Christian protest and an embarrassed PM’s intervention forces Delhi’s BJP government to retract its proposed changes in law to denotify Churches as places of worship

The government allotments have made neighbours out of some unlikely elements. The Communist Party of India Marxist shares breathing space with the forward-looking Mar Thoma Orthodox Church, the reform movement of the ancient Orthodox Churches which have been in Kerala for close to 2,000 years. Youth movements have offices with ethnic groups, and the Karol Bagh Club, a gathering place for the well–heeled traders and business-men of the nearby shopping district, shares a common alley with the Bible Fellowship.

And that was the trigger for one of the most bizarre chapters in the current history of BJP governments and their attitude to the minority communities of the land. The club has considerable clout with the leaders of the BJP party, particularly with transport and excise minister, Rajendra Gupta. But alas, the club does not have a liquor licence to serve alcohol to is thirsty members.

The members urged their friend the minister to do something about it. Rajendra Gupta is a powerful minister, son of the famed Lala Hansraj, the tallest RSS leader in the North in his prime and a long-term mayor of Delhi. Gupta himself has been an aspirant for the chief minister of the National Capital Territory, but has been pipped repeatedly, the last time by farmer-turned librarian Sahib Singh. Although he is a minister in Singh’s government, Gupta does not see eye–to–eye with his boss on most matters.

The one thing they agree on is their commitment to the RSS philo-sophy, and the support to the many maverick front organi-sations that they have spawned in Delhi, including the Bajrang Dal and fringe elements of the Hindu Parivar. They also appa-rently agree that minority communities have far too much licence, in a manner of speaking.

Gupta made several attempts to get a liquor licence for his friends in the club. Each time the bureaucracy refused to oblige, pointing out that there were too many churches near the club. (Apart from the Bible Fellowship, an evangelist group, and the Mar Thoma Church, the other places of worship include the Catholic Sacred Heart Cathedral and the Jacobite Church, and the St Columbus’ school. The excise law is very clear. No liquor licence for any club or shop if there is a school or place of worship next door.

It so happened that the Catholic Church of Delhi which houses the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and is also the seat of the Archbishop of the Diocese of Delhi, which includes Haryana state, applied for a licence to import 2,000 bottles (a total of 1,500 litres) of Sacramental wine from Goa. The wine, a thimbleful at a time, is used for a congregation of up to a thousand in the Holy Eucharist Mass every Sunday, or for smaller groups in the evenings. The Church seeks the licence every year and it has been granted as a matter of routine even when there was official prohibition in neighbouring Haryana.

Rajendra Gupta jumped at this opportunity. According to official sources, Gupta personally drafted a note for the Cabinet. In Hindi he said, "It is obvious that alcohol is drunk as a prasad (offering) in Christian churches. Christians also do not have a taboo on alcohol. And therefore the excise laws can be amended taking churches out of the list of notified places of worship which is in the excise laws. Gupta’s mindset however became clear in his statements to the press as the story broke with resounding controversy on the front page of the Indian Express chain of newspapers. The story made it clear that Gupta was going far beyond finding a mere excuse for giving his friends a liquor licence. The report also made it clear that for once the chief minister was quite happy to listen to Gupta despite the advice of Delhi’s brilliant new chief secretary, Omesh Sehgal. The first IIT engineer to have made it to the IAS, he wanted the matter thrown out or filed indefinitely by referring it to the law ministry. Gupta and Sahib both said the matter would come before the Cabinet that was meeting on Saturday.

Both had not reckoned with pungent Christian protest. The Capital’s Christian community, which last August 15th celebrated the golden jubilee of Independence with a unique thanksgiving prayer, accused the minister and the BJP government of planning to erode the sanctity of the churches. The community feared that the BJP government was going to use this as a thin edge of the wedge to deprive the churches of the protection of the law, which includes security and a concessional tariff on land rents.

Delhi’s archbishop, the redoubtable Alan De Lastic, who for much of last year has protested several assaults by right wing fundamentalists on Christian priests and institutions in various parts of the country, was not in town. But his deputy, Bishop Vincent Concessao, sent a sharp letter to the chief minister and his minister, asking them to clarify what they meant. In televised interviews, the Bishop said with biting sarcasm as he showed the glass thimbles used in the Holy Communion, "There is more alcohol in cough mixtures..."

The All-India Catholic Union questioned the motives of the BJP government as AICU national secretary, John Dayal, pointed to the cultural illiteracy of the Hindutva politicians. "Sacramental wine, made from grapes, ‘the fruit of the earth, the product of human hands’ has been traditionally used in the Mass. It is diluted with water before it is consecrated together with the Host, the bread when they become the Body and Blood of Christ. It would be a travesty of the truth to say ‘Wine is served in Church’ implying it is done in the same manner as liquor is perhaps served in a restaurant. 2,000 bottles of Sacramental grape wine a year from Goa for the entire Delhi diocese which consists of Delhi and Haryana region works out to a few drops of wine for the nearly two lakh Christian population in the diocese at a Mass", Dayal said.

He pointed out that the latest controversy came even as the community countrywide was seeking justice for incidences of violence and vandalism. More than two dozen such incidents have taken place in Bihar, Orissa, Punjab, UP, Gujarat and Maharashtra, at least three churches have been demolished or vandalised, including one in Malad and one in Ahmedabad, dozens of Christians injured and holy images desecrated or broken. Complaints to the President of India, the Prime minister, the National Human rights Commission and the National Commission for Minorities have brought no relief at all. Almost all assailants, including the police, are at large, laughing merrily while the commissions make polite noises.

But for once this time, the BJP was perhaps taken back when the two communist parties protested vehemently and threatened to take the matter up in Parliament where Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government is already in a soup on the finance bill, the women’s bill and the fundamentalisation of the nuclear explosions. Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who woke up to the Christian protests reported by the national dailies, called up Sahib Singh. The chief minister was not expecting a rap from the very top. Singh is an RSS nominee and takes his orders normally only from LK Advani, the home minister. Vajpayee, however, was sharp. The chief minister had to make a public retraction. The BJP government, fighting for its life and facing international sanctions on the nuclear issue, could ill–afford to be branded a Hindu fanatics’ government.

A sheepish Sahib Singh retracted his statement and indirectly accused his colleague of trying to create confusion. Assuring that he would not take up the proposal against Christian churches in the cabinet meeting, Singh also assured that the laws applicable to temples would continue to be applied to all places of worship. In Parliament house, the BJP’s national spokesman, Venkiah Naidu, told a press conference that the PM had assured there could be no question of going against the interests of Christians, or of other communities.

The community’s fears have not been fully allayed. Vajpayee’s government is yet to give any concrete indication that it has even read the dozens of complaints of assaults on Christians made over the past six months to it. And Singh’s government is still to respond to the protests on the demolition earlier this summer of a school which was being run by the church in the resettlement colonies which house the people whose huts were razed by the bulldozers during the Emergency in 1975. n