased engagement in interfaith dialogue, modification of evangelistic efforts to less overtly “proselytizing” methods, and engagement in political activism. This article gives me an overview of the hardships Indian Christians have endured, and gives examples of how Christians have responded to the discrimination, all valuable insights for working with the Christian Indian immigrant population in Columbus. The article seems quite thorough and cohesive, although an introductory piece on the topic.
Chadda, R. K., & Deb, K. S. (2013). Indian family systems, collectivistic society and psychotherapy. Indian Journal of Psychiatry,55,299-309. doi:10.4103/0019-5545.105555.
The purpose of the article was to evaluate and propose family-focused therapy as a tool for mental disorders in the context of Indian cultural and familial collectivism by examining existing literature on the topic. The authors admit that published material on the topic is somewhat sparse; of those articles published, many supported family-focused therapy from practitioners’ experiences of its success, while some definitive evidence-based studies also demonstrated support for the technique. The article sources cited by the authors span several decades, with many current from the last decade. The authors discuss that the self is defined in relation to others in India, where a focus is placed on family cohesion, dependency, conformity, and cooperation, rather than individualistic values such as independence, self-reliance, and personal achievement. They propose that therapists ought to understand the complex family dynamics within Indian culture and comprehend the limits of western-developed psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic techniques and tools that assume an individualistic culture. The authors then discuss that studies have shown that family therapy has improved individuals in India with a wide variety of psychiatric disorders, by working with the pre-existing family values and dynamics. In conclusion, the authors conclude that family-focused therapy may be the right tool to address the deficit of effective mental health treatment and resources for Indian populations. These findings are pertinent to my considerations of the counseling needs of the Catholic Indian population in Columbus. The article would be enhanced and supplemented with further future studies and scholarly articles on the effectiveness of this treatment.
Das, A. K., & Kemp, S. F. (1997). Between two worlds: Counseling South Asian Americans. Journal of Multicultural Counseling & Development, 25(1), 23–33. Retrieved from http://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9703076282&site=ehost-live
This article discusses the mental health issues of South Asian immigrants to the United States. While the article and its sources are somewhat dated, the information provided therein on cultural considerations is likely much the same for new immigrants today. The article discusses the cultural influences of the country of origin the immigration experience, and the acculturation experience, and the counseling needs in all these components. The author discusses the South Asian collectivistic family orientation that is more important in that culture than individualistic needs. Next is discussed the dynamics of immigration experienced by these immigrants, namely separation from their land of origin, struggle to balance adapting to American culture while maintaining their native culture, and facing racial /cultural discrimination, and increased social isolation. This article provides insight into the experience of South Asian immigrants and the insights are assumedly applicable to my immersion population. Since this article is twenty years old, it would be worth investigating how individuals in these immigrant populations have continued to adapt to life in the United States over time and whether new immigrants are experiencing much of the same hurdles.
Gowen, A. (2014). Christian enclave in India fears violence, tension after religious ‘conversions’. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com
The purpose of this news article was to highlight the violence committed by Hindu nationalists in India against Christian minority populations. The author interviewed local Christians and pastors in Aigahr, India, as well as individuals from local and national Hindu nationalist organizations. In the article, the author discusses physical beatings, church vandalisms, and attempted “reconversions” of Christian Indians. Hindu nationalists rationalize their actions through accusing Christians of force converting Hindus, and asserting that India only belongs to Hindus. The article cites a statement that around one hundred fifty hate crimes are committed against Christians in India every year. This examination of some of the experiences of persecution towards Christians in India gives me an understanding of some of the oppression that may have been experienced by the Catholic Indian immigrants that live in Columbus. This article is only a news article, and needs to be followed with further scholarly examination and publication on this topic so little pursued, for a more robust, peer-reviewed examination.
Narikkattu, C. (2017). Religiosity, acculturation, and help-seeking behavior among Indian Christian Americans (Doctoral Thesis). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database. (Order No. 10622140).
The purpose of this dissertation was to discuss the effects of religiosity, cultural adaptation, age, and education level on the likelihood of Christian Indian Americans to seek professional mental help. The article incorporates many current sources that consider the cultural and religious influences that impact Indian, Asian, and Christian attitudes and behaviors towards counseling, admitting that there is little study or discussion on specifically Christian Indians. The study had a correlation design that included 93 participants who were reached through an Asian student center at a large Midwest university. The participants completed the Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale, the Religiousness Measure, and Attitudes towards Seeking Professional Counseling Help Scale, and a t-test was performed to determine a relationship between college education or lack thereof and help-seeking. The author found that there is a negative correlation between the Christian Indian American participants’ religiosity and help-seeking behavior, due to increased negative views of mental counseling, and likely because Christians are more inclined to seek assistance from religious personnel and resources. The study found a positive correlation between cultural adaptation to the United States and inclination to seek mental help, likely due to the relationship between counseling’s values and Western values in general. The study found no significant link in participant age and attitudes toward counseling. And the author found a positive correlation between college education and positive attitude toward counseling, perhaps because of increased tolerance and interest in self-improvement. This article is very pertinent for my immersion population, as it gives insight into some of the factors that may influence the attitude towards counseling of individuals in the Columbus Christian Indian American population. The article admits that it is limited in its self-reporting data collection, consideration of other confounding variables such as familial support, and lack of differentiation between different Christian denominations in the participants. More detailed, large peer-reviewed studies will be required to corroborate the findings of this study.