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India’s growing religious divide: BJP’s anti-religious minorities agenda (George Abraham)

Published on 17 May, 2019
India’s growing religious divide: BJP’s anti-religious minorities agenda (George Abraham)
As the election season is winding down and the nation is anxiously looking forward to the results, one cannot escape but witnessing India’s slide towards complete polarization based on the politics of religion.  Prime Minister Modi’s ascension to power has resulted in growing Hindu intolerance of Christianity and Islam. Radical elements within his party are pushing an agenda to marginalize these two groups whom they consider ‘foreign’ and would like to see them disappear!

Although Indian constitution guarantees the freedom of religion to all its citizens, the political dogma of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the parent organization of BJP, enunciated by its erstwhile leader and theoretician M S Golwalker is still mostly the guideline for many of its loyal adherents.  In fact, he argued in the book ‘our nationhood defined’ that as long as the Muslims and the Christians failed to abandon their own religion and culture they cannot but be only foreigners in this country and if they stayed here without losing their “separate existence” they might be treated as “enemies”, at best as “idiots”. His arguments tilt more favorably towards treating all Christians as “hostiles” who are agents of International movement for the spread of Christianity.

It is important to note that RSS gurus have been inculcating the idea of bigotry and hate to the mindset of many generations for the last 95 years. It is no surprise then that Modi’s rise to power has now led to an explosion of anti-Christian attitudes and fiery speeches creating an environment conducive to even physical attacks on Christian Institutions and its leaders. Prejudice against the minorities, especially Christians and Muslims, are a growing trend in the Indian society and for the BJP, it means electoral gains and seats of power! They couldn’t care less about the political instability, whether it wreaks havoc across the country or the negative impact it may have on the economic health of the nation.

According to news reports in the National Review magazine, during the 2017 Christmas season alone, there were 23 incidents. Most dramatic was the arrest of 30 priests and seminarians singing Christmas carols in Madhya Pradesh state. They were accused of violating the State’s anti-conversion law, which has been on the books since 2013. Similar legislation is in force in seven other states. Eight priests who came to the carolers’ aid were physically assaulted, and their vehicles were set on fire. Police officers reportedly stood by without intervening. That scenario is all too common. By some accounts, hundreds of anti-Christian incidents have occurred in the past year.

“We are losing confidence in our government,” said Cardinal Baselios Cleemis of Thiruvananthapuram, former President of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India (CBCI). He added that “the country is being divided on the basis of religious belief” which he labeled a threat to the “democratic credentials of our country.” The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released an annual report and its key findings include the observation by the Supreme Court of “deteriorating conditions for religious freedom in some states in 2018, stating that “certain state governments were not only not doing anything to stop violence against religious minorities, and in extreme cases, impunity was being granted to criminals engaging in violence.

The report also highlights Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on these issues, saying he “seldom made statements decrying mob violence,” and noting that “certain members of his political party have affiliations with Hind extremist groups and used inflammatory language about religious minorities publicly.” The report notes that in 2018, Minister of State at the Ministry of Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir told Parliament that 111 people were killed and 2,384 people were wounded in 822 communal clashes in 2017. By contrast, in 2016, 86 people were killed, and 2,321 were injured in 703 clashes, the report offers, later adding that independent organizations that monitor hate crimes found that 2018 saw more than 90 religion-based hate crimes that resulted in 30 deaths and many more injuries.

There is also a secret war being waged against Christian NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization) that are engaged in welfare work for the very poor in rural India. By throwing out the ‘Compassion International USA’ that housed and educated 145,000 destitute children and shutting down of the work of the ‘Caritas International’ that works with 360 NGOs across India that boasted about a force of 25,000 volunteers are good examples of Government’s authoritarian agenda that works in concert with whims of the Hindutva militants to marginalize the Christian Community and remove them from being a visible and positive force from the public’s eye.

In Modi’s India, Christian Institutions are being strangled by denial of FCRAs, freezing of the bank accounts, unending investigations, frequent auditing and harassment of principals who are in charge. These moves appear to be consistent with the Hindutva philosophy that the Modi government has embraced to advance the saffron agenda that challenges the very idea of India as a multi-cultural and pluralistic society. Modi appears to pay lip service to Gandhiji’s concept of India upon his visits abroad but remains silent when Institutions that are supposed to promote those principles come under attack back home. It should also be noted that Christianity came to India in A.D. 52, long before Ireland or England have embraced that religion. To judge the Indianness of its nationals only through the prism of one’s faith is not only just unfair but preposterous!

While the BJP Government is hard at work restricting Christian NGOs from receiving funds from abroad, no such limitations are placed on the Sangh Parivar organizations that collect millions of dollars from western democracies. Another report from USCIRF states that “while the Indian Government continues to use the FCRA to limit foreign funding for some NGOs, Hindutva supported organizations have never come under the scrutiny of FCRA. With the amendment championed by the Modi government, the foreign-based radical Hindu organizations will be able to send funds to India, without restriction, to support hate campaigns. Under the revised definition of FCRA, so long as the foreign company’s ownership of an Indian entity is within the foreign investment limits prescribed by the Government for that sector, the company will be treated as “Indian” for the purpose of FCRA.”

It is also common knowledge that Christian church leaders from the United States have a harder time obtaining visas to visit their fellow faithful in India or attend a conference while no such restrictions are placed on Indians based on religious affiliations. It is hypocritical for India to deny a religious conference visa to an American citizen while shedding crocodile tears for a reduction in the number of available H1B visas that could take jobs away from American citizens. The recent cancellation and court-ordered restoration of OCI card of an Indian American Christian who was accused of proselytizing while working as a physician volunteer in India during summer months have sent shock waves to the community. It once again shows the wanton disregard for fairness and due process by the bureaucrats who are so eager to please the current policy makers!

Meanwhile, India’s 180 million Muslims are affected as well by mob violence on suspicion of having eaten beef or slaughtered a cow, animals sacred to Hinduism nationwide. The recent election campaign by all parties show the reluctance of the leadership across the board to overtly court Muslims or seek their votes in public forums. Modi’s rule also emboldened Hindu extremist elements to translate their religiously ordained contempt and hatred for Dalits into systematic violence against that community as well often lynching them on suspicions of transporting cows for slaughter. According to a report in the New York Times, Indian courts have consistently acquitted most perpetrators of massacres of Dalits. Conviction rates in violent crimes against Dalits and indigenous tribes are a mere 28.3 percent and 16.4 % compared with 40.2 percent in general criminal cases.

India has a religion problem, and it should be given careful attention by policymakers in Washington as it can have long term repercussions towards the future. It appears that the sectarian line-up of political conflict is going to dominate the political landscape of India as long as BJP retains power. History has taught us that if the salience of the State is undefendable, regionalism or tribalism may become rampant and weaken a nation-state. Religious oppression is a clear sign of instability for any nation, and as the US is eyeing India as a strategic partner against the rising threat of China, an increasing level of communal tensions or sectarian conflicts in the sub-continent may not bode well for that relationship.

(Writer is a former Chief Technology Officer of the United Nations)
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