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Concern over UPA toeing NDA lines on Gujarat, conversions |
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Friday, 26 August 2005 |
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 Concern has been expressed over the official position taken by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government exactly on the lines followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Gujarat and the alleged conversions of Hindus to Christianity. This has become evident from the agenda papers distributed before the members of the first NationNIC member and General Secretary of the All India Christian Council, al Integration Council (NIC) meeting convened by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on 31 August 2005.
In a letter to the Prime Minister on 26 August 2005, Dr John Dayal, a NIC member and General Secretary of the All India Christian Council, strongly protested against the NDA influence on the NIC agenda, pointing out that a large number of members strongly felt that the circulated document was contrary to the aspirations of millions of the ordinary people who had opposed the fascist forces with full determination and zeal.
It was with great disappointment and alarm that the members had received the agenda papers. Dr John Dayal said, “Some of us hope to present to the inaugural Council meeting a Paper on `A Christian perspective on National Integration' reflecting our anxieties and expectations, and our great faith in the nurture and security of democracy in our great country.”
Strongly opposing the lines being toed by the UPA, Dr John Dayal said, “We feel obliged to challenge certain basic assumptions in the Agenda papers which reflect insensitivity, to say the least, if not pre-conceived notions about our work that seems to be a carryover from the past NDA government.”
According to him, the agenda draftsmen of papers seemed to believe that “forcible and fraudulent conversions (to Christianity) are the main cause of civil unrest in tribal and other rural areas. This is a malicious myth propagated by obscurantist and fundamentalist - and often violent - political groups and their frontal organisations of a well known exclusivist ideology which believed in the thesis of ‘One nation, One people, One Culture’ totally negating the Indian reality of Unity and Diversity.”
Dr John Dayal said, “The lie has been perpetrated for decades without evidence. Nuns have been raped, priests murdered, churches attacked and believers harassed under the umbrella of this lie. No court, no state government, no district administration has been able to adduce a straw of evidence to prove fraudulent and forcible conversions. On the contrary, forcible and often violence `ghar wapsi' programmes by criminal gangs have been the norm in the tribal belt. And yet state governments have fortified anti-conversion laws till they totally erode all Constitutional Guarantees of Freedom of faith and come dangerously close to India seemingly rejecting International Charters of Freedom to which it is a proud signatory.”
The members would have expected the Inaugural NIC Agenda to be more focused and holistic, reflecting the National concern at the hijacking of the educational system, the communalisation of the body fabric, including the police force and the subordinate judiciary (as pointed out by the highest police and judicial officers in the land), the hunger deaths in various states, and finally the collusion of the state and political apparatus in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, in the victimisation of the religious minorities. He said, “We also expected the Government to promise to give Statutory and Constitutional shape to the National Integration Council, to give it at least a permanent and powerful Secretariat. I am sure you will look into it.” |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 November 2009 )
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