In virtual campaign, Christians distance themselves from leaders over their silence on anti-Christian violence in the country.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Over 3,000 members of the Christian community have signed an online campaign disowning the leaders, including Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai and several bishops from various Christian denominations. They are upset over the participation of these Christian leaders at the Christmas party hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence.
The Christians are critical of their leaders’ silence over the ongoing anti-Christian violence in the country.
The two-day virtual campaign, “Not in our name,” was started on Jan. 1 by Jesuit priests, Father Cedric Prakash and Father Prakash Louis, and lay Catholic leader John Dayal, reported Union of Catholic Asian News on Saturday.
Christian leaders say that in 2023 India recorded some 650 cases of violence against their community. Since Modi came to power in 2014, violence against Muslims and Christians has increased, they argue.
Sporadic violence continues in the northeastern state of Manipur, where more than 200 tribal Christians were killed and over 5,000 people were displaced in the sectarian flare-up after it started in May 2023.
Rights groups blame pro-Hindu groups that support Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the violence against Christian and Muslim religious minorities.
Modi, who seeks a third consecutive term in this year’s parliamentary polls, has never condemned the atrocities against minorities nor has he visited strife-torn Manipur, where a Christian woman was gang-raped and paraded naked in July last year.
Eleven Indian states, most of them ruled by BJP have enacted a sweeping anti-conversion law, which is often used by right-wing fringe elements to target Christians.
The anti-conversion law is used as a weapon against the fundamental right to preach, practice and propagate one’s religion, they say.
The prime minister’s lunch invitation was an opportunity for the Christian leaders “to courteously decline the invite in the light of what has been happening to Christians in Manipur and elsewhere. Hence, their acceptance of this invite was not in our name,” report quoted the campaign letter as saying.
The Christian leaders thanked Modi “profusely for many things.” But “the hard truth” is that Modi and his government have “consistently disregarded their constitutional mandate, be it to the minorities, the Adivasis, the Dalits, the backward castes, the farmers, laborers, migrants, etc. Hence, their gratitude to the Prime Minister was not in our name,” it added.
“When these Christian representatives spoke at the reception, they were giving tacit approval to the omission and commission of this government. Hence, their words were not in our name,” said the letter.
The signatories include Christian parliamentarians, legislators, retired bureaucrats and members of the Conference of Religious Indians.
Christians make up 2.3 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people.
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Photo: PM Narendra Modi interacting with Christian leaders during Christmas. — Narendra Modi/Twitter