India’s Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has raised the violent persecution of the country’s religious and other minorities in the lower house of the national Parliament. He accused the ruling Hindu Nationalist BJP party of launching a “systematic, full-scale assault on the idea of India.”
In reference to the hostility against Christians, Muslims and Sikhs, Mr .Gandhi decried what he termed the constant talk of violence and hatred, gesturing to Prime Minister Modi and his MPs. Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern (ICC) reports he questioned whether they were really Hindu, because they were not reflecting the religion’s ideals of peace and harmony.
“There has been a systematic, full-scale assault on the idea of India, the Constitution [and against] people who resisted the ideas being proposed by the BJP, who resisted the attack on the Constitution. Anyone who resisted the idea of concentration of power and wealth, aggression [against the] poor and Dalits and minorities, was crushed,” Mr Gandhi declared.
The ICC reports portions of his speech were later removed from the parliamentary record, prompting protests from the Congress party and “highlighting the explosive nature of Gandhi’s challenge to the BJP’s nationalistic tendencies.”
Mr. Gandhi’s role as opposition leader was only recently resurrected as someone with renewed power and influence after the BJP party’s recent poor performance in the national elections allowed the opposition enough seats in parliament to choose such a position.
The ICC writes: “Early reports suggest that Modi will have a difficult time promoting Hindu nationalism in this term, something that has endeared him to his core support base. The two largest parties in the BJP coalition are decidedly more secular than the BJP, and their leaders have previously wrangled with Modi.” Political analysts believe the coalition will most likely cooperate with the BJP on foreign policy and the economy but will probably baulk at efforts to continue eroding India’s secularism.
The persecution watchdog warns: “It should not be forgotten that Mr. Modi is still at the helm and he has laid out a clear agenda to reduce the country’s religious minority communities in favour of a HIndu state.”
In the latest attack on the country’s Christians, a Hindu family who recently converted to Christianity has been targeted by their relatives and Hindu extremists at their farm in Chhattisgarh state. The ICC reports 22-year-old Bindu Sodhi was murdered, but her mother, brother and sister managed to escape from their attackers.
Arun Pannalal, the President of Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, said Bindu’s only crime was that she was a Christian and believed faithfully in the Lord Jesus Christ. “The farmland she was sowing was her ancestral property. Her paternal uncle had earlier threatened the family to leave the Christian faith or be prepared to die. He and Hindu villagers refused to allow the family to plough their own field.”
The assailants claimed the family had no right to farm the land because they were no longer Hindus. Local Christian leaders say police have taken no action to arrest any suspects, but have detained friends and family members insisting on a burial for Bindu.
It’s the latest in a series of mob assaults on Christians in the state, demanding that believers renounce their faith. Hundreds of Christians recently demonstrated, calling for an end to the Hindu violence and for police to act, but it seems their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Christians make up less than 2% of Chhattisgarh’s 30 million people.
Photo: photosince / Shutterstock.com
