New Delhi: In a television interview in April 2014, a question was posed to the PM Mr Modi on what steps he would take to ensure no churches are broken down if he becomes Prime Minister to which he replied, to the utter shock of many, that he had never heard of such incidents taking place! Today, it seems that a similar case of willful denial exists within his and other BJP led governments, that is responsible for law and order in Delhi and Haryana, even as the seventh Christian institution faces an attack in just four months-the latest one being a church near Hisar which may have the involvement of Sangh affiliate Bajrang Dal activists, if witnesses are to be believed. Yet another incident that has left the nation shocked is the gang rape of the 72-year-old nun in West Bengal.
It began, post May 2014, with a fire in a church in Dilshad Garden on December 1, 2014 followed by stones being pelted at a church in Jasola during the evening mass the same year. In the New Year, a fire broke out in a church in Rohini which again seemed like an attempt to desecrate the church. In the same month of January, a church was attacked by two youths. While the police remains clueless about the culprits and has not been able to make any arrests in majority of the cases, it added insult to injury by suggesting that theft could be the motivation behind these attacks. The evidence, however, suggests something far more sinister along the lines of a hate crime prompted out of religious intolerance. For instance, in the last attack on a church just days before the Delhi elections, nothing was stolen - only a vessel. But this vessel that was stolen was no ordinary vessel. It contained the holy bread, used by the Christian community in their sacrament rites, which was spilled on the floor by the miscreant.
What has been particularly disturbing is the startling inaction of a Prime Minister, who claimed his USP was his "56inch chest", a metaphor for his ability to be decisive against members of his own party, government and ideological family, who seem hell bent on creating fiction between different communities. From the assertions by Yogi Adityanath on Love Jihad to Sakshi Maharaj's comments on "Madrassas being hubs of terror " to the advocacy of "Ghar Vapsi" by the RSS and VHP and the "Ramzaade" jibe by a minister who was later rewarded with extra security rather than being dismissed. The church attack in Hisar came on the heels of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's hate-filled statement that God lives only in temples and not mosques or churches (hence there is no problem in demolishing them!). Modi's empty words and tweets cannot be a substitute for penal action that the Delhi police should be taking against those spreading bigotry right here in the capital through their hate speech.
But is Modi's inaction merely prompted by his ignorance or incompetence or can it be attributed to a sense of complicity that could be part of a larger strategy to cloak an agenda of communalism with the mask of secularism? A look into past track record of the BJP, Sangh Parivar and Mr Modi as chief minister of Gujarat would provide a much needed insight.
Golwalkar, perhaps the most revered chief of the RSS, an organisation which shares an umbilical cord with Mr Modi's party, reveals the outlook of the Sangh Parivar towards Christians in his second book, Bunch of Thoughts where he devotes Chapter XII to three "Internal Threats" namely Muslims, Christians and the Communists! This world view of Indian Christians, who much like Indian Muslims, are perceived as "outsiders" or "foreigners" continues to be the guiding political narrative of the entire Sangh Parivar even today. The question today is will Mr Modi or the BJP condemn these views by Golwalkar and the RSS?
A report compiled in 2011 shows there had been 172 incidents across the country in which Christians had been attacked. Karnataka, under BJP rule back then, topped the list with 47 incidents followed by Odisha. Coming in at third position was another BJP ruled state of Madhya Pradesh with 15 incidents! A BJP legislator from Karnataka Prahlad Remani even went to the extent of stating that "People must remain aware and watchful about the spread of these seeds of Christianity," and that "Christianity must be weeded out of Karnataka". The sentiments were echoed by VHP's Pravin Togadia who declared in Ahmedabad that they shall declare Gujarat a "Hindu State" by 2015! Manoj Pradhan, a BJP legislator, was even convicted in 2010 for his role in the anti Christian riots in Odisha in 2008. Yet, the topmost leadership of the BJP, including its former President Venkaiah Naidu, virtually justified the riots by terming "conversions as the root cause of violence and social disturbances"
Tehmina Arora, an attorney from New Delhi in her recent testimony before the Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations in the US House of Representatives speaks about how anti-conversion laws, co-incidentally enacted in the states primarily ruled by the BJP, were being misused often to "target and harass Christians." In the same testimony Tehmina also states "Over the past five years, attacks have been reported across the country, though primarily concentrated in the states where the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power and where groups associated with his party have been active. Violence is fuelled primarily by non-state actors who are guided by the Hindutva ideology, which sees India as a Hindu nation, where religious minorities are second class citizens."
Mr Modi's personal antipathy was most obvious after the 2002 riots when he constantly emphasized on the Christian name Michael of the Chief Election Commissioner James Lyngdoh (who ironically is an atheist) in his speeches for taking a decision to delay elections in Gujarat back then. At a public rally near Vadodara Modi thundered: "Some journalists asked me recently, 'Has James Michael Lyngdoh come from Italy'. I said I don't have his janam patri (birth certificate), I will have to ask Rajiv Gandhi. Then the journalists said, 'Do they (Lyngdoh and Sonia Gandhi) meet in church?' I replied, 'Maybe they do'."
In October 2002, Gujarat's senior cabinet minister and a colleague of Narendra Modi, Karsan Patel, publicly threatened 400 tribal children, who were boarders at a Christian school in Subir "to decide whether they want to live as Hindus or die as Christians". No action was taken against him. Much like no action has been taken by Modi against the other rabble rousers in his party and government today. Mr Modi as Chief Minister never explained how the already minuscule population of Christians in Gujarat (about 0.56% in 2001) fell by 5% in entire decade whilst he was at the helm of affairs.
Mr Modi and the BJP has had an uneasy past when it comes to minority rights even if you do not mention about the 2002 riots which former PM Vajpayee himself described as a "blot on our democracy". Today, as PM Narendra Modi has coined the slogan of "Sabka Sath,Sabka Vikas" and it is obvious he will be held accountable to that premise. These attacks on Christian institutions have not gone unnoticed by the international community. The references made by President Obama not once but twice on growing religious intolerance in India and the scathing editorial last week by the New York Times blaming Modi for his "deafening silence" are not a mere co-incidence. Mr Modi will have to realise that Gujarat is not India.
One hope's Mr Modi is not becoming a prisoner of the politics that he and his party have been accused of practicing for decades. In the long run it will neither benefit his electoral prospects nor will it benefit our country or its international reputation of being a plural democracy. If nothing else, the massive drubbing in the Delhi elections should awaken him to this reality. Complicity by inaction was often a charge that Mr Modi and the BJP made against former PM Manmohan Singh in the context of the 2g scam. There is no reason why that same axiom can't hold equally true for Mr Modi in this case.
(DISCLAIMER - These are personal views of Congress supporter and lawyer Shehzad Poonawalla. Not the views of CNN-IBN and IBNLIVE)
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