[sacw] sacw dispatch #1 (10 June 00)

Fri, 9 Jun 2000 23:23:28 +0200

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #1
10 June 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

[Speak up against communal politics & violence against minorities.
Perpetrators of these hate crimes need to be brought to book swiftly !!
Posted below are news reports & comments on the recent spurt in
anti christian violence in India.]
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#1. India's Christians concerned over church bombings
#2. India: Bomb blasts at Churches in Andhra, Goa, & Karnataka denounced
#3. Method in the madness (Editorial, Indian Express)
#4. India: Dangerous hate crimes (Editorial, The Hindu)

__________________________

#1.

BBC News Online: World: South Asia
=46riday, 9 June, 2000, 14:38 GMT 15:38 UK

India's Christians concerned over church bombings

Church leaders in India have expressed concern about what they call an
ominous escalation in anti-Christian violence following attacks on
Thursday in which four churches were bombed.

The bombings, in Goa and the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka ,
followed the beating to death of a Roman Catholic priest at Mathura in
northern India earlier in the week.

Church leaders called on the government to provide more protection for
Christians, and some accused the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party, which leads India's coalition government, of allowing a growing
anti-Christian hate campaign.

A senior leader of the BJP has blamed the bomb attacks on Pakistan's
intelligence services.

=46rom the newsroom of the BBC World Service

[Subsequent report]

BBC News
=46riday, 9 June, 2000, 16:03 GMT 17:03 UK
'Anti-Christian campaign in India'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_784000/784378.stm

_______

#2.
> > PRESS STATEMENT
> > 9 JUNE 2000
> >
> > Ominous qualitative escalation in anti-Christian violence
> >
> > Bomb blasts at Churches in Andhra, Goa, and Karnataka denounced
> >
> > Christian Community deeply concerned at sharp rise in hate rhetoric by
> > fundamentalist and communal groups; Government silence intriguing

> > The following is the text of the Statement issued at the Press
> > conference addressed by Archbishop Alan de Lastic, President, Catholic
> > Bishops Conference of India, President, United Christian Forum for
> > Human Rights, Archbishop of Delhi; Church of North India's Bishop of
> > Delhi Rt. Rev Karam Masih and Mr. John Dayal, National spokesman, All
> > India Catholic Union, All India Christian Council and United Christian
> > Forum for Human Rights
> >
> > The sharp escalation in anti-Christian violence -- in the number of
> > incidents, their intensity, spread and quality -- is an ominous
> > development that must deeply worry Government, political leaders,
> > civil society and all those who are concerned about our beloved
> > country.
> >
> > A Secular, Democratic and United India is being put to the test today
> > by communal and fundamentalist forces. Innocent blood has been shed,
> > and shed again. The cry of the traumatised community is sought to be
> > drowned in the strident noise of a viciously poisonous, highly
> > motivated and well-financed hate campaign.
> >
> > We are intrigued by the response of those in power, and saddened at
> > the silence of the Government on whom we look upon for support in
> > meeting the gravest challenge our community has faced in the 53 years
> > since Independence of India.
> >
> > The brutal murder of Brother George Kuzhikandam in Navada, Mathura in
> > Uttar Pradesh, on 7 June 2000 week was the culmination of near
> > identical attacks on priests, nuns and lay persons in several places
> > in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in the last six months. The blasts of
> > timer-triggered explosive devices on 8 June 2000 in the American
> > Baptist Church, Ongole and Roman Catholic Mission church in
> > Tadipalligudem, West Godavari (Both in Andhra Pradesh), St Andrews
> > Church, Goa and the Catholic Church, Vadi (Karnataka) follow the blast
> > at a prayer meeting in Machilipatnam in May. It was a miraculous
> > providence that lives were not lost. We shudder at the dimension of
> > human tragedy if it had been a Sunday, or a festival.
> >
> > The Governments and their civil and police offices have chosen to see
> > no more than `isolated criminal incidents' in all this. We wonder why
> > those in authority do not see the pattern in the violence, and why
> > they hesitate to explore fully all dimensions of the anti-Christian
> > environment that has been created in Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat,
> > Haryana and other states. What seems to be more and more a sinister
> > plan of communal hatred is palpable to all persons of goodwill, who
> > are as alarmed as we are at these developments.
> >
> > The same period has seen several publicised `reconversions' of
> > Christian tribals in Orissa with the district authorities and the
> > police standing by. Heads of a few fundamentalist organisations have
> > declared at Press conferences, and in millions of copies of hate
> > literature, their intention to `wage war' on minorities and their
> > programme to `eliminate Christian missionaries'. Why is it that such
> > activity has not engaged the attention of the Government and its
> > agencies? Why is that it has not attracted the provisions of the Law
> > of the Land?
> >
> > This is what injures the fair name of this ancient land in the comity
> > of nations.
> >
> > The people of a free India do not have to appeal to Government for
> > their safety and security. Their life and their freedom of religion is
> > guaranteed by the Constitution, and protected by the Rule of Law. The
> > Government is duty bound to uphold these guarantees. It must act now.
> > It must restrain those who seek to divide communities and threaten to
> > wage war on innocent minorities. It must catch and punish those
> > responsible for murder and terror. The blood of the innocents demands
> > this.
> >
> >
> > Sent By Ephraem Jacob
> > New Delhi
> > Tel: 011-3363214
> >

_______

#3.

Indian Express
10 June 2000
Editorial

Method in the madness

The four bomb blasts that took place in various parts of the country on
Thursday, all of them targeting churches, seem to suggest a well thought
out plan to create panic among Christians. Before the madness gets out
of hand, it needs to be addressed at the highest levels of the
government and the administration. To term them as isolated incidents
perpetrated by faceless ``miscreants'', as the authorities have tended
to maintain thus far, is the best way to do nothing. Each apathetic
response of this kind leads to fresh violence.

In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, the explosions that tore through two
churches in Ongole and Tadepalligudem were the fifth such attacks over
the last 18 days. Northern India, especially the states of UP and
Haryana, have seen Christian priests and nuns being assaulted and even
bludgeoned to death, with Brother George Kuzhikandan's ghastly murder on
the premises of a school on the outskirts of Mathura being the latest
addition to this gory list. Again, the local police and district
administration here have tended to dismiss them as cases of personal
enmity or dacoity and have proved unable to stem the rising spiral of
violence.

Over the last six months, there have been 35-odd attacks on Christian
institutions and individuals. Yet neither the Centre nor the various
state governments concerned have displayed the necessary urgency in
their responses. The spontaneous slogans raised by an angry group
against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in the wake of
the latest bomb blasts are significant. The enraged protestors wanted
the TDP to break off its links with the Central government. The
perception then seems to be that the BJP-led government is either unable
or unwilling to put an end to attacks of this kind and the tardy and
pitifully inadequate responses from chief ministers like Ram Prakash
Gupta and Keshubhai Patel have only gone to confirm this. It is a
perception that Prime Minister Vajpayee should take due note of, if his
government's credentials of ensuring stability and communal harmony are
not to be badly tarnished.

Chandrababu Naidu clearly realises the danger of letting the situation
slide into anarchy and has displayed commendable energy in trying to
mollify the traumatised Christian community in his state. Not only did
he personally visit the areas where the blasts took place, braving angry
demonstrators in the process, he announced a relief package to the
injured and promised that his government would rebuild the damaged
churches. But his assurances that the TDP government would take stern
action against the people behind the attack may not inspire much
confidence, given his conspicuous inability to prevent attacks of this
kind in a state that has been largely free of communal rancour. But
that's just the point. Today, no region of the country can claim to be
free of the virus of hatred. On Thursday, Goa where churches have been
part of the landscape for centuries witnessed a bomb attack on a church,
as did neighbouring Karnataka. This is reality and it demands an
emphatic response from all Indians.

______

#4.

The Hindu
10 June 2000
Editorial

Dangerous hate crimes

THE BRUTAL MURDER of a Catholic missionary near Mathura last Tuesday and
the bomb attacks on Christian places of worship in Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka and Goa on Thursday reinforce the disturbing pattern of
physical assaults on the minority community, its missionaries and the
educational institutions run by it. Less than two months ago, Uttar
Pradesh was witness to such incidents in places such as Mathura, not to
mention the earlier outrageous episodes in the Dangs region in Gujarat
and Manoharpur in Orissa. Two factors are striking about the latest
attacks. First, they have occurred on the same day and around the same
time in three different States and this certainly cannot be dismissed as
a mere coincidence. The second and more worrying feature is the use of e
xplosives. In Andhra Pradesh - the State where Thursday's Ongole blast
was the sixth such occurrence in recent weeks - a `time' device is
reported to have been employed at least in one instance. It is perhaps
fortuitous that the blasts did not result in any loss of human life. But
the message sought to be conveyed by the perpetrators of the crime is
unmistakable: to instil a sense of insecurity in the minority community.

In the immediate context, the priority of the State Governments
concerned should of course be bringing the culprits to justice swiftly
and initiating measures to ensure that such attacks do not recur. The
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, may be right in
suspecting the hand of a ``single criminal gang'' behind the series of
bomb blasts targeting churches in his State. In any event, no effort
should be spared in tracking down the criminal elements and in
unravelling their gameplan in all its insidious ramifications. For
instance, one wonders whether there could be an organic or motivational
link between the Andhra Pradesh blasts and the Agra episode wherein a
Christian group from that State was attacked and some scriptural
material was set on fire last April, with the suspect Bajrang Dal coming
up with a counter charge of `induced' conversion against the victim, a
Hyderabad-based contingent.

But the point is that the Governments have almost invariably tended to
see, for their own reasons, the various assaults on the minority
community from the narrow viewpoint of law and order and have been
overly anxious to discount the `communal' angle. Even where the
ostensible motive happens to be robbery or personal grievance (either
with the individual or the institution targeted) or enmity, it would be
unwise to write out the communal factor and refuse to see such seemingly
`isolated' and `purely criminal' acts in the wider perspective of the
anti-minority milieu that the hindutva forces have engendered by their
hate campaign. In fact, even the National Commission for Minorities, a
statutory body mandated to ensure that the minority communities really
enjoyed the rights guaranteed under the Constitution, would seem to have
acquired the official establishment's blinkered vision. Witness the
NCM's report on the Uttar Pradesh incidents, ruling out the communal
motive; its finding on the basis of a flawed and cursory exercise flew
in the face of facts thrown up by quite a few objective enquiries.
Nothing could be more tragic and ironic than the fact that the
credibility of the Commission as a protector of the minorities' rights
should stand severely eroded just at the time when these communities
feel increasingly threatened as a result of the vicious campaign by the
majoritarian fundamentalist forces who have apparently become emboldened
under the benign gaze of the BJP-led coalition regime at the Centre. In
sum, it is not enough that the Governments remove the proximate and
superficial causes for the recurrent attacks on the Christian minority;
the political establishments need to take credible initiatives towards
arresting the sangh parivar's hate campaign. Unless this comes about,
whatever assurances that the Prime Minister or Chief Ministers may
choose to give the minorities on protecting their rights will carry
little conviction.

_______

#5.

______________________________________________
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