Angry appeal to India’s President to end inaction over violence

As anti-Christian violence spreads to Delhi, influential church leaders in Delhi sent a strongly-worded appeal to President Pratibha Patil over the weekend to arrest Hindu militants whom they say are well-known to the authorities.

The letter enclosing a petition from members of Delhi Congregation of the Delhi Bible Fellowship – an independent church in the capital - welcomed the emergency deployment of thousands of law enforcement troops and police.

But they demanded an answer to what they called ‘the starkly obvious question any child would ask . . . WHY NO ARRESTS?’

In Orissa alone, 50,000 Christians are displaced, pastors are receiving death threats unless they ‘re-convert’, and in Delhi a mob of 400 destroyed a church and stoned worshippers last weekend.

‘This is one of my saddest days as a leader in the country in our secular, free society,’ Union Minister, Ajay Maken, who visited Christian victims at the YMCA, Bhubaneswar, on 15 September, told our reporter.  He added, ‘There is no sense of security in the rural areas.’

The letter joins calls from the All India Christian Council for the government to implement the draconian Article 355 of the Constitution of India in respect of the states of Orissa and Karnataka.

Article 355 requires ‘a duty to protect every state against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every state is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution’.

The letter also notes that some local Hindus in three of the affected areas have refused the call to attack Christian hospitals ‘because of the valuable services they receive.’

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, a leading Indian academic and banker has called for prayer from the wealthy Indian diaspora business community for the future of India.

The financier who wishes to remain anonymous, is Executive Director of a major bank in the country, and himself from a high Baniya caste.  He blames the recent horrific spate of violence, which has included the deliberate setting on fire of Roman Catholic orphans, on loss of caste status.

He said today:  ‘What we are seeing is that, into the third generation after Independence, thanks in large part due to the reservations system, the Dalits/ OBCs (Other Backward Castes) are finally being freed in massive numbers from the oppressive hold of castes such as mine.

‘Naturally, no one likes to lose privileges and perks that go back thousands of years.  Thus the violent attempt by the Hindutvans [Hindu nationalists] to re-impose the hold of traditional structures.’

He believes there is a struggle to the death between the ‘tiny minority of secularists’ - who ruled during and after Independence, and both the right-wing Hindu nationalists - who want to return the country to Hindu control - and the Maoist communists or Naxalites.

The Communists control ten per cent of India's districts, according to government figures, and are inspired by their takeover in neighbouring Nepal.

Naxalites derive from the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal where a violent pro-Chinese uprising in 1967 attempted to split from the Marxist Communist Party of India.

Said X:  ‘The recent violence was triggered by the murder of a Swami [Hindu holy man] by the Naxalites.  This does not make any sense unless one understands this contest for power.’ 

He said the three-way struggle for control over the future direction of India made the next national elections crucial.  They are set some time after April 2009.

‘It is our country that we need to pray for and all the injustices that are being committed.’

The present persecution of Christians was tiny compared with the atrocities against the Sikhs at the time of the murder of Mrs Gandhi, and those against Muslims at and after Independence, he added.

He said the secularists were compromised due to corruption, though their numbers were growing.