Kerala.

In Asia, the Philippines is the only nation with a Christian majority, and South Korea is the only nation in which Christianity is growing. Elsewhere, Christians are a more or less scant minority, in many cases busy resisting persecution, oppression, hostility of every kind. Asia's two giants are emblematic. Not only from China, but also from democratic India the news media constantly report cases of violence against Christians. In recent years, Orissa has been an authentic place of martyrdom. And yet not all of India is like this. There is a region in which Christians are ten times as numerous – 20 percent, as opposed to 2 percent of the national media – and above all live in peace. That region is Kerala. Christianity has extremely ancient roots there, and the Christian imprint is still extraordinary.

Kerala is not rich, but it is by far the most educated state in India, with very high levels of education among women as well . It is the state that for many decades has had the most balanced birth rate, fundamentally because all of the girls go to school, and therefore get married later than girls elsewhere. Most of the schools there, of every order and degree, are Christian. Kerala is also the Indian state with the highest level of literacy. Since last year, a weekly edition of "L'Osservatore Romano" has been printed there in the local language, Malayalam. 20,000 copies of it are sold, twice as many as the Italian language edition.

But what really is the secret of Kerala? What is it that allows this handkerchief of land to remain an oasis of coexistence, despite its exceptions and contradictions? If the Christian, Hindu or Muslim is asked why Kerala has not yet become Orissa, their answer is always the same: "education". The stakes are high: if it is true that the Church plays a prominent role in maintaining the peaceful nature of coexistence in Kerala, to attack its role in education can only weaken the immune system of the region against its fundamentalist opponents. Those who are in power today do not seem to realise this. Probably because they do not understand what the example of Kerala can mean for the future of the whole of India.