In 2003, Pope John Paul II named him a cardinal. Political commentators at the time remarked that the action was an acknowledgment of Toppo’s passionate support for the carving out of the Jharkhand state, comprising the tribal heartland, from the eastern Bihar state in 2000.
Toppo’s support for the decades-old tribal demand for a new state was hailed by Shilpi Neha Tirkey, the only lay speaker who addressed the funeral service.
“Cardinal Toppo played a big role in making Jharkhand known all over the world,” pointed out Tirkey, a Catholic woman legislator in the Jharkhand Assembly.
“We are proud that Cardinal Toppo ensured that Pope John Paul II was in Ranchi during his 1986 visit to India,” Tirkey added.
The tribal heartland of Jharkhand (meaning “land of forests”) experienced a steady decline in the tribal population from 38% at the time of India’s independence in 1947 to 26% of the state’s more than 32 million people, according to the 2011 national census.
Though Christians account for only about 5% (most of them Catholic) of the tribals in the state, Toppo was at the forefront of the campaign against the marginalization and exploitation of poor tribal migrant workers by the industrial lobby in the region, which is rich in minerals.
During the funeral service, it was recalled that Toppo had overseen the installation of two dozen tribal bishops since he became the archbishop of Ranchi in 1985.
“Had the Church not been here, perhaps Jharkhand state would not have been here,” the Jesuit Toppo had told this correspondent in an exclusive interview at the Ranchi archbishop’s house after his elevation as cardinal in 2003.
In his compassion for the sufferings of people, Toppo rushed to remote Kandhamal jungles of eastern Odisha state as CBCI president after the widespread Christmas violence that destroyed over 100 churches and Christian institutions in 2007.
The image of Toppo kneeling before a broken cross was testimony to his outrage over the orchestrated violence, which he described as “diabolic.”
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Toppo’s witness left his mark on the hearts and in the minds of the people of Ranchi.
Ranchi’s auxiliary bishop Theodore Masceranhas told CNA: “It is an end of an era, a legacy to be cherished, dreams to be fulfilled, promises to be kept.”
Anto Akkara is a journalist writing from Bangalore, India. He is a regular correspondent with the National Catholic Register.
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