Abp Albert D’Souza, Agra

What is your response to the tragedy that took the lives of many innocent children in UP?
Whatever happened in Gorakhpur is only the tip of the ice berg as regards UP is concerned. All government and commercial hospitals in UP have similar unhygienic conditions and doctors are not prompt in attending to emergency cases. I am not surprised over what happened in Gorakhpur. Similar things are happening in other district hospitals also.

The RSS as well as other radical minded people of Hindu high caste are not concerned about the lives of the ordinary people, the poor people and the scheduled castes. Is that kind of contemptuous attitude widely prevalent?
When poor low caste people go for medical treatment, nobody attends to them. Doctors are paid high salary by the government, but they do not provide service. Private practice by doctors is thriving. The Gorakhpur tragedy was waiting to happen. Similar things happen in more developed areas also. When I pass through Agra, I can see the front yard of the government hospital which is filled with dirt and filth. Those who sell fruits, juice etc. throw waste there. People don’t have a civic sense of cleanliness. The situation in other districts is no difference for that of Gorakhpur, which is the Chief Minister’s constituency.

Some mothers carried home the dead bodies of children in their own hands. Why is there such a disregard for human beings?
It is a normal thing in UP or MP where dalits are considered less than human by the high caste. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me. In fact, I read in some Hindi newspapers that, as soon as this tragedy happened, people were forced to move out with the bodies. Parents have picked up and carried dead children home. The authorities wanted to reduce the backlash. In some descriptions of the caste system, the low castes are presented as less than human beings. They have no right to education. Primary schools in UP are closing down, because children are not attending them.

Arun Shourie, the BJP leader who was a cabinet member in the Vajpayee government, has accused the present BJP government of being a decentralized fascist government?
I agree with that.

Why?
They are using certain ways to manipulate power and bypass the judiciary and the parliament system. The majority party exercises power even at the lower levels. When the BJP holds power, nobody opposes them. They have subtle ways of getting through a caste based society. If you come and stay a week in UP, you will understand how people are passively accepting their fate. If they are unemployed, they think it is their lot. But higher castes, including the landed people and business class, think that it is the way of being human beings. For them others are lesser human beings.

In that context, what will happen to the constitution of India and to Indian democracy?
If it goes on like this for another twenty years, there will be no democracy in India. Civil war will erupt in each region, because regional parties are gaining strength. The BJP has adroitly and unjustly exercised power over other smaller regional parties. If this trend continues, democracy will exist only in name in the country. The one reason why the Church will experience greater opposition and suffering here is because we are educating the rural masses. I have at least over half a dozen high schools in the rural villages. We pay the salaries. In some places children who have come to our school are taken off to primary schools for making up the number for getting salary and midday meal grant. The missionaries who educate them are being hated.

Is the leadership of Catholic Church in India fully aware of the danger that is looming over democracy and the country?
They are hundred percent aware of it. In fact, I am getting ready to go to Delhi to have a closed door meeting with the cardinals and other CBCI office bearers. We met two months ago. We are fully aware of the dangers, but have no clarity on how we should counter them. We can’t invite opposition and be victims. There is a think-tank working to find ways of influencing the power centres. We are in touch with the home minister and Arun Jaitley, who is a facilitator, but the outcome has been zero up to now. The RSS heavyweights who have the good will to appreciate our ideology of service do not speak up.