[sacw] sacw dispatch #2 (10 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #2
10 May 2000
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ATROCITIES ON MINORITIES IN INDIA IN YEAR 2000.
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Anti-minoritism: The Hindutwa strategy for political power

by Saby Vempeny

The following are the summery of attack against the Christian institutions
in India by Hindu fundamentalist since January 2000 as reported from
different parts of India in the national dailies and in the Christian
periodicals.

January 1st. 2000, Orissa
While demanding an immediate judicial inquiry in to the ghastly police
firing on Christian triabals in the Majhiguda village of Gajapathi district
in Orissa on Dec. 30, 1999, the All India Christian council and the All
India catholic Union strongly deplored the incident as part of a systematic
communalisation of the tribal belt of Orissa by vested interests.

January 1st, Panipat
The priest of the Catholic Church at Panipat in Hariyana, under the model
town police station area, Fr. Vikas Alves IMS, who is the manager of the St.
Mary's Convent School, was severely beaten up with sticks and stones and
received serious head injuries and fractured hands by unidentified men on
Saturday who escaped, leaving Fr. Vikas unconscious as the Father's other
companion Fr. Ashwin raised alarm. The police when contacted by Fr. Ashwin
while the attackers were still beating up the priest reportedly told him to
come to the police station and register a complaint instead of coming to
their rescue immediately. For the last couple of years the mission school
had been receiving threats, troubles and cases of intimidation.

January 19th, Assam
The principal of St. Joseph's School, Sonari in Sivasagar district of Assam,
=46r. Lazar Kakkacherry, is accused of causing the death of the student
Damayanti Nag (12) who died of anemia on 19th January 2000 by the Sonari
Town Mandal Committee of the BJP and have filed a case against the
Principal. The student of class V , Damayanti had vomited once in the school
corridor in the morning on that day but she continued attending classes in a
normal condition. However, at 2,00 p.m., when the school was closed for the
day, she walked to board the school bus stationed outside the school
compound and there she collapsed suddenly. On being informed about the girl
the principal sent his assistant, Fr. Ambrose Ekka, with a jeep and reached
the student to her home around 3,pm. At about 8.p.m. as her parents were
rushing her to the medical college at Dibrugarh, 75 kms from the place she
breathed her last. The principal later said "The allegation is merely to
turn the people against the School. Parents have no complaint. In fact
they appreciated our gesture of care and concern for the child. We declared
the day of the funeral a holiday and went for her burial".

January 20th, Ahmedabad (Times Of India report)
The state government has roped in a private charitable trust to find out,
among other things whether its scheduled caste and scheduled tribe officials
have adopted other religions. In a circular sent to all departments, the
government has asked its employees Class II and above to fill up a personal
form, which includes a query "... when have you converted to
Buddhism/Christianity/ Islam"? Another sensitive information demanded in
the survey is regarding inter-caste, inter state marriages in the family of
the employee concerned. The survey, being carried out by three Guru
Dattatray Charitable Trust's managing trustee Dalpatbhai Shrimali, who
himself is a scheduled caste, has set the cat among the pigeons with
officials questioning the credentials of the trust and the future use of the
information.

January 22nd, New Delhi
The United Christian Forum for Human Rights which held a memorial service
for Graham Staines and his two sons today, in a statement mentioned that
while killers still eluded the police forces, the official machinery was
working overtime and issued several notices to Christian Organizations in
Orissa telling them to obey the nefarious Anti-Conversion Act of the Orissa
government which violated the freedom of religion- enshrined in the
constitution. The statement further said that the Central Government
through the Department of Posts and Telegraph canceled postal facilities for
scores of Christian magazines and newspapers in many states.

=46ebruary 2nd, Ambala
The Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Ambala was threatened with
demolition because it failed to admit the grandchild of the Governor of
Uttar Pradesh. Among the application for admissions for the new academic
year in the school, one was of Apparichita, the granddaughter of Governor
Suraj Bhan of UP. The child was over-age (over 4 years and six months
according to the schools prescribed criteria for joining the kinder garden),
and was therefore not considered for the interviews. According to the
school principal Sister Tara RJM, "on the 2nd of February 2000, the school
received a telephone call from the District Collector R.B. Verma, IAS
leaving a message to contact him in return. The School tried to contact him
but he was not available. On 7th February 2000, the DC again got in touch
and told the principal, "you are too busy to contact the DC, are you?" In
the morning of the 8th of February, 2000, the principal got a message form
the Executive office of the Municipal body saying he was coming to the
School to inspect the sanctioned plans of 1995 for the school building. The
Officer reached the school in five minutes of the telephone call and asked
for the sanctioned plans of the building and the ownership papers of the
property which the sisters did not have ready at that moment. The municipal
building inspector who had come with the Executive officer wanted to measure
the building and structures while the school was in session and did as he
wished though it disturbed the students and the younger ones among them
started crying. Half an hour later the Municipal authorities told the
sisters that they would demolish major portions of the building as they had
violated the rules, though they were told clearly that no rules had been
violated. The Municipal authorities accused the school of encroachment on
public property and of unauthorized construction when there was none of such
violations.

=46ebruary 3rd, Rajgarh
A catholic priest Fr. Abraham of a School at Rajgarh district of M.P was
accused of forcible conversion and attempts to torture young boys between
the age group of 10 to 12 who belong to the SC/STs. This allegation was
raised by the former BJP MLA form Rajgarh, Mr. Raghunandan Sharma. The case
as soon came to be evident was an attempt to harm the Priest and the School
as part of a well-planned allegation raising the boggy of 'forcible
conversion'.

=46ebruary 18th, Dindigul
Anti-social elements, armed with deadly weapons, entered the Damian Leprosy
Hospital complex run by Catholic nuns for the past 31 years, some 2 kms
south of Nilakottai near Dindigul. The hospital complex includes leprosy
prevention centre, Sophia General Hospital, Lillion Middle School for the
Handicapped, Polio-Surgery Centre, free Handicraft School for poor Girls,
Lillion school for the Mentally Challenged, T.B centre, free eye hospital, a
home for street children and a retreat centre. Of course they had no
programme for converting anyone to Christianity but the church within the
campus used by the nuns have been completely ransacked. The looters caused
extensive damage to two jeeps and many of the hospital equipments. The
total destruction caused is more than Rs. 12 lakhs. The district
administration who rushed to the spot and camping in the place ever since
do not rule out the involvement of the RSS in the event as the churches and
holy places in the complex have been their main target of attack.

=46ebruary 25th, Gujarat
The Gujarat BJP has temporarily postponed the introduction of the
controversial Bill that seeks to prohibit religious conversions in the
stake. The Bill ironically named 'the Freedom of Religion Bill, 1999 was
widely seen as a move against the Christian minorities in the state.
=2E
March: 2000, Bulandshar
A school run by nuns at Bulandshar was attacked, around the same time when
two Catholic priests of Agra were illegally detained by police at Hariparbat
Police station after a former teacher, who left St. Paul's School Agra
without tendering a notice 8 years ago and wanted to be reinstated this
year, registered a case against the priests on a "trumped-up" charge of
trying to tear the clothes of her at a busy road crossing on the morning of
march 31. The priests were arrested when the local police officer discovered
that his child had failed in his exams on the same day in the missionaries'
school..

March: 2000, Gujarat
Three months after the death of a Jesuit Priest, the Gujarat state tried to
serve him a court notice for his involvement in rehabilitating people who
were displaced by the US$4 billion Sardar Sarovar Project. Fr. Idiakunnel
had launched a people's movement against the project some 20 years ago and
had later withdrawn from the movement as other leaders took over. Social
activist Girish Patel who teamed up with Father Idiakunnel and Medha Patkar
in leading the Narmada Bachao Andolan said the priest's initiative had
helped to unite tribals.

March 2000, Orissa
The VHP alleged that Christian volunteers under the guise of relief-work for
the Orissa cyclone-victims had converted 25,000 people. When many of the
Hindu individuals have praised the stupendous and selfless service done by
Christian volunteer groups who never mixed relief work with religious work.
Not even one Hindu organization has given recognition to this dedicated
service rendered by the church organizations but indulged in spreading lies
against their good works.

March 8th, Mysore
An organization describing itself as Jai Hanuman Bajrang Samit is a cause
for fear and threat for the Mysore Christians ever since the self-styled
Hindu organization in a letter to the Mysore Bishop Joseph Ray has demanded
that the church authorities donate 30 by 45 feet site inside the
world-renowned St. Philomena's Church for the construction of a temple of
the sacred bull Nandi. Among other demands by the Hanuman samiti are that
they will be installing an idol of god Ganesha in St. Anne's church in
Gandhinagar, 40 km form Mysore, and to hand over an acre of land at Mysore's
Dorannahalli village in KR Nagar, on the right side of the St. Antony's
church to construct a grand Ram temple. Three years ago a temple had
already come up behind the St. Philomena's College, around the same area on
the land belonging to the church institution. The church authorities had
kept silent then and simply erected a wall to maintain peace.

March 8th, Basara
On March 8th 2000, some men broke down the rear wall of the Ish Mata Church
of Basara Parish and took 60,000 rupees. The priest Fr. Aseem Raj, saved
himself from the attackers by locking himself in the bathroom. "Police say
the looting is economically motivated but I wonder why only Catholic
churches are singled out for attacks" asks Fr. T.R. Thomas the diocesan
administrator.

March 12th, Ghaziabad
The computer centre sponsored by the Government, and run by the Capuchin
Priests at Suryanagar, Ghaziabad, was attacked, and the attackers took away
23 computers after locking the priests and the inmates inside their rooms.

March 12th, Kadi.
A group of 20armed men allegedly broke into St. Anne's Convent and Sandya
Visharam- old people's home, after beating up the guard, at Unteshwari on
the outskirts of Kadi town, some 55 kms from Ahmedabad. The attackers who
came during the early morning hours on 12th, before leaving the place with
cash worth RS. 8.000 and a camera, threatened the sisters and had asked them
to leave the place, failing in which they will have to face severe
consequences.

March 13th, Orissa
The amendment in the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967 (made during the
time when Mr. Giridhar Gamang was the state CM.)is clearly anti-Christian
and infringes upon religious freedom of the Christians and others. Church
leaders met the present CM, Mr. Navin Patnaik and warned him of the
possibility of police officers and others misusing their powers, delay
matters and cause problems to the Christians due to the amended version of
the Act which had stated that religious heads conducting conversions should
inform the district magistrate a fortnight ahead. Then the magistrate on
being informed, will ask police to ascertain whether there is any objection
to the conversion and submit a report. The Christian delegation that met
Mr. Patnaik raised also the issue regarding a letter received by some Church
authorities asking them to furnish names and addresses of people who have
been converted during the last five years through their respective churches.
The Christian bodies in the state pointed out that the state government, ,
and the magistrates, and collectors, as a way of discrimination had
selectively issued notices (notification No. 63286 of 26. 11. 99) only to
the heads of churches and not to any other religious organizations asking
them to furnish details immediately on conversions in the last five years.

April 1st, Ghaziabad
"A group of around 10 men armed with sticks, knives and iron roads barged
into the Capuchin missionaries-run Christ Vihar Hindu medium primary school
in the Dasna-Masuri area and ransacked rooms after beating up the Priest Fr.
Skylark (27) George in the early hours" of April first. They took away cash
amounting to more than 40 thousand, which was meant to pay salaries to the
staff.

April 2000, Lucknow
The Bajrang Dal in UP has declared war against St. Paul's school, Lucknow
after accusing its Principal, Fr. Simon Fernandes, of 'harassing the girl
students'. A teacher at St. Paul's School, Mr. Bhagwan Singh who claims to
be the spokesperson for the VHP in UP has initiated the controversy by
leveling charges against the principal. The Bajrang Dal promptly staged a
dharna, demanding the ouster of the Principal and an enquiry into the
affairs of the school. Mr. Bhagwan Singh had started targeting the
principal after the principal complained to the school's managing committee
that the teacher was inciting communal passions. This principal had done
this on receiving complaints from the parents stating that Mr. Bhagawan
Singh had started using his Moral Science classes in the school to spread
the VHP ideology in the school. However the Bajrang Dal activists refused
to identify or produce the girls who had reportedly been "harassed" by the
principal, saying that this would cause embarrassment to the students and
their parents. In this context of a possible attack by the Bajarang Dal
goons alleging "harassment" of students, the principal said, "We have been
provided with some security, but I would like a thorough investigation, so
that the truth could be exposed". The UP government officials or the VHP
officials refused to comment on the issue.

April 6th, Mathura
A mob of about 150 people, mainly parents and relatives of the Children
detained from promotion due to poor performances attacked the Sacred Heart
Convent school and resorted to stone throwing, and threatened to burn down
the school library and also to attack the school in future.

April 7th, Bihar
The killing of a convent watchman Shakir Hussein (40) of the Holy Cross
Convent in Belatanr, Giridih district on 7th and stoning of a Jesuit Social
service Centre have caused alarm among Christians in Bihar. Unidentified
gunmen shot Shakir and two days later in West Champran district nearly 600
kms north, some 50 children allegedly instigated by Hindu fanatic groups
threw stones at the Rural Education and Development Centre of the Jesuits.
According the report in the Indian currents weekly (7 May), the trouble at
the Jesuit centre started after some local Hindus attempted to build a
temple at the entrance to a housing community in which the families of 23
READ volunteers live. A group of more than 200 people including children
met at the proposed temple site, where construction was foiled by the police
as it was illegal, raised slogans against Catholic Priests and threatened to
liquidate the construction. As reported in the Indian Currents, a police
officer of the West Champaran district headquarters of Bettiah, described
the incident as "a game plan to create a Hindu-Christian divide" to score
publicity.

April 9th, Mathura
The principal of St. Dominic Convent School in Mathura Cantonment, Fr.
Joseph Dabre was roughed up by a group of persons armed with iron roads and
sticks.

April 10-11 midnight:
Around 20 armed men attacked the sr. Mary and sr. Gloria in the premises of
St. Teresa School on Nandgaon road, near Mathura and beat them up with
sticks. The attackers broke into the residence of Fr. K.K Thomas, the
principal of the school and priest of the local church, beat him up on the
head and left the bleeding and unconscious man thinking him to be dead. The
domestic help Ms. Mary Murmo, was also beaten and was critically wounded on
the head. The escaped after robbing the valuables and rupees amounting to
nearly 1 lakh from the almaras

April 11th, Howrah
St. Thomas Church School at Howrah, one of the largest and oldest English
medium schools in the town was forced to shutdown after the trouble and
protests by some senior students and parents started on 11th over the
tuition fee hike form RS. 275 per month to RS. 475. The school authorities
said that they were compelled to raise the fees in order to pay the
teacher's salaries in keeping with the recommendation of the Forth Pay
Commission. The School authorities pointed out the fact saying, "We are
the only English medium institution in both Calcutta and Howrah which has
not increased the fees for two years", while most of the other schools of
this category have hiked the fees twice since the past three years.

April 16th, Bijnor
A group of 15 persons carrying fire arms and sharp edged weapons on 16 night
attacked the Saint John's Convent Hostel in Timerpur village, situated two
km form Bijnor Kotwali police station area. The group also tried to enter
the convent where 10 nuns were sleeping.

April 22nd, Agra
A group of Christians from Hyderabad was attacked by around 20 to 30 Dajrang
Dal activists and their bible burnt, after beating up the Christians and
their van was attempted to set on fire, in Jagdishpur on the outskirts of
Agra at Nagla Ajita, under the pretext of their objection to the 'forced
conversion' by the group.

April 22nd, Rewari
Three Christian nuns at the Deepti Ashram who have been actively involved
with the empowerment of women to fight against social evils, Sisters Anandi,
Pramila, and Gertrude, were attacked by an unidentified man on a scooter
(number DL-2CK-5604), on their way to Easter-eve midnight Mass in Rewari in
Hariyana. Since a few days prior to the incident there had been, a few local
publications threatening to get rid of the sisters, and through anonymous
calls the nuns where threatened of dire consequences if they do not leave
the place. The condition of one of the victim sister Anandi was serious and
had been admitted to the intensive care unit at the Holy Family hospital,
Delhi.

April 26th, Kottayam
Three Christian Pastors were attacked by around 6 assailants and a tent put
up for a convention was razed to the ground while a prayer was going on in
the pandalon April 26th Wednesday at Kaduvakulam near Kottayam in Kerala.
The attackers destroyed loud speakers, generator sets and chairs before
fleeing the place.

May 2nd, Jhansi
Six unidentified masked men assaulted and beat up the nuns and looted their
convent, desecrated their residential sacred Chapel in the house, and robbed
money and valuables on the night of may 2nd at Paricha in Jhansi, "even as
the BJP commended the National Commission for Minorities on Thursday for its
'prompt and factual' report on the recent attacks on Christian institutions
in UP".

May 3rd, Dangs
'A group of Christians were beaten up when its members were engaged in a
sound-and light programme at Subir, 33 km from Ahwa in Dangs district of
Gujarat April 3rd'. It was the same area where Bajarang Dal activists had
attacked and burnt the prayer halls, churches, houses and vehicles two yeas
ago.

May 4th, Patna
There was tension in the prestigious St. Xavier's School of Patna on may 4th
when the brother with political connections of a boy who fainted in the
remedial class, managed to create trouble. The Jesuit principal Fr. Peter
was accused of 'harassment' and misbehavior with the students in the
counseling cessions. The incident occurred because Fr. Peter seeing some of
the students very poor in Physics organized remedial classes for them so
that those weak students who cannot manage can pass in the exams. When the
boys returned for the tuition class which the principal conducted freely on
his own initiative, one of the boys felt dizziness and fell down and
recovered later and continued attending the class. It happened because it
was too hot and the boy had been playing earlier. But later the brother of
the boy managed to organize the disgruntled elements in the school,
especially those who were denied promotion and admission in the school.
Police had to be called up for the security of the school, and the school
decided to call a parent-teachers meeting the next day to explain the
situation and to sort out the tension.

May 6th, Ahmedabad.
=46resh attack on Christians by Bajarang Dal activists on Friday, in Ahmedab=
ad
was reported in the national newspapers. The Miscreants attacked Christian
activists with lathis and sharp-edged weapons. The incident reportedly
occurred when people from the Bible house were distributing handouts.
Copies of the Bible were also burnt. The Delhi edition of the Hindustan
Times reports that booklet on how to implicate the minorities in court with
false allegations had been circulated in the state for about three months
now. The booklet without author's or publisher's name on it, titled Hinduno
Bachao, (Save Hindus, Attacks and Laws). Inside the booklet it is written
sentences like "now that we have our own government, we should take proper
advantage of it and get our work done by it", "In the complaints we file to
take revenge, we should implicate the top authorities of the mission and if
possible, foreign missionaries also". "They may not be convicted in the
court in the end, but they should be made to go up and down the court for
months on end.... harassment is also a type of punishment".

May 7th, Almora
The social service centre called Social, Educational and Village Animation
(SEVA) doing women's empowerment works through Self Help groups, Health
programme on Hygiene, training of Dais for safer delivery, and assisting
all government immunization programes like polio vaccination, conducted by
local women animators themselves, under the directorship of the Jesuit
Social worker, is facing threats from various elements who do no appreciate
the good works done by the women in more than 300 hundred villages in the
Almora area of UP state. The SEVA group is fearing an attack on them
anytime as part of a follow up of the local group's protests against the
report on AIDS in the region prepared by the NGO called Sahayog. The people
identify the SAHAYOG organization with SEVA as both are referred as sanstha
in the local language. The SEVA is involved in imparting informal Education
for Women and dropout children by local village instructors, Environmental
programes by mobilizing people to plant trees, to conserve trees and also
helping farmers to acquire high yield variety seeds from Governmental
agencies. The present agitated mood of some of the people in the area
especially in Barechena village, 16 kms away from Almora is creating
uncertainties in the minds of SEVA women animators and the beneficiaries in
the SEVA programes who are mostly women.

Comment:
In his April 25th speech in the Lock Sabha the Prime Minister, A.B Vajpayee,
pointed out that the recent attacks on Christian missionaries in UP were
'unfortunate' and he said that the home ministry had asked the state
government to investigate and punish the guilty. In this matter the P.M had
recently cautioned the U.P Chief Minister R.P.Gupta against the recurrence
of communal flare -ups in the state. On April 24th the Lok Sabha members
condemned the continuing attacks on Christians in different parts of the
country and the Sabha owned up its 'Constitutional obligation' to protect
the minorities. The opposition in the Lok Sabha pointed out a pattern in
the attacks on Christians. Many members including Jaipal Reddy (Congress-I)
pointed out the conspicuous pattern characteristics of the Bajarang Dal in
all the anti-Christian campaigns in Hariyana and U.P. The Parliamentary
affairs minister Pramod Mahajan promised in the Lok Sabha on 24th April that
the Centre would extend all help to state government in dealing with such
incidents and stressed on his governments priority to protect the minorities
wherever they are. All hopes of justice and peace that the Christian
community entertained were shattered when the Indian Government's Minorities
commission who visited the effected area and declared all the incidents as
locally motivated acts of robbery and that there was no communal side to it.
The Minority commission in its hastily prepared statement gave a clean chit
to the communalists who created fear among the minorities and termed the
incidents as unrelated and non-communal. Earlier in the case of Rewari
incident in spite of , even the BJP government outwardly sensing a real hate
campaign against the Christians the police and local government authorities
got the church leaders to say the incident as an isolated accident. Thanks
to such positions of the church members that On 24th the BJP government
could defend itself from the opposition's allegation regarding the matter
when Mr. Venkaiah Naidu read out a newspaper report that quoted the local
Chief of the Church as having said it might be an accident. But the
newspaper had failed to mention who is the local church leader.

It is evident for all, beyond doubt, that after the bad reputation the
Hindutwa's Militant outfits and the political party patronizing them, the
BJP, have received following ant-Christian violence in Orissa and Gujarat,
they have shifted their strategies. But they have not stopped the hate
campaign, instead attacks against the Christians have only increased. Now
it is in the form of organized, group robberies, 'hit and run' style attacks
on Church personal and by attempting to tarnish the image of the missionary
or the institution by alleging "cheating", "sexual harassment" or "attempted
molestation", etc,. Thus any outward sign of the communal design of the
attackers are kept hidden while succeeding to inflict damage and fear among
the Christians. But the unfortunate element is that in spite of such
persistent and planned atrocities perpetuated against Christians and
Christian institutions especially on priests and nuns the Church authorities
are dragging behind in grasping the magnitude and danger that lies in these
hate campaigns. Secular organizations see the dangerous growth of fascism
in the country. Secular organizations like 'insaani ekta muhim' sees that
'Fascism is seeking to increase its mobilization of the majority community
through lies and false propaganda against the vulnerable sections,
particularly the minorities. It is painting a picture of "persecution" of
the majority community by the minorities. The attacks on Muslims and
Christians are only devices on the part of the Sangh Parivar to capture
total political power. Secular citizens see the attacks on books, films,
and art as part the strategy to strengthen the traditional manusmrit
culture based on caste and gender oppression. The attempt to change the
civil service rules in Gujarat, introduction of the Religious and places of
worship bill in U.P and reintroducing a far more draconian TADA through the
criminal amendment Bill and the attempt to change the basic nature of the
constitution through a review attack the roots of a democratic and secular
polity. The CPI in its national council meeting in Delhi condemned the
repeated attacks on educational institutions run by Christians and pointed
out that the "police collaborated with the frontal organizations of RSS in
organizing anti-minority violence".

All the attacks on Christians that happened in U.P, or Hariyana are termed
either as robbery or as isolated incidents by the Police. While to anyone
aware of the frequency and background to these attack cannot escape but see
a well designed plan in these attacks most often mooted from outside the
area of the incident. To prove the theory of the police or the politicians
the best thing to do is to catch the culprits and prove the case. But then
this is precisely what the administration has failed to do. The Rewari
attack is not unexpected as there were threatening calls earlier to the
Nuns. The attack on Fr. Skylark and the institution at Ghaziabad too is
altogether not strange as there was a similar attempt a couple of months
back in the same place. The same way the attackers at Sacred Hear School
had warned that the Christians will have to pay heavily, and within a
couple of days the brutal attack on Fr. K.K Thomas at Kosi Kalan happened.
And all these recent attacks in Mathura against Christian missionaries
happened less than a month after the Bajarang Dal called for an awakening
against "the conspiracy of conversion". Interestingly, in all the places
the police are informed in time but in none of the cases the police are able
to apprehend the culprits although all these Christian institutions are not
situated very far from the Police Posts. Almost all the cases of attacks
included a large number of attackers. Normally a case of robbery does not
have more than half a dozen men sufficient for the operation. But in the
incidents at U.P we see that it was not few but a crowed of armed men
numbering perhaps more than 20 to 25 who have attacked the nuns and priests.
Also these robbers are not satisfied with the loot but they made their
intention of murdering and harming the inmates as the inmates are left
bleeding profusely expecting them to die, when the looters left the place.

It is high time for the Church leaders to seriously understand the present
trend and take appropriate prevention against such attacks. The church
leaders are often found defending their positions and crying foul whenever
injustice is done to them. They are also projected sometimes as passive and
naive who are tying to get out of the unfortunate individual incidents that
have occurred. Thus they fail to see a national and widespread design in
all these incidents due to which a national strategy to face such
undemocratic and anti-minority attacks are nor arrived at. The church is
always trying to cope with each incidents but before they even grasp the
damage of the attack, fresh attacks take place and church leaders are found
to be at loss then. Most of these institutions attacked are run by the
missionaries using the privileges meant for the members of the minority
community so that the minority community is given opportunities to be equal
to others, to preserve their identity, culture and religion and also their
particularity as a separate group. But we see that these institutions
instead of catering to the minority community are often catering to the
non-minority and Upper cast Hindu sections of the Society. For example,
take the case of the Sacred Heart School at Mathura: Out of 1500 students
only five belong to the Christian minority community and out of the 60 staff
only three belong to the minority and though the School is functioning in
the similar way for more than 40 years there have been no case of any one
becoming a Christian or even becoming partners in the good work of the
missionaries. In the case of the JMJ Convent School at Ambala only 3 of the
55 teachers are Christian and only 75 of the 1500 students are from the
Christian community. The same is the case in most of the Christian run
schools in U.P and Hariyana.

The Christians in India, a vulnerable and non-violent community, it appears
are still grouping in the dark as to what to make out of these communalists
attacks on them. They are often found to be fighting their own battles only
in places wherever such incidents occur. They are easily lured into
compromises to settle the matter often at the cost of justice, by the local
authorities who only wish to get over with the incident. Similar atrocities
all over the country with frightening frequency and particularly targeting
Christian missionaries and their institutions are not considered as part of
a nation wide modus operandi of the Hindutva forces. Therefore the sufferers
are forced to see the event only as a local incident. Besides they are
often helpless and accept the police version of the events as isolated and
accidental. It is time that the Church leaders pose an aggressive stand
rather than, just mearly fighting for their rights whenever they are
violated. It is time to fight the forces of fascism, communalism,
majoritarianism and the forces of lies and untruth with whatever non-violent
means that are at its disposal. The church should not wait for attacks on
it to counter it, but must begin a campaign against forces that persecute
the minorities, the Dalits, the poor and the disadvantaged in the name of
'Swadeshi' and 'nationalism' and also must fight not for themselves alone
but for all of India so that our democracy and secularism can survive.
__________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH (SACW) is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996. Dispatch archive from 1998
can be accessed by joining the ACT list run by SACW.
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