![]() There are 200 applications for churches pending in Kanyakumari district, according to the pastor. "Why do they need to use speakers for the rest of us to know they are praying? And the worst part is that there are three people who are recent converts from here who are the most fanatical." "Why come here to disturb us?" he queries. Manikandaraj says the pastors should build their churches in the places where they stay. The pastor is from Marthandam, which is seven kilometres from the Kerala border and 50 km from here." Why is he building a church here and not in his own home town? Within one kilometre of this community hall there are two houses where they are conducting prayer meetings. ![]() Manikandaraj elaborates, "Suresh Rajan is from Nagercoil, 18 km from here. If not, then we will oppose it," shot back Manikandaraj, the head of Kundal village. "If it is a community hall then all the villagers should be allowed to use it. "I asked for permission to build a community hall first as I knew that if I ask for permission to build a church it will be refused," Suresh Rajan says. If the collector reconsiders and comes to the same conclusion, it's valid in law." SP Ashokan, joint secretary of the district Hindu Munnani, a religious and cultural organisation formed in the early 1980s, says, "The court never gives permission against the collector's orders, it only gives a direction to reconsider. The collector refused to change his stance. In the last week of September, the court gave a direction to the collector to re-consider his plea. He appealed to the Madurai bench of the Madras high court. When Pastor Rajan approached the collector for permission, it was refused. Unlike other districts of Tamil Nadu which largely ignore the rule, here permission from the district collector to start a prayer hall or church is mandatory. When he tried to shift his prayer meetings to the hall, he was not allowed to do so. This is a rented building, so the pastor bought a plot of land two kilometres away in North Kundal village and built a community hall there. ![]() He conducts weekly prayers at a thatch-roofed hall in the main Kanyakumari market area, next to the coastal police inspector's office. ![]() S Suresh Rajan is a pastor of the Assembly of God (a Pentecostal denomination). Its topography resembles Kerala more than Tamil Nadu. Kanyakumari district even looks different from the rest of Tamil Nadu. Former collector Jothi Nirmala once observed that "the residents of Kanyakumari are not Dravidians like the rest of Tamil Nadu." With the exception of former Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament, Pon Radhakrishnan, Kanyakumari district has always elected a Christian member of Parliament. In the rest of Tamil Nadu, Christians are six per cent of the population but in Kanyakumari they constitute 44 per cent of the population. ![]()
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