Instead of doing my civil service in Germany, I took the opportunity to work as a volunteer in the Bangalore Oniyavara Seva Coota, a project for street children of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Bangalore, Karnataka, India for one year.

The Bangalore Oniyavara Seva Coota (BOSCO) – in English, Bangalore Welfare Organisation for Street Children – gets in contact with around 4000 street children every year, most of whom are runaways from their homes in rural parts of India. It is the aim of the organisation to place them back home or, if the situation there is unbearable for the child or if there is no home at all, to give them the opportunity to learn a trade, to find a good job and slowly to find the way back into the mainstream of society.

For this purpose, BOSCO has three open shelters in various parts of the 7,5-millions-city. These open shelters are first rallying points for at least some of the estimated 90’000 street children in town. It is there that children – of which 90% are boys – can find a place where to take a bath, to wash their clothes, to sleep and to play games without the fear of being harassed by the police or others. It is there that they are counselled towards leaving the street and joining one of the two BOSCO residential centres: BOSCO Mane and BOSCO Yuvakendra. BOSCO Mane is a centre for boys between 6 and 14 years of age; BOSCO Yuvakendra takes care of 15 to 18 year-old boys. The number of boys in the residential centres is always fluctuating. New boys arrive daily (it is said that around 30 children come to Bangalore every day without anything else than the wish to find a job, which means that all of them are to become street children) and old boys are sent back home or run away from the centre again, in the hope to find a greater freedom on their own.

During my year in Bangalore, I worked in both residential centres, as well as in an open shelter. I stayed in BOSCO Yuvakendra itself, so that I learned about the Indian way of life and the problematic of street children, including the religious aspects of life which are very strong in India.

Many religions have their origin in India. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism are all religions which evolved in the subcontinent. Islam dominated the social context in many parts of the country for centuries and still India stands only behind Indonesia when it comes to count the absolute numbers of Muslims in a country. Indian Catholics draw the line of their existence back to St Thomas Apostle whose tomb is considered to be in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and, although that assumption is not proven historically, it is certain that both Christianity and Judaism came to India long before the Portuguese merchants of the 16th century. Finally, India is the country where most people of Zoroastrian belief live.

This great variety of religions and beliefs may lead to the erroneous perception of India as a multireligious society. As Hindus represent about 80% and Muslims 10-15% of the population, there is not much place left for other religious traditions in the public. Christianity may be more visible in South India due to intense parish work and also because of its strong presence in the domain of social care.

Among street children, the repartition of the religious affiliance is somewhat similar to the repartition in the society as a whole. Most street children in South India are Hindus, many Muslims, some Christians. In the whole year, I met one Sikh boy. As the society in general, most street children in India take religious matters very seriously. Never would a high-cast Hindu child touch non-vegetarian food. Never would a Catholic youth give away the picture of the Virgin Mary he holds like a treasure in the pocket of his torn pants. And a Sikh boy would certainly prefer to lose his shirt than his head scarf. It may sound difficult to unite all these children and youths in the same place, especially in a country like India which is far from being free of religious hassles and conflicts.

Religion influences many aspects of Indian politics and society. A whole unwritten code of Indian moral – how to dress, the relationship between men and women – is based on what are considered to be religious values by Hindus, as well as Muslims and Christians. The relationship between Hindus and Muslims is often tarnished because many Hindus see Muslims as de facto partisans of Pakistan, still perceived by many as a hereditary enemy. Terrorism in Kashmir does not help to resolve the problems.

More than any other case, one event in recent Indian History illustrates the explosive nature of religion. On December 6th, 1992, the Babri Masjid, a mosque standing at Ayodhya, the supposed birthplace of Rama, seventh incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, was razed by Hindu militants encouraged by the right wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), today the main opposition party in the Indian Union. This was followed by widespread disturbances resulting in over 2500 deaths across the country. Ayodhya remains a political hotspot. Several attempts of Muslim extremists to stop the construction of a Rama temple there through terrorist attacks led to further waves of violence. But never were the masterminds of the violence, neither Hindus, nor Muslims, ever tried in court. Instead, the BJP asked the Home Secretary of the present Congress government to resign when a further attempted terrorist act at the site took place in early 2005, though security forces prevented its success.

Coming back to BOSCO, it is good to be able to say that such conflicts do not play a role in the organisation. Maybe it helps that all children know that they cannot afford to stand against each other. Maybe it helps that BOSCO puts emphasis on a family structure where all boys are supposed to be “Ana, Thamma”, elder brother, younger brother, taken care of by Salesian Fathers and Brothers, female staff called Aunties and volunteers called Uncles.

But, religion is not set aside. There is a daily morning prayer and a daily evening prayer, as well as prayers before the meals. While the morning prayer combines popular Hindu songs with Christian-inspired prayers, the prayer before the meals is always the Our Father. Critics would see an attempt to convert the boys here. Considering the fact that the Salesian Society was a strong missionary movement when it came to India hundred years ago, this perception may not be totally unfounded. But the founding principles of BOSCO exclude any such practice, so it may be more useful to see how people involved with BOSCO perceive it. Besides 10 Salesians, there is a staff of about 45 in BOSCO – counsellors, night guards, training tutors, a driver, a cook, office staff etc. Some of them are Christians, others Hindus and there are also two Muslim staff. All of them see daily prayers as a necessary part of life. In India, as opposed to “Western” countries, religion is not only a part of society but also inherent to daily life. Religion is not seen as a week-end entertainment. The numerous Hindu shrines along the roads are used by many passers-by for a short prayer, mosques are always filled with people and no morning celebration on a working day in a Christian church is left unattended. BOSCO boys never missed bowing their heads or joining their hands for some seconds when they passed near a temple or a church. For many people, temples and churches are not symbols of specific religions but a reminder of the importance and the presence of the Divine in the midst of life. Undoubtedly, the same can be said for the Christian prayers in BOSCO. The Our Father does not represent Christianity but the importance of dedication to a higher power. To me and to many Europeans I spoke with, it was something hard to admit. Probably, the Our Father has a strong Christian a connotation in Europe – maybe too strong connotation. But thinking about it for a while, why should it not be possible for a Muslim or a Hindu to pronounce these words? There is no reference to Jesus, no reference to the Trinity, no reference to other strictly and exclusively Christian teachings in them. At least, for the Hindu and Muslim staffs and the boys in BOSCO, this prayer was not contrary to their own faith.

The example of Our Father as an interreligious prayer led me to think about the ways in which interreligious dialogue is conducted. It became quite obvious to me that dialogue in Europe very often focuses on structures. Dialogue is very often seen as an encounter between parishes, communities, organisations and dialogue between individuals and tends to take place only during such organised encounters. The number of such encounters in Europe is certainly quite large, I think larger than in India. But does this mean that there is more dialogue in Europe? In my opinion, there are many examples for unstructured, informal dialogue in India despite strong religious identities which tend – more than in Europe - to see the others as false believers.

The Our Father is an example of how Christianity plays a role in BOSCO. But Hindu elements play a role as well. All major Hindu feasts are celebrated in BOSCO. Some kind of special activity takes place in the centres. For Ganesha's birthday, one of the central deities for many Hindus, an evening ceremony was organised in BOSCO Yuvakendra. Candles where lit and put on the ground and the boys gathered around them, singing traditional Hindu devotional songs and listening to Ravi, the boy who told the story of how Ganesha got his elephant head. For some ceremonies, when a priest is required, Fr C.V. George, the Salesian director of BOSCO Yuvakendra, fulfils this duty. It does not matter much who gives the blessings and how blessings are given but more that blessings are given and that the sacred character of a ceremony is preserved.

On the one hand, this is quite a beautiful approach to religion. But on the other hand, I often felt that there was a lack of understanding about religion. It may be beautiful to be united but perhaps a deeper understanding of the background of one’s own religion and of the background of somebody else’s religion would achieve even more unity in a long term perspective.

But this perception may ignore too much of the Indian mentality – a term that is very popular with occidental people who somehow get in touch with India but which no non-Indian really understands. In fact, to understand the meaning of the term “Indian mentality”, one probably needs to have this mentality – otherwise, how could one really understand what are its important characteristics? It is often said that the West’s way of thinking is very rational, very materialistic and that the Indian way of thinking emphasises the emotional aspects of understanding reality. Silvy Lawrence, a Christian social worker in BOSCO Yuvakendra, told me once a story which impressed me very much:

“Manjinath came to BOSCO Yuvakendra after running away from home and told us that he was 17 years old and looking for a job. He looked much younger than 17 so that we decided not to find a working place for him but to convince him to start a training in mechanics. So he did but a few weeks later he complained about not learning anything there. He spoke to me and asked me to give him permission to start working in a small factory. Finally, I agreed and I told him that I would try to find a job for him. I was not very sure about the outcome of this research because he really looked quite young. So I told him that I would do whatever I could but that he also should do something: to pray for the success of my own studies. Manjinath is a Hindu. But does it matter how and where you speak to God? The only thing that matters is that you speak to God honestly and that you are confident.”

Christoph Tometten is a law student at the University of Cologne (Germany). In 2004-2005, he was a volunteer in the Bangalore Oniyavara Seva Coota, a Salesian NGO working with Street Children in South India.

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