Indian Church refuses to endorse political party in election
Assam Christians outraged by Hindu leader’s “divisive” remarks
Moral theologians address challenges in biomedical ethics in India
Persecution of Christians has worsened around the globe, according to new study
Pope to Cardinals-elect: Keep your eyes raised, your hands joined, your feet bare
Tribal Christians avoid travel fearing attack in India’s Manipur
Pope Francis’ visit to Singapore ‘has revived the faith of our people,’ cardinal says
Cardinal Dolan: Harris received ‘bad advice’ to skip Catholic charity dinner
Two international reports recently have left Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in India grieving and complaining that global organizations probably have an agenda against it. The complaining started after reputed agencies doubted if India is indeed a democracy.V-Dem Institute in Sweden has downgraded India’s status from a ‘democracy’ to ‘an electoral autocracy,’ while another NGO, US-based Freedom House said “India’s status declined from ‘Free’ to ‘Partly Free’ as a nation due to a multiyear pattern in which the Hindu nationalist government and its allies have presided over rising violence and discriminatory policies affecting the Muslim population.”The Freedom House report made caustic and vitriolic comments on the status of Muslims in India under Modi, whose government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is wedded to pro-Hindu political ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism.Subscribe to your daily free newsletter from UCA News“The political rights of India’s Muslims continue to be threatened,” it said and referred to Indian government and parliament enacting a new law, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which grants ‘special access to Indian citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants and refugees from neighboring Muslim-majority countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.It also said Muslim candidates notably won 27 of 545 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha
The recent harassment of Christian nuns from Kerala in Jhansi by Bajrang Dal goons, and also the police, must be unequivocally condemned as a disgrace to our country.Nuns are women who render great service to society in the fields of education and health care. The best girls schools in India are run by the convent ‘sisters’, and everyone wants his/her daughters or other female relatives to be admitted to these schools. The hospitals they run are also excellent.The nuns give their whole lives in service to society, wanting nothing in return for themselves. They live a life of sacrifice, depriving themselves of the pleasures and happiness that most women have, of a family life with a husband and children.And yet many people level all kinds of false allegations against them, some of them being unmentionable. The allegation that they do forcible conversion is palpably false.When I was a lawyer, and later a justice in Allahabad High Court, the nuns of St Mary’s Convent, Allahabad, who run the best girls school in the town, would often come to me for help, which I always gave pro bono.Their worst harassment would begin a month or two before school admissions in the month of March (the school session started in April). Often, they were harassed by the authorities, who wanted their daughters or other female relatives to be admitted in the school.Now, seats are limited, and for every seat, there would
Babasaheb Ambedkar and the prime minister of the day, Jawaharlal Nehru, had in the newly independent country’s constitution sought to make amends to a historic ethnic wrong done over three millennia to this group of citizens. Article 341 therefore gave them a special place, and social rights which invaded political representation, and reservations of up to 15 percent in educational institutions and government employment. Ambedkar would later leave the cabinet, and in 1956 leave the Hindu religion to join, with half a million others, the Buddhist faith. His followers would be called Ambedkarite in time, and today they are an important part of national politics and civil society. So, what forced the very secular Nehru and the chair of the constitution-writing committee to renege on their own written promise? Article 341 was not diluted but emasculated by the Presidential Order of 1950 under the irresistible pressure of the most powerful segments of not just the opposition parties but also of the ruling Congress, especially its members from what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. This said that the constitutional guarantees of affirmative action would be limited only to those who remained Hindu. In effect, people would not be entitled to reservations and the umbrella of the untouchability-ending laws if they left the Hindu fold. This, in effect, is the world’s most extensive, most pow
During the unpleasantness surrounding the arrest of 22-year-old activist Disha Ravi, the most unsavory of the many disagreeable elements in the controversy was the attempt of Hindutva social media warriors to disparage her by claiming she is Christian. She is not, but what if she were? In the BJP’s “New India,” is merely being Christian enough to qualify for the epithet “anti-national”? The irony is that Christians have long been among the builders of modern India, and many are the BJP leaders who, like L.K. Advani, had their intellect first shaped by Christian education. My first substantial interaction with Christian teachers took place when, as a rather nervous young boy, not yet six years old, I was admitted to the Montfort Boys’ Boarding School in Yercaud, Tamil Nadu. A year later I joined the prestigious Campion School, Bombay, where a majority of the teaching staff was Christian, and finished high school at the St Xavier’s Collegiate School in Calcutta, where I encountered a few more teachers of that persuasion. I should mention that the three schools I went to from ages six to 16 had an interesting detail in common: they were all Catholic schools, two of them Jesuit. It is remarkable how much this one order has done to educate and train millions of Indian children to make successes in their lives. A number of the priests at these schools were remarkably well-trained. At St Xavier’s I remember s
I have read the reply given by Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara (Light of Truth 1-15th February) to a question about the prospects of Pope Francis visiting India in the near future. Having been a seasoned Vatican diplomat, Archbihop Kuriakose has given a diplomatic reply saying that one cannot write off such a visit in the future. Being the Head of State of the Vatican which has diplomatic relations with India with an Indian Ambassador to the Vatican and a Vatican Nuncio (Ambassador) in New Delhi, State Protocol requires an invitation from The President of India to the Pope to visit India. Of course, if it is a Pastoral visit, it ceases to be a State visit. The fact of the matter is, to the best of my knowledge, such an invitation has not been extended to the Pope by the President of India during the BJP regime. Pope Francis has visited other countries in the region and I am not sure whether his flight has overflown Indian territory. It would have been a great act of courtesy, if the government had even sounded out the Vatican State Secretariat about such a possibility, but it did not. By nature of things, it will not be possible for an RSS/BJP government to ignore its own unfavourable and at times hostile attitude towards Christians in India. After all, the RSS does not consider Christians in India to be one hundred percent Indians. The present RSS Chief said recently that all Christians in India are Hindus. I remember listening to Prof Balraj Madok, one of the Founde
