Christian leaders express serious concern at the surge in
Hindutva violence across the country as general elections draw near,
allege police and bureaucratic complicity in several states and seek a CBI
probe into the anti-Christian violence in Orissa in December 2007
Press statement
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On the sixth anniversary of the massacres of Gujarat 2002, India’s
Christian community joins other minorities and the Dalits and OBCs in
welcoming President Pratibha Patil’s assurance in the 2008 budget session
of parliament that "the government will remain ever vigilant against the
machinations of any antisocial and anti-national groups seeking to disrupt
law and order, communal harmony and the unity and integrity of our
republic."
We also welcome the assurances of the prime minister’s new
15-point programme hoping to ensure that benefits of the development
programmes flow equitably to the minorities. But we also hope that the
poor of the Christian community, especially Dalit Christians, will also
benefit from the special programmes earmarked for minorities. Our
experience so far has been that the Christian community remains entirely
untouched by such programmes.
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But those guilty of the mass murders of Muslims in 1993 and 2002
remain unpunished, as do those involved in the anti-Sikh violence of 1984.
The killers, rapists and attackers of Christian nuns and pastors, the
desecrators and destroyers of churches – an average of more than 200 cases
a year since 1998 – also remain unpunished. In almost all cases the
assailants have been identified as members of the sangh parivar – the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the
Bajrang Dal, the Adivasi Kalyan Sangh and their local units under various
names.
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We are deeply disturbed that despite the union government claims of
vigilance against communal forces the sangh parivar has been given a free
run of the country. As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targets power in
parliament and major state assemblies in the coming general elections,
including in Karnataka, the militant and armed RSS, the VHP and the
Bajrang Dal have unleashed terror in many states. Last Sunday (February
24), sangh gangs had the audacity to attack a church in the heart of the
national capital, New Delhi, while also carrying out simultaneous attacks
on churches in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and other states.
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Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have also not been immune to the
sangh conspiracy to polarise society and to target both Muslim and
Christian religious minorities. In Karnataka it is widely known that the
sangh parivar, once again aided and abetted by the bureaucracy and the
police, is communalising the environment and is demanding that churches
and mosques not be allowed to be constructed in regions such as Udipi.
Devangere and other districts are also affected and even in the capital,
Bengaluru, it is becoming difficult for the community to even voice its
protests without being accosted by the sangh parivar. Terrorism and
political extremist violence are real threats to the nation but the sangh
parivar poses no less of a threat to the nation.
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The situation, of course, remains critical in Kandhamal district in
the state of Orissa where the BJP is a partner in the government – and the
police are entirely siding with the sangh parivar. During Christmas 2007,
over a hundred big and small churches were utterly destroyed, over 700
houses and 40 Christian shops burnt in widespread arson; five convents,
five presbyteries, the state’s major leprosarium ashram, seven hostels and
training centres were set on fire. Even a cow was killed by sangh terror
mobs. Police and magistrates watched in most cases. Five Christians were
killed in the mob violence, as also a Hindu. But while many arrests have
been made and even pastors tortured in the hunt for (the Hindu’s) killers,
the murderers of the Christians go scot-free. The arsonists are, in fact,
members of so-called government peace committees.
Three thousand Christians are in refugee camps, in
subhuman conditions, the women subject to humiliation. Basic human dignity
has been violated and daily needs are not met. School going children face
a bleak future with no books, no coaching and no nourishment other than
food barely fit for human consumption.
The police are refusing to register first information
reports and are, in fact, turning on the Christian community. Senior
administrators have not so far been able to give any genuine assurance of
free rehabilitation to the victims who lost their houses to sangh
arsonists. The government must take steps to show the world that
Lakshmanananda Saraswati, widely known to be behind the anti-Christian
violence, is not above the law. He and his hordes continue to spew hate
and terrorise the Christian victims.
The community desperately needs legal aid. It cannot trust
the judicial commission headed by a retired judge which was announced two
months ago but is yet to start work. Even before it begins its work the
commission has come under pressure from the sangh parivar and the BJP
ministers in the state government who have made it clear that they expect
the retired Orissa high court judge to indict the Christians for
conversion rather than to identify the killers and the men who burnt the
churches and the homes.
We reiterate our demand for a Government of India probe
through the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
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The suffering of Dalit Christians remains unabated. The Supreme Court
has had to repeatedly adjourn hearings in the writ petition filed by the
Public Interest Litigation centre and Dalit groups because of the central
government’s refusal to commit itself as it did earlier for Dalit Sikhs
and Buddhists. The National Commission (for Linguistic and Religious
Minorities) headed by former chief justice Ranganath Misra accepted their
demand for inclusion in the list of scheduled castes. But the National
Commission for Scheduled Castes headed by Buta Singh has said this can
only be done through a fresh set of quotas. This will not be possible
unless the Supreme Court raises the limits of reservations above 50 per
cent. Effectively, the government, court and commissions have been passing
the buck to each other while millions of Dalit Christians and Muslims
suffer a double discrimination.
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We also call on the Supreme Court to ensure the neutrality of the
subordinate judiciary, the district magistracy and the state police
forces. The Supreme Court must also encourage the rebuilding of civil
society which is currently in a state of hibernation and has been struck
dumb by fear of the sangh parivar. The religious minorities are being
demonised as threats to national security and therefore fit targets of
sangh and official terror. Certain sections of the media have also fallen
into this trap and are publishing or broadcasting stories without a shred
of evidence.
Instead of chastising the few voices of protest from human
rights activists such as Teesta Setalvad, the highest court in the land
must help strengthen the civil society and human rights movement in the
country which alone can unite the minorities and the marginalised to face
the onslaught of the sangh parivar and help preserve the unity and
integrity of secular India.