To earn superpower status, "India needs to protect its minorities"
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - "As India tries to carve out a place for itself among the world's superpowers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should state unequivocally that the country's minorities, Dalits, women and children are safe from his party's shock troops and that they live in a state of law," said Sajan K. George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC).
Speaking to AsiaNews, Mr George looked at the Indian prime minister's two faces ahead of his upcoming visit to the United States. One face projects the image of the economic reformer and is turned outward, towards the world; the other, that of the leader of right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and radical Hindus, is turned towards home.
"Modi's growing national reputation is based on his promise to unlock India's chained potential, not on building a Hindu supremacist state," said the Christian leader. However, "to take his word at face value would be devastating for India and extraordinarily naive for Indians."
"The BJP is just one of the many faces of the hydra that is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a nationalist paramilitary group modelled after the fascist parties of the European right of the Second World War".
Banned under British rule and outlawed three times after India gained independence, "the RSS stuck it out and rose again," George noted. "That their vision of a Hindu state is narrow-minded and a source of division and exclusion is beyond any doubt, but their new grip on political power is unprecedented."
As Modi travels to New York - to ink more billion dollar contracts no doubt - the GCIC is also concerned about "the unjust treatment meted out to some members of the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America, which has been denied a visa only because they demand justice for the victims and survivors of anti-Christian pogroms in Kandhamal." The GCIC is a member of FIACONA.
The irony is that until a few months ago Modi himself could not travel to the United States because of his role in the sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.
"FIACONA appreciates the concerns expressed on several occasions by the prime minister of India about the persecution of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh," George told AsiaNews. "Nevertheless, he should do the same for Christian minorities in the same countries."
"The Christian federation welcomes the premier, whose affirmative action plan refers to equal opportunities," said the GCIC president. "Sadly though, it does not apply to our Dalit brothers and sisters."
Ultimately, "if the BJP leadership believes that it should not repeat [the mistakes of] the past, it must act effectively to stop the violent instincts of its shock troops, which continue to attack Christians and their property."
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