It urged chief ministers of all states to set up experts committees to study the new education policy, the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the anti-conversion laws and other decisions being foisted on the society by the Modi government.
Abdul Bari Masoud | Clarion India
NEW DELHI/VIJAYAWADA – The All India Catholic Union, the largest and the oldest Christian organisation, warned on Sunday that the BJP government’s policies have been undermining the federal structure of the nation. It urged chief ministers of all states to set up experts committees to study the new education policy, the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the anti-conversion laws and other decisions being foisted on the society by the Modi government.
The organisation also criticised the political developments in Maharashtra, saying the BJP’s intent in installing a short-lived government a week ago was to “circumvent the Constitution” and the party got thoroughly exposed.
The working committee of the AICU met in Vijayawada and deliberated upon a range of issues confronting the Christian community as well as the country as a whole. The century-old Catholic Union, while calling called upon chief ministers to set up panels of Constitutional and subject experts to study the several new policies and bills, said they brought untold misery and suffering to the people across the board. Among these were the draft new education policy, the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), the National Citizenship Register and the Uniform or Common Civil Code, it said.
On the proposed citizenship bill, the AICU said the BJP ministers and leaders have more than once announced that the bill would be passed and the yardstick and modes of determining citizenship changed in the near future. “The NRC exercise in Assam, which recently concluded, has posed a challenge to the future of almost 20 lakh persons. It highlighted the sufferings of the people in Assam. Hundreds of people, terrified because their residency details were incomplete, have committed suicide and thousands were sent to jail branding them as suspected foreigners while many have become disenfranchised in their homeland,” it said.
The Christian group pointed out that Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s assurances that Hindus, Sikhs and Christians would not be disturbed, and would be welcomed from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, this has dealt a psychological blow to India’s large Muslim population in the world.
India is among the top three Muslim populations. “The government does not say why it will open its borders to Ahamedia and Shia sects as also indigenous people, who are also subjected to majoritarianism and state victimization in neighboring countries.”
It asserted that the new education policy posed a threat to the states’ control of education, ignored their history and culture and will impact the intellectual goals of the students who are the future of India.
Recalling the national consultation in New Delhi on the draft new education policy, it said the Catholic Union had already warned the Centre of its “deleterious results” on the nation. It has also submitted its own proposals to the government, calling for a federal participation in revising the system of education vis-a-vis matters of pedagogy and content. “In fact, minority communities must be encouraged to open more colleges to train teachers. Christians suffer the most in terms of employment, mentorship and in self-employment because of want of funds, especially seed capital, training and marketing,” it said.
On the Maharashtra political developments, the AICU said that in the BJP’s zeal to increase its political reach and power, and to implement the agenda of the Sangh Parivar, the BJP leadership did not hesitate in “bypassing the moral ethos” of the Constitution. “The maneuverings at midnight in Mumbai had implicated not only the state party and the governor, but also the Union home minister and the office of the President. Though eventually the BJP had to abandon its day-old government, its contempt for parliamentary norms became clear,” it said.
While congratulating India and Pakistan for opening the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor for Sikh pilgrims, the Christian body hoped the government here would also facilitate the visit of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Christian pilgrims to shrines in India, including such world-famous Marian shrines as the Vellankani in Tamil Nadu and Sardhana in western Uttar Pradesh, as also places of religious importance in Goa.
On alleged harassment and violence against Christians by pro-Hindutva mobs , the meeting said such violence increased in the months leading up to Christmas and Easter.
Lancy D Cunha, national president of the Catholic Union, called upon the prime minister and home minister to ensure that the community and its religious leadership including the clergy, pastors and nuns were not harassed, assaulted or attacked under fictitious charges of religious conversion. He also made it clear that the community did not believe in forcible or fraudulent conversions, as they were not only against the law but unacceptable under religious laws too.
He also urged the Union Government and the Odisha government to compensate the community which had rebuilt at its expense hundreds of churches and institutions that had been burnt or demolished during the targeted violence of 2007-08.
