Vatican Hugs Do Not Extend To Common Christians At Home

The question of freedom of belief has attracted widespread attention in India especially since 2014. This coincides with the year that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power at the Centre.

From then on, the country saw aggressive outbursts of violence against minorities in many parts of the country from right wing communalists. This is not to say that facets of religious communalism were absent in the polity prior to that. It has been a blight that India has lived through even under previous governments, but the scale and frequency were clearly less.

Freedom of religion or belief is guaranteed by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

Article 25 of the Indian Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of conscience, free profession, practice, and propagation of religion. India’s political establishment has, by and large, ignored these important international instruments of law.

Irfan Engineer, Director, Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism (CSSR) narrates in his book; ‘The status of Religion and Belief since 2014’ how Muslims and Christians are demonised by Hindu Nationalists as an existential threat to the idea of the Hindu Nation”.

Carrying forward this premise further, he suggests how Hindu Nationalists also deem the Christians as a threat as they run missions, and pursue “an aggressive conspiracy to convert Hindus to Christianity and make India a Christian majority country”. The claim is redundant. The fact is that the Christian population has remained at 2.3% from the day of Independence till today. Forced conversions were just a paper tiger.

Irfan Engineer continues in the same vein while referencing the demonisation of Muslims in India. The Muslim community is also accused of seeking to convert India into a Muslim majority community through demographic engineering.

By invoking charges of ‘love-jihad’, Muslims are charged with the dubious claim that they lure young Hindu women into marriage and then convert them. Engineer also illustrates how Muslims are represented by Hindutva elements as being fundamentally violent in temperament.

Between January 1 and March 15, this year 161 incidents of violence against Christians were reported by the United Christian Forum (UCF). The UCF convener A. C. Michael reports how in January alone there were “70 incidents of violence against Christians followed by 62 incidents in February and 29 incidents in 15 days of March”. There are many chilling episodes of anti-minority violence reported in the alternative and social media.

In the run-up to the 2024 Parliamentary elections there was a spate of hate speech that exceeded tolerable limits. That many came from the Prime Minister himself was most distressing.

In an assessment of the impact of the speeches, a team from the CSSS identified hate speeches on no less than ten occasions. Communal riots followed, one in West Bengal, and one in Jharkhand, both sparked by religious processions.

There were persistent efforts to erase Muslim heritage from public spaces. There was a rigorous operation to disseminate unfounded narratives demonising Muslims.

The hate speeches were calculated and designed to whip up frenzy about Muslims by portraying them as a threat to the Hindu community. These speeches sought votes in the name of religion are clearly prohibited by sections of the 123 (3) of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951 and should have been punished.

The law is clear. One cannot call on anyone to vote or refrain from voting for any person on the ground of religion, race, caste, community or language or the use of, or appeal to religious symbols. Nor is it legal to appeal to national symbols, such as the national flag or the national emblem to further electoral prospects of a candidate or for prejudicially affecting the election of any candidate.

Moreover, any attempt to promote feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of the citizens of India on grounds of religion, race, caste, community, or language, by a candidate is prejudiced and in violation of the law.

The frequent invocation of religion during the campaign by high profile leaders perpetuated disparaging references and stereotypes such as higher birth rates among Muslims, accusations of Muslims being "infiltrators" and unsubstantiated claims of ‘love jihad’.

There are public declarations by extreme right groups who want a total expulsion of Muslims by genocide or ethnic cleansing. ‘Supremacy’ is the basis of their logic.

They differentiate between the Indic races and non-Indic races, a classification that would repudiate Muslims and Christians to live as equal citizens in India under the ruse that their religions have foreign roots and, hence, they cannot be included as equal to people of other faiths whose religions took root in India. Secondary status is all they can hope for.

A recent report describes how a Hindu youth and two of his accomplices mercilessly beat up a 46-year old Muslim man to death in Thane District on Eid al-Adha. The reason for the murder was that he opposed a proposal for an inter-faith marriage of his daughter in a one-sided affair in which the girl had rejected.

After ten years of BJP rule, not just the minorities, but progressive and even handed mainstream Hindus see through the designs of the government to divide-and-rule the people.

Even Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat was impelled to admonish the BJP saying: “a true 'sevak' ‘does not have arrogance and serves the people by maintaining dignity”. Alluding to the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Bhagwat said “decorum was not maintained”.

He also addressed the flaming question of Manipur: “Manipur has been looking for peace for a year now. It should be discussed on priority. The state which had been peaceful for the past 10 years is still burning in the fire of the sudden tension that rose there or that was made to rise there. Who will pay attention to that? It is the duty to prioritise it and take note of it”.

Restoring the independence of all the institutions of democracy that have been impacted remains a challenge as the new Lok Sabha navigates passages to restore frameworks for an equitable society.

Given the new-found confidence of the Opposition, one hopes how they will mobilise the streets on anti-people policies. Their sustained voices are the ones that matter most. This was an election between the BJP and people of India.

Realpolitik demands that the people are mobilised as was the case in the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Bharath Nyay Yatra. The PM’s attempt to project a new image by the politics of appeasement has not persuaded too many.

In his recent visit to Italy for the ‘Outreach session’ of the G-7 gathering, the PM had an audience with Pope Francis. The photo-ops were publicised. There was the standard ‘hug’ and the holding of hands.

Modi invited the Pontiff to visit India. Upon his return from Italy the PM said: “I have invited him [Pope Francis] to visit India... Maybe he will fix his program [for the India visit] next year.”

The Vatican had by then confirmed a four-nation papal trip to Southeast Asia in September. India was not included on the pope’s itinerary. Despite his repeated visits to Asia, Pope Francis has never visited India. According to news agency UCAN: In 2016, the Pope was said to be “almost sure” to visit India, but the Vatican dropped the plan and instead included Bangladesh and Myanmar for the 2017 papal trip.

In October 2021, it was falsely reported that the Pope had “accepted” an invitation from the PM. According to UCAN sources, Modi and other BJP leaders have expressed on a frequent basis their desire to host the supreme leader of the world’s Catholics in the world’s largest democracy, which has around 28 million Christians, and constitute 2.3 percent of the nation's population. Yet, a Papal visit to India is a remote possibility.

To win over Christian support, the BJP is using political expediency and overtures. Prominent names from the Christian community in India attended a Christmas event at the PM’s residence.

At the gathering of Christian clergy, academics and other eminent people, the PM narrated how he understood that Jesus Christ stood for an inclusive society which is precisely what his government is striving for through “‘sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas and sabka prayas’”. The comparison was a hard pill to swallow!

A press conference on the Christmas gathering attended by activists, eminent secular activists and Christians stated that the PM is duty bound to embrace the nation’s religious minorities and invite their leaders to functions at his house on Christmas and important days.

The activists asserted that “the Christmas spirit must not let us forget the condition and tribulations of our brothers and sisters who suffer because of government impunity and the brazen political elements who have no respect for the Constitution of India and its guarantees of freedom to the citizens”.

There is also the hard truth that prominent Church and Christian institution leaders have traded Christian integrity for personal gain, and now want reprieve from their corruption by gaining political clout using flattery. There are Bishops and leaders who find themselves under the Enforcement Directorate’s scanner.

Several languish in jail. Many church dioceses and institutions have their Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licences cancelled. Leaders who hold multiple positions of leadership are under custody of the Economic offences wing (EOW).

The EOW claimed to have recovered around Rs 1.60 crore in Indian and foreign currencies from one Bishop’s residence in Jabalpur during searches carried out after registration of the cheating case. It found the bishop and his family had fixed deposits worth more than Rs 2 crore and 128 bank accounts.

In recent years, the BJP is busy pursuing Christian support, especially in Kerala and along with the tiny western state of Goa, and the Christian-dominated Northeastern states. It’s not working out like they want it to.

The voters in the Northeast region humbled the BJP with their votes. Manipur, in particular, dealt the BJP a major blow. Tribal Christians and their institutions, including churches, were singled out and persecuted since May 3 last year.

The BJP lost both parliamentary seats in Manipur to their Congress party rival. It also paid for its “anti-minority” politics in the neighbouring states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Mizoram, where Christianity is the largest religion.

Towards the future, the people of India can adopt Ambedkar’s profound vision of secularism and freedom of religions. Secularism was, for him, the course of a journey that exceeded the question of religious communities living in harmony.

It is not merely in preserving a neutral stance between various often deeply hierarchical religions, or in handing down rights for everyone to practise their faith undisturbed either by the state or by those of other persuasions. It has to transcend and discard caste oppression as an aspect embedded in society. Ambedkar’s idea of a secular democracy stressed union and camaraderie based on civic equality as its bedrock.

Ranjan Solomon is a writer and human rights activist. Views expressed are the writer’s own.