From: [email protected]
To:
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/church-and-state-2/
Exactly a month ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke a silence in a speech
to a gathering of Christian leaders in the national capital. “We believe there
is truth in every religion,” the PM said. His government would ensure “complete
freedom of faith,” he said, and would “not allow any religious group, belonging
to the majority or minority, to incite hatred against others, overtly or
covertly”. On Tuesday, as the PM expressed concern and sought immediate reports
on the vandalisation of an under-construction church in Kaimri village in
Haryana and the rape of a 71-year-old nun in Nadia district of West Bengal, it
seemed sadly evident that minority anxieties had once again been stoked. A
month later, the task of the prime minister and his government — of speaking to
these insecurities and assuaging them — has only grown more urgent.
In these columns, on Monday, former Punjab DGP Julio Ribeiro, who helped this
nation win the battle against terrorism in the state, wrote movingly about
being part of a community that feels under siege, on a “hit list”, in its own
country. “Today, in my 86th year, I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a
stranger… I am not an Indian anymore, at least in the eyes of the proponents of
the Hindu Rashtra”. He wrote of the “systematic targeting of a small and
peaceful community”, of “extremists” who were “emboldened beyond permissible
limits by an atmosphere of hate and distrust”, and campaigns such as “ghar
wapsi”, attacks on Christian churches and schools in the nation’s capital, and
the declaration of Christmas as “Good Governance Day”. In such an atmosphere,
the same narrative of fear and anxiety seems to join the attack on the Haryana
church to the crime perpetrated in West Bengal. In this climate, moreover, even
though law and order is a state subject and it is the responsibility of the
Manohar Lal Khattar and Mamata Banerjee governments to ensure that the guilty
are quickly brought to book, the onus is also on the Modi government.
Ever since it took over last year in May, after a comprehensive victory on the
promise of change, the Modi government has seemed sincere in many of its
efforts to reinvigorate the India story that was seen to be sagging for several
reasons, including a political Centre that seemed to have lost its energy and
the plot. But an essential part of the India story is made up of the space and
respect it accords to its minorities. At a time when a minority community is
feeling under siege, this government and its institutions must honour and
underline that reality and promise — they are bound by the Constitution to do
so.
