Here is a great Jesuit, with the greatness drawn from the greatness of the Kingdom which he loved first and last, letting no rival take over, but concealing it effectively, though apparently not meaning to, with the garb of the ordinary. As one result of it, his passing away too is likely to be taken for granted, just as his life was.
A chip of the old block, Lawrence could boast, though he was not inclined to, of his sturdy family stock, the famed D’Souza family of Mulki – Boniface, Jerome and John Stan, as well as John Sal collaterally – these were, to name a few, illustrious Jesuits. But the eldest of them all, Boniface, would move mountains with his grunts, and Jerome with words and bearing of authority; Lawrence, on the contrary, was taciturn by nature. Born on August 9, 1932 he did his college studies first at St Aloysius and then at St Joseph’s, and joined Christ Hall for the Calicut Mission on June 30, 1953. He was ordained on March 31, 1964 on St Aloysius College grounds, one among the first to be ordained in the Province. He pronounced his Final Vows on August 15, 1970.
After his BEd, he was a teacher – and a good one at that –at St Aloysius High School till his retirement. One of his pupils was Fr Hector D’Souza (a future POSA). Though his early ministry was confined to the classroom, it was extended when he had to run the Gonzaga House as its director in addition. In the College community itself he was appointed treasurer of the House. In the school in turn he was assistant headmaster and acting headmaster as well. But none of these activities singly or collectively exhausted his energy or prowess. Soon was born what he came to be best known for, the UNESCO club.
What is this UNESCO club? (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). An agency of the United Nations, set up in 1945 to promote the exchange of information, ideas and culture. UNESCO-sponsored activities include advancement of knowledge and promotion of human welfare. It is of interest to know that UNESCO took up a serious study of the culture and set-up of the so called Paraguay Reductions in South America.
The UNESCO club of SAC was started by Fr Lawrence in 1972. Right at the beginning, it encouraged the study of the organization, its goal and its membership. The club wanted to make the goal of UNESCO its own at least as far as education was concerned. The club directed its attention towards the villages of India. At first one village was adopted. When the jeep arrived, more villages were sponsored. “He ran the club so effectively that soon the UNESCO club at SAC became Lawrence and Lawrence became the UNESCO club.” His aim was to eradicate illiteracy and raise the standard of education in the villages. Till 2007, he had adopted 45 villages and more than 70,000 students benefited from the project. The fact was recognized within India as well as abroad, reaching up to the very top. The adoption of villages, the translation of human rights material into different languages and his work among the tribals was warmly commended by UNESCO officials who cited these in the UNESCO manuals. The result was that from the academic level, Lawrence felt involved, taking his club along, in the practical, social level. There was an office to run the work, and a jeep to facilitate locomotion.
In 1982, he was invited to Tokyo by the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan where he talked on UNESCO Co-Action Learning (UCAL) Programme. He was a special invitee at the World Congress of UNESCO clubs in Sendai, Japan, the birthplace of UNESCO clubs. He was one of the five chosen to address the delegates. He spoke on UNESCO and rural development.
The Secretary General of the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs asked him to represent the world Federation in 1984. In 1985 he started the Indian National Federation of UNESCO Clubs and Associations (INFUCA). He represented India as an official delegate at the World Congress of UNESCO Clubs in Madrid in 1987. In 1993, he received UNESCO’s Norma Prize for his work in villages and among the tribals. The same year he was the recipient of Rajyothsava Award from the Karnataka Government.
From 1990 onwards he focused his attention on tribals. He started Learning Centers at different places and had literacy classes in more than 100 places for people of various tribes. He trained leaders and formed associations. Beginning to write books on tribals with the help of UNESCO club members, he authored 21 books. He made a study of 80 historical monuments in Bijapur and produced a VCD. He wrote a book on the Koraga language (Nammo Base), which is translated into Japanese. His great regret was “that work among the indigenous people and the nomadic races is completely neglected. More importance has to be given to this apostolate. This is difficult, but it has to be done.” (Jivan, May-June 2007, p.30)
When he moved over from SAC to the Jeppu Seminary, so did his UNESCO work in tow. In fact the work would follow him with few exceptions practically till the very eve of his death. But nowhere would he fail to do the work officially assigned to him in the house – procurator, teacher and pastor in the Seminary, pastor and superior in Bijapur, If left free, he would devote himself totally to the UNESCO work; otherwise, continue to harmonize it with his other assignments: in Dakshina Kannada it was the Koraga welfare, both there and Bijapur and elsewhere the study of the little known, less cared for and the most backward tribes. The work carried on when he was the chaplain at St Philomena’s Hospital, and later on at the novitiate of the CSSTs in Whitefield. In between he accepted to be pastor at Sakleshpur too.
Fr Lawrence was a quiet man to look at and deal with –deceptively quiet and gentle, in fact. Within him, however, he carried a dynamo, or rather a volcano. With the long and thorough Jesuit training, he had learnt to control his overwhelming feelings, confining them within the straightjacket of a man of God. But on rare occasions, - thankfully rare –they would find a chink or two in his armour, and make a sortie, singeing him as much as those who provoked him. Only then one would know the real Lawrence, even though this was one side of the man. Recalls one of the Jesuits who was under him in Gonzaga House as a candidate an incident when Lawrence chased him with a stick. The other side, evidently made by him by dint of hard work, rather than inherited, was far vaster and deeper, his love of the Kingdom and of those to whom it has been preached. No substitute for that, whether better or worse. In the school it was the boys, later the poorest of the poor- the Koragas.
With the death of Fr Alexander Camisa, a golden chapter in the evangelizing activity of the Jesuits in the Mangalore diocese came to a close. Evangelizing activity went on, no doubt, but there was little progress in the cultural life of the neo-Christians till there was a sudden awakening 50 years later when another Jesuit, in the person of Fr Lawrence D’Souza disclosed to the world the pitiable state in which they were 50 years earlier.
Who were these Koragas? To the sophisticated, the very mention of the name Koraga might make the flesh creep. They lived together in colonies which are filthy. They collected the leftovers and in particular the rice thrown away in the banana leaf from which guests had eaten on feast days (the Yenjalu rice). It is said that they washed it, dried it and stored it for future use, and it may be so. They dragged dead animals into their homes which were dirty hovels. The adults were illiterate, and the children were not sent to school. To the rest of the people, they were untouchables like the SCs though in fact they are tribals (STs).
They had no saving habit, because they had no stable income; and whatever income they got was from weaving baskets from bamboos. They had no income certificates, and they didn’t know where to get them from. As a result, they got no benefit from the government. They did not own any land, but put up huts wherever they found open ground, preferably at the edge of a forest where they might be able to get the raw material for their trade. Drinking habit was very common among these people. Many of them also suffered from tuberculosis.
When a suggestion was made that `Learning Centres’ could be taken up, the UNESCO club extended the work to all the Koragas in South Kanara District. During their next cycle the plan was endorsed by the Japanese clubs. As soon as Fr Lawrence was relieved of his work at the Seminary, he devoted all his time to pursue this goal. With the help of the members of the SAC UNESCO club and other volunteers, he made surveys, conducted studies and gathered material for a book on the Koragas. The book has been translated into the Japanese language. To preserve the Koraga language he also wrote a book on this language. With its help, for the first time the parables of Jesus have been written in this language and made available. A library too was set up for the benefit of the neo-literates.
The last phase coincides with the period 1991-1995. There was encouragement to start projects every year; consequently they were started in places like Kasargod, Sullia, Belthangady and finally in the northernmost town of Byndoor. With the financial aid received, buildings for the Learning Centres were constructed and aids for teaching were purchased. Since CEBEMO approved this project in 1992, 15 social workers were employed for the work.
There was a great exuberance which gave rise to more activity. There were 59 projects in the year 1994-95 in different places, and in some centres tailoring also was taught. In all centres at the beginning of June, social workers see to it that all children are enrolled in school and attend them. As a result, children have shed their phobias, and can truly be said to have become smart. The process of conscientization has made them conscious of their rights; they are capable of claiming their benefits before the govt. agencies. With training in healthy living, the Koragas have been slowly giving up their bad habits. With frequent medical camps and nutrition programs, T.B. has disappeared in certain places like Panja; in other places it is on the way out. With educational tours organized for children and adults, their horizon has been widened and some ambition for the better things of life has begun to grow. In short, they have acquired an identity.
After remedial work came reconstruction. The saving habit has grown with increase of income which is due to the fact that over a hundred young men have learnt driving and are employed as drivers of various types of vehicles. Some women have begun to do tailoring work with the sewing machines offered to them.
To disseminate information there were newspapers like Conscience of Humanity, Diganta Vyapti, Aikya Vani and Calt Care News. Besides the two books on Koragas, three others were published after surveying the Hakki-Pikkis, Malekudiyas and the Gonds. Research scholars abroad e.g. Tokyo, U.S., Germany and Switzerland depend a great deal on these publications. The Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO was partially financing the activities of the Club. (A.P. Menezes, My Land My People)
Fr Lawrence has been called the second Camisa. Fr Alexander Camisa (1868-1955) was the first Jesuit who loved the Koragas and died in their arms. He called himself the white Koraga. He lived with them, ate with them, prayed with them. Lawrence, however, could not be confined to any one group of the poor. His great and practical love could be seen in the prolific number of booklets he kept writing on them, of questionable value from a scholarly point of view, but an infallible pointer to his unbounded apostolic love and concern.
It would seem, though, that Lawrence had to pay for what had become his predominant passion –work for the poor through the UNESCO. The understanding and support he received from his Jesuit confreres, including superiors, was pitifully meagre. In this too, he resembled Fr Camisa. In fact, most of the time he was ignored and at times even openly stymied. However they were not always to blame. Given his taciturn nature, and doing things on his own, with anaemic accountability and tenuous transparency, not always taking them into confidence, combined with constrained communication and deficient dialogue, his natural reserve and reticence rendering the relations with Superiors as well as companions at best restrained, resulted in his wonderful work remaining always an individual initiative without the Province really claiming it as its own, which he could not reasonably expect from them, as what he really could have done with these essential elements of the Jesuit way of proceeding, and enhanced the fruitfulness of his work seem to have simply escaped him. In his undoubtedly selfless quest, the religious way of living and proceeding apparently escaped him, let us say, for no fault of his, as he was never in the least aggressive, adversarial and abrasive in his ways. Non-communicative, Yes! Duplicitous, never! The genius of a trail blazer lies in this, that after he has gone, the works he has initiated continue on their own steam, being effectively carried out by those he has trained. Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case with Fr Lawrence. His fantastic feat soon died a natural death, for it was always closely identified with his person and not with the Society of Jesus, and no younger Jesuits were included and initiated in his path breaking work. Anyway, in his case one may be sure the Lord did not mind straightening the warped lines his servant wrote. Lawrence loved the poor with whom the Master himself identified. In that lies the servant’s greatness.
Fr Lawrence during his last days was a member of Pratiksha (Province Infirmary), giving much of his time to the apostolate dear to his heart. A victim of heart ailment, he died of it at St John’s on 10.4.2009.
- by Fr Richard Sequeira, SJ
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