- Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ
It is happening with frightening regularity: The bashing of Christians, primarily in States run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A meticulous and well-orchestrated campaign to denigrate and demonise the Christians. Their design is devious: a clear method in their ‘madness’! The divisive agenda is to polarise sections of the majority community against the Christians. The bogey of so-called ‘conversions’ is always raised creating unfounded ‘fears’ that the population of Christians is increasing in the country, whereas the official Government statistics unequivocally prove that over the years, there is a decline in the Christian population of India!
Christians are consistently targeted: intimated and harassed; they are arrested on false and fabricated charges; their institutions are attacked. Christian literature is burnt, undemocratic demands are made on the Christians, anti-Conversion laws are weaponised, dead Christians, in some places, are denied even the right to a decent burial. Reports of these attacks (all unjustified), come in daily: and they don’t seem to stop! Above all, those who are responsible for these heinous crimes do so with impunity and are apparently guaranteed impunity by the bosses and their ilk!
The latest, is the arrest of the two Religious Sisters in Durg, Chhattisgarh. Sr. Preeti Mary and Sr. Vandana Francis belonging to the Congregation of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate (ASMI) (also known as the ‘Green Gardens Sisters’) \were arrested along with another young man (Sukhman Mandavi, a resident of Narayanpur), at Durg Railway Station, on 26 July. They were accompanying three young women (around 18 to 19 years old) to work in a hospital attached to an Agra convent. The three were charged for offences under Section 143(human trafficking) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS)2023 and under Section 4 (unlawful religious conversion) under the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act, 1968. They are currently in judicial custody; their bail application was rejected by a lower court on 29 July. Significantly, in an earlier order, the Chhattisgarh High Court has taken cognisance of previous cases where Bajrang Dal activists were accused of misusing anti-conversion laws, raising further questions about the legal basis of such arrests.
“The arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh, despite official statistics showing a decline in the Christian population, highlights a well-orchestrated campaign against minorities, raising questions about political motivations and the weaponization of anti-conversion laws.”
The arrest of the nuns has naturally sparked national outrage. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), which has normally been very reticent, cautious and even afraid of taking on the Modi regime, finally held a Press Conference in New Delhi on 28 July. The Press Release issued by the CBCI highlights some facts but is rather mild in tone. The Church in Kerala which has been toeing the BJP line so far, has through its mouthpiece ‘Deepika’, denounced the arrests in unequivocal terms while the CSI and Orthodox Churches have also registered their protest.
Meanwhile, Opposition Parliamentarians, from all parties have strongly condemned these arrests and some Parliamentarians have also visited the three who are incarcerated in Durg. Members of civil society, including academics, intellectuals and human rights defenders have strongly condemned these attacks on Christians and of course, on other minorities of the country. Meanwhile, in a powerful indication of the rabid state of the BJP, their Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs, George Kurian asserted that the arrest of two nuns from Kerala in Chhattisgarh is part of a conspiracy to create divisions between Christian and Hindu communities in Kerala. He also suggested that the media should direct their inquiries to Jesus. The sanity of the Union Minister is now being questioned by all.
The BJP is systematically destroying the country; they have eroded the secular fabric of the Constitution and the democratic ethos of the country. They have polarised the country into majority versus minority- through false, fabricated, divisive propaganda and hate speeches. India today is a laughing stock on the world stage. The Prime Minister roams the world, at the tax-payers expense, for his self- glorification. The country on every global index/indicator is in the doldrums. Whilst the crony capitalist friends of the ruling regime have a ball, it is the poor and the marginalised of the country that have to bear the brunt. They have sabotaged the electoral process and used Constitutional bodies according to their whims and fancies. They have curtailed Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech and Expression and Dissent. They have tried to instil fear into every section of society.
What the nation needs at this moment is that people must be awake to the realities around, be aware of the manipulations of the ruling regime, and arise as one nation to act now. Rabindranath Tagore puts the reality of today strongly when he writes,
Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!
Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,
breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning
call of the future;
Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith
you fasten yourself in night’s stillness,
mistrusting the star that speaks of truth’s adventurous paths;
freedom from the anarchy of destiny
whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,
and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.
Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet’s world,
where movements are started through brainless wires,
repeated through mindless habits,
where figures wait with patience and obedience for the
master of show,
to be stirred into a mimicry of life.
India, wake up and act NOW, before it is too late!
- Fr Cedric Prakash SJ is a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/writer
