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America gets set to take up violence against Christians

George Iype in New Delhi

Notwithstanding Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's assurances of protection to the minority communities, the United States embassy in India is preparing a comprehensive list of attacks against Christians to send them to the US State Department's Human Rights Bureau.

Officials at the US embassy disclosed that they have already collected detailed information on violence against Christians in the past six months from the Union home ministry, the National Minority Commission and various church organisations.

Church groups have claimed that in 1998 alone there have been more than a hundred incidents of attacks and illegal actions against priests, nuns and church-run institutions and schools across the country. This figures contrasts grimly with the nearly 50 incidents of violence against Christians in the country between 1964 and 1997.

US Ambassador to India Richard Celeste has already met Home Minister L K Advani and lodged a strong protest with him about the continuing violence against minority Christians ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government came to power.

Last year, the US government set up a separate wing called the Office for International Religious Freedoms at the State Department's Human Rights Bureau. The first report from the State Department on religious atrocities is expected to be published this year.

Embassy officials said there is likelihood that the numerous incidents of attacks against Christian missionaries, burning of the Bible, desecration of chapels and demolition of churches would be listed in the first US report on human rights violations against religious minorities.

The report would state that ill-treatment against Christians have increased after the BJP government came to power and that India's 23 million Christians are under threat from Hindu militant outfits.

The inclusion of India in the report could even force the US law-makers to demand imposition of fresh sanctions against the country. A new American law now allows the Administration the power of censure and sanctions against foreign countries, which fail to protect freedom of religious practice and worship.

Though Prime Minister Vajpayee hopes that his visit to the violence-affected districts in Gujarat this week will pacify the minority communities, some of his coalition partners have asked him to issue a stern warning to the Gujarat government for failing to protect religious places of worship.

"We feel it is high time the Centre warned the Gujarat government that failure to protect minorities will result in serious repercussions including dismissal," All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Sedapatti R Muthaiah told Rediff On The NeT.

He said the very fact that Gujarat was ruled by the BJP itself was reason enough to act against the state government.

"It gives a bad impression to the central government that the BJP coalition is unable to safeguard the religious minorities like the Christians and Muslims in India," Muthaiah said, adding that the attacks against Christians will figure in the next meeting of the apex coordination committee.

He said if attacks against Christians invite international censure and sanctions against India, "then it will be the saddest day for the country as a secular entity."

After attacks against Christians in Gujarat increased last week, the prime minister had instructed Indian embassies in the US and Europe to convey that protecting minority communities in India was his government's top priority.

Indian embassies abroad have also explained that attacks against Christians have been isolated incidents, and that minority communities in India continue to enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship and practice their religion without any hindrance like other religious group.

The prime minister, his Cabinet colleagues and the coalition partners have also distanced themselves from the views of ultra-Hindu organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jangran Manch that have launched an agitation against conversions in India.

Interestingly, what would be embarrassing for the BJP government is the entirely different reports that the Union home ministry and the church groups have prepared on the incidents in Gujarat. According to the ministry findings, only two churches have been damaged in the violence that broke out in the state since Christmas Eve.

But a recent report from the church groups led by the National Council of Churches in India and the Catholic Bishops Conference of India said 32 churches, Christians institutes and schools were either burned, damaged fully or partially by the VHP-Bajrang Dal-sponsored attacks against Christians in Gujarat.

Many believe it would be embarrassing for the Vajpayee government if the US State Department lists the incidents of violence against Christians based on the church groups' findings.

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