Church activists suspect political interference and sectarian hate in the continued incarceration of a Missionaries of Charity nun who was arrested a year ago accused of child trafficking in eastern India’s Jharkhand State.

Sister Concelia Baxla filed a fresh bail application in the state’s High Court on July 12. Her bail was rejected by several courts including India’s Supreme Court early this year.

The nun, now 62 and a diabetic, was arrested on July 4 last year along with Anima Indwar, a staff member of the home for unwed mothers that the Missionaries of Charity managed in state capital Ranchi. The arrest followed a complaint that Indwar took money to provide a baby but failed to keep the promise. They were accused of having already sold three babies from the home. The Supreme Court rejected her bail application on Jan. 29 on grounds that police had not yet completed the investigation of the case.

Church leaders in India have concerns of further civilian unrest after mob attacks killed eight people in three separate incidents over the weekend.

In the latest incident on July 20, a group of more than 10 men beat and killed four people, two men and two women, in the Gumla district of Jharkhand State.

The four deceased, all aged between 60 and 65, came from three different families.

Local media, quoting unnamed sources, said the fatal beatings were handed out after leaders of the local village assembly met and found the victims guilty of practicing black magic.

In a similar incident the day before, three people were beaten to death by a mob in the Saran district of the neighbouring State of Bihar.

Police said the perpetrators claimed that they had attempted to steal a buffalo, something denied by the victims’ families.

Two of the three died at the scene while the third died on the way to hospital, said Police Superintendent Har Kishore Rai.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, said mob lynching was evidence of “a dangerous path” to which the nation was being pushed. “It is not people generally,” Archbishop Cornelio said. “In most cases it is local goons and fanatic Hindu groups who are involved in such violence,” he said.

A circular from the office of the Visakhapatnam police commissioner asking police stations to take steps to prevent attacks on Christians and churches has led political uproar and protests.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders objected to the circular’s choice of words. They say the police should not have mentioned any community or place of worship by name.

The BJP leaders include former federal minister D Purandes-wari and legislator PVN Madhav.

The commissioner’s office issued the circular after a local pastor submitted a memorandum to the Andhra Pradesh State government, seeking protection for churches and Christians in the south-eastern Indian state. He alleged that right wing activists targeted Christians and their places of worship.

The police chief reissued the circular without referring to any community, but the BJP leaders remain unsatisfied.

Visakhapatnam police commissioner Rajeev Kumar Meena issued the circular on July 4 in response to a petition by B Daniel Shyam through the CM’s Praja Darbar and Spandana portal. The petition was sent to all the districts for necessary action.

The circular instructed station house officers in Visakhapatnam to conduct intensive patrolling by covering all churches and provide protection to them. He also instructed ACPs to visit all churches in their jurisdiction once a month, discuss with church elders on such activities and take preventive measures.

The memo irked BJP workers. “We will meet the chief minister on July 22 and tell him about the feelings of people of different religions. We will not leave this issue,” Madhav said.

Missionary bishops and other missionaries from the Syro-Malabar Church working in Northeast India have decided to pray for Peace and Unity in their Mother Church and urge especially other missionaries of the same background to do the same.

They have also decided to make an earnest appeal to every section of the Syro-Malabar Church, Hierarchy, clergy, religious and faithful to forget all differences, whatever they be, and sincerely work for peace and Unity among the children of St Thomas.

They said they were proud of the heritage of the Great Apostle of India, their common Father, and of the immense contribution the sons and daughters of this Church had made to the growth of God’s Kingdom, especially in recent years. They said, they also rejoiced at the recent recognition that their Church had received at the World level.

However, they said, they were greatly pained at the recent incidents that have threatened the Unity of the Church which they love so much, and whose missio-nary zeal they would like to see growing daily.

“Human needs are growing and Christian anxieties are multiplying over the face of the earth,” Archbishop John Moolachira of Guwahati said.

“This is not the time to allow little differences to divide us and make our work ineffective.” He foresees common enemies taking advantage of their lack of Unity. The decision to make this humble appeal was made in Guwahati in a gathering of bishops, priests, and religious at the service of Ecumenism in Northeast India after they had reflected on July 12, under the guidance of Fr Gilbert Aranha, the CBCI Secretary of the Office for Ecumenism, on the causes of historical divisions in the Church.

They were very emphatic that they did not want to be judge-mental with regard to anything about which there are differences of opinion.

Christians in India’s Jharkhand State have claimed that a government plan to probe church land holdings amounts to persecution.

The state government is controlled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also rules nationally and has been accused of having an anti-Christian agenda.

“This is surely a vindictive action,” Kuldeep Tirkey, leader of the ecumenical Christian Youth Association, told ucanews. com. “It is the latest in a series of such probes and actions taken deliberately to target minority Christians.”

Tirkey said that since early July state chief Minister Raghubar Das has been talking publicly about the need for a probe to determine whether or not church groups legally own all the land they are occupying.

At issue is the implications of two state laws called the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act of 1949 that prohibit outsiders buying traditional tribal land.

Most of the state’s 1.5 million Christians are tribal people and many Christian institutions and parish churches stand on land said to have been donated by them.

If an investigation showed that some church-occupied lands were actually sold by tribal people to non-tribal missionaries, the state could initiate legally proceeding, church sources said.

Father Anand David Xalxo, spokesman for the archdiocese covering state capital Ranchi, said the Church had not received any official communications from the government about the investigation. “We have been hearing about such a probe from media,” the priest said.

If and when there is an official notification of the government’s intentions, church officials would respond, he added.

Christian leaders see the threat as part of what they regard as a vendetta.

Indian Catholic priest  Fr Dominic Valanmanal, who preached that an increased incidence of autism and hyperactivity in children is due to their parents’ lifestyle has apologised for his remarks.

“I have a deep affection towards autistic children. I tell their parents that I am part of their family. I am deeply saddened to hear that my words have hurt them. They are the children of  the good God and I continue to pray for them,” Fr Valanmanal says in the video.

In a previous video the priest had stirred controversy by saying that autistic children behave like animals. He also said that young men and  women who are addicted to alcohol, cigarette, beedi, narcotics, paan, adultery, masturbation, homosexuality and porn  are likely to bear these type of children when they get married  because the anointing (sanctity) is lost.

Following this Ireland and Canada cancelled their invite for Fr Valanmanal to conduct retreats in their dioceses. They stated that the priest’s statements did not reflect the pastoral care and concern that the Church has towards children and adults living with autism and their families.

Indian Christians are among the last in terms of human develo-pment in Indian society. The rate of unemployment among Christian men in rural as well as urban areas is higher than those from other religions across the country, Fides News Agency reported July 2, 2019.

Minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi presented the data in the Lok Sabha in reply to a question posed by Trinamool Congress member Prasun Banerjee. Banerjee asked the government whether it has any updated data on the unemployment rate prevailing minority communities.

Naqvi cited the data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of 2017-18. The PLFS was launched by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) in 2017 as a nationwide Labour Force Survey. According to the report, the unemployment rate among Christian men is at 6.9% in rural areas and 8.8% in urban areas, higher than men of other religious communities. Among women, Sikh females accounted for the highest number of unemployed in urban areas and Muslim women in rural areas. The minister said that in rural areas the rate of unemployment among Hindu men was 5.7%, among Muslim men 6.7% and among Sikh men, it was 6.4%. On the other hand, in urban areas, 6.9% of Hindu men remained unemployed, 7.5% was the rate among Muslim men and 7.2% among Sikh men.

A group of more than 50 people from all walks of life from the Greater Boston area assembled in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA, to protest against the unabated pace of mob lynching and the growing threat to human rights of citizens in India, especially those of Muslims, Dalits, and other minorities.

The protestors demanded justice for the victims and their families, as well as urged for immediate public action to bring an end to hate crimes against minorities. The attendees of the event included individuals of Indian, South Asian, and American origin as well as representatives from various organizations.

Concerned citizens also protested in Chicago to demand immediate action against the perpetrators of lynchings as well as the politicians encouraging them. They said, “We, the concerned citizens of India and of Indian Origin living in US condemn such lackadaisical attitude of the government towards mobocracy and therefore, encouraging Law of Jungle and demand that the country be saved from falling into a dark era where mobocracy takes over.”

People of all ages and faith held posters and banners that expressed, outrage, grief and a demand for justice. One poster read “Punish criminal political patronage to lynching,” while other one had a the names – “Akhlaq, Pehulu, Afrazul, Junaid… Tabrez. Stop before it is you.”

“It is a matter of grave concern for all people to raise their voices against this attack on Right To Be of a section of people and individuals. It is an attack on all people and is a form of state terrorism carried out by the ruling elite to attack, divert and divide people, who are struggling hard to find solutions to basic problems such as food, water, shelter, safety and security which are caused by the rule and plunder of a handful few. We must not let this pass” said Jaspal Singh who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Expressing concern over religious discrimination, Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen on July 5 said one cannot negate the political link behind it.

“As per the position of the people of various religions in the Indian Constitution, there should not be any discrimination,” Sen said during an educational event here. The octogenarian felt that the current perception is highly driven by caste discrimination and differentiation on religious grounds.

According to him, if the society reaches a position where a person is being forced to utter something and being beaten up for not abiding, everyone needs to think over the urgent needs of the hour and change the perceptions accordingly.

“We cannot say that these incidents are not politically motivated,” Sen said.

Last month a man in West Bengal’s Coochbehar district was beaten up for not uttering ‘Jai Shri Ram.’ The incident of Tufanganj surfaced after a video clip was circulated on social media.

In the video, a man was being made to do sit-ups holding his ears and forced to say ‘Jai Shri Ram.’ The man followed help-lessly.

Also, several cases of scuffle between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party workers over chanting of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ have been reported in the state.

Sen said the ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan has no historic connect with the Bengali culture, unlike ‘Ma Durga’ who has a big presence in Bengali psyche.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on June 26 pitched for the “defence of religious freedom for all,” days after a report published by his ministry made critical remarks over the status of minorities in India.

At the same time, he hailed the rule of law prevailing in India, like in the US, and said both the countries believe in it.

“India is the birth place of four major religions of the world. Let us stand up together for defence of religious freedom for all. Let’s speak out strongly together in favour of those rights, for whenever we do compromise those rights, the world is worse off,” he said while delivering a speech here.

A few days back, the US State Department, in its annual 2018 ‘International Religious Freedom Report,’ said: “Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef.” India rejected the observations, saying the “foreign entity/government” had “no locus standi to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.”

In his speech, Pompeo said both India and the US “protect inalienable rights” of their people. Also referring to the Lok Sabha elections, he hailed the democratic exercise, saying “imagine if every country had the voice which Indian people recently expressed.”

He said India and the US “should see the world as it is and see each other what we are — great democracies, global powers and good friends.”