Naeem Shakir

[Ed. Note: The writer is a practising lawyer of the Lahore High Court and chairman of the Lahore branch of Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaf (Committee for Justice and Peace) as well as a member of the central committee of the National Workers Party in Pakistan.]

The spectre of religious intolerance and sectarian violence is now haunting South Asia. The ruling establishments are engaged in conflicts of ethnic and religious minorities who are resisting the hegemonic and chauvinistic trends developed among members of the majority communities of this region. The pluralistic character of these nation-states is at stake. This, in fact, is a phenomenon of the Cold War era during which certain demons were developed for the containment of the then-Soviet Union. These demons have become overgrown and are posing serious threats to peace and their masters now. India is a country where large numbers of ethnic and religious minorities live. There was hope that India would emerge as a modern pluralistic society housing different faiths, ethnic groups and shades of opinion and that it would be a model for other countries which have religious and ethnic minorities. Unfortunately, however, the emergence of new trends of fanaticism, intolerance and bigotry have frustrated these hopes. The emerging trend of religious fundamentalism in the subcontinent in the last two decades has been growing at a fast pace. The world’s largest democracy, India, has taken pride in its secular character. The religious extremists who are playing havoc with Indian society have grossly tarnished the nation’s secular character.

"The 21st century will belong to Hindus" was the claim made by extreme right-wing group leader Kuppahalli Sitharamaiya Sudarshan, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), while addressing about 75,000 RSS activists attending the last day of a three-day event held in Agra, India, to mark the group’s 75th anniversary. There is nothing wrong to make such a claim by any group, whether it is religious or political, so far as its actions to promote such a claim do not offend those who do not belong to the group. The utterances made by the leader of the RSS on this occasion though attracted the attention of the world community, which expressed its concern over the hegemonic moves of this group of religious extremists over members of other religious communities living in India.

Sudarshan, overwhelmed by the show of force of his group’s activists in such a large number, came out with the baneful sentiment of religious hate, prejudice and intolerance against Christians and Muslims and called upon them to acknowledge their common Hindu ancestry as the 21st century would be shaped and dominated by Hindus. He further added, "Christianity is less of a religion and is more about politics. It is detrimental to the interests of our country."

The agenda of the RSS is well-known. They want a Hindu theocracy in India. They have always believed that the real India is a Hindu India. The threats posed to Indian society, particularly members of Christian, Muslim and Sikh minorities, cannot be taken lightly as the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), head of the ruling political alliance in India, has close links with the RSS. The presence of the BJP’s home minister, Lal Krishna Advani, on the third day of the RSS meetings further caused a matter of concern over the Hindu right-wing agenda to theocratise India and subjugate non-Hindus. Advani’s participation clearly sends messages of more communal conflict in India in the days to come. The sectarian action of the ruling BJP stalwart is not only improper and ill-advised but is provocative to religious minorities as well.

The claims and utterances made by the RSS leadership are not new. The publication of malicious literature against non-Hindu religious minorities by the RSS is a regular feature. The publications of their ideologue and the central leader of this group, namely, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalker, in his Bunch of Thoughts writes, "Wherever the followers of Jesus Christ went, they proved to be not blood-givers but bloodsuckers, and the disciples of Christ helped to annihilate natives wherever they went." In his other book entitled We, Our Nationhood Defined, Golwalker makes the following assertion: "As long as the Muslims and Christians fail to abandon their own religion and culture, they cannot but be only foreigners in this country; and if they stay here without losing their ‘separate existence,’ they might be treated as enemies."

The RSS-controlled local organisations have been pursuing a hate campaign against Christians. A leaflet from the village of Gajipur in Delhi published in May 2000 says, "Warning: Put a stop to the evil deeds of the Roman Catholic devils, or Christians’ graves will be dug in India." Another pamphlet, Mujahana, requests its readers to "help Aryavarta throw out Christians and Muslims from this country." Yet another pamphlet dubs Dara Singh, the chief person accused in the murder of the Australian social worker Stains and his two sons, as the saviour of Hindus.

The BJP’s religio-political units under the umbrella of Sangh Pariwar are the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parshad (VHP) while Bajrang Dal is another group of the same Sangh Pariwar that is pronouncing punishment against "internal enemies" and "foreign agents." Consequently, Muslim shops and business establishments were boycotted in the state of Gujarat. The RSS has practically urged the members of religious minorities to become Sawadeshi, i.e., to "Indianise" themselves in a manner so that they become political Hindus and thus "nationalists." Meanwhile, the churches in India are being urged to become "Swadeshi," i.e., "Indian churches." The implication is clear that in their present form they are anti-national and "foreign." Likewise, Muslims are being urged to "Indianise" themselves. Again, the implication is that they currently do not qualify for full citizenship rights.

In order to handle these elements that are supposed to be "Indianised," i.e., the religious minorities, the three-day Rashtriya Suraksh Shivir (National Security Camp) was, in fact, a training meeting that took place in an area of more than 450 acres, an entire township on the outskirts of Agra — such elaborate arrangements to house and train 100,000 storm troopers for dealing with "internal enemies." During these three days, the RSS activists and its different groups, including Bajrang Dal and the VHP, were trained how to deal with the "enemy" in their own district. They were taught how to develop their own intelligence units to keep an eye on Christians and Islamic institutions. They were taught to combat the "enemy" without the help of the government.

The RSS activists will identify potential anti-nationals and "suspicious" characters belonging to a minority community in their neighbourhood and will keep a watch on their movements and the people with whom they associate. They will also check on public call offices, the calls made to Muslim countries and the numbers to which these calls are made. The visits of people to these countries will also come under their scrutiny. The madrasas (Islamic religious schools) will also be under special surveillance.

The Muslims, the largest minority in India until 1998, had been the major target of communal attacks and violence; but for the past three years, Christians too are being subjected to large-scale attacks by storm troopers of the Sangh Pariwar. The widespread attacks on the Christian community have assumed such dangerous proportions as to invite the attention of the world community.

In a spurt of anti-Christian violence in India, for example, four Catholic nuns from the Order of Foreign Missionary Sisters, an order specialising in medical missions in rural areas, were gang raped on Sept. 23, 1998, by a group of 20 men outside of their convent in the village of Nawapada in Jhabua District. There is also the ghastly murders of the Australian social worker Graham Stewart Stains and his two sons Philip and Timothy that took place at Ahwa-Dang in South Gujarat District. Stains had relentlessly worked in the remotest areas of the state of Orissa serving leprosy patients and the poor who are treated as "untouchables." A Franciscan missionary, George Kuzhikandam, was also brutally murdered on June 7, 2000, in the Paulus Memorial School in Navada in Uttar Pradesh. This horrifying occurrence was followed by a series of attacks on Christian places of worship in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa. The time of the bomb blasts was significant as all of the explosions took place on the same day at about the same time, which instilled a sense of terror and insecurity among Christians.

The attacks on the churches and institutions run by Christians have been provoked, masterminded and carried out by the Sang Pariwar of the BJP. A team from the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) that visited the affected sites in late 1998 observed that more than 40 worship places of Christians were torched and damaged in communal violence in just Gujarat Ahwa in Dang District. The chronicle of events in 1999 and 2000 are even more horrifying than those of 1998, which helps to evaluate how serious is the continuing situation and how vulnerable are religious minorities in India.

The Sangh Pariwar alleges that the Church is engaged in proselytising poor Hindus. The Church, on the other hand, just as strongly repels these allegations. The Church in India, represented by the heads of NCCI, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the United Baptist Church in India, the Evangelical Fellowship of India, the India Mission Association and the Pentecostal churches, held a meeting in New Delhi on Feb. 2, 1999, to review the national situation with special reference to the continued violence against religious and other minorities. The meeting issued the following statement on the conversion issue:

• "The Church and the Christian community is a special target because of its long-standing work in empowerment of the poor, the marginalised, the Dalits, women and tribals. The current pattern of violence, encompassing the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Bihar, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, makes abundantly clear the chilling design of these forces. The many recent pronouncements by leaders of these violent forces are cause for alarm."

Despite the fact that the Indian city of Bangalore is being considered as the second Silicone Valley, a position bolstered by the technological media during former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s visit to India in 2000, the fact remains that fundamentalists in India feel disturbed that they are losing ground in the presence of technological advancement. This is a common phenomenon everywhere as fundamentalists tend to stick to their positions when they observe that awareness among people is taking society forward. They are not prepared to budge an inch as ideas lag behind material change.

Nalini Taneja of the Communist Party of India writes: "During the last 12 months, the Sangh Pariwar activists have carried out more than 180 attacks against Christians throughout the country of which 70 were brutal. These included bomb blasts in churches, making bonfires with copies of the Bible and other religious literature, murders, molesting nuns, causing injuries to priests and damaging the properties of Christian institutions."

The patronage being provided to various groups of the Sangh Pariwar to maintain communal pressure against minorities was demonstrated by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when, instead of condemning the earlier attacks against Christians in Gujarat, he called for a national debate over the alleged conversions by Christian missionaries. Moreover, L. K. Advani, the home minister of the BJP government, virtually condoned these brutal events by terming them as "minor law-and-order problems."

The unabated violence unleashed against the Christian community continues. In a resolution, the NCCI said that "the minorities in India have never felt more insecure in the last 53 years of independence."

Meanwhile, the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 still haunts the Muslims of India. The implied patronage extended to these religious extremists by the BJP government has further impaired the situation.

It is heartening, however, to note that the democratic and progressive political forces in India are alive to this grave issue and are putting up strong resistance against Hindu fundamentalism. Jyoti Basu, a leader of the Communist Party of India-(Marxist), or CPI (M), and the former chief minister of West Bengal, while delivering a speech at the Chief Ministers’ Conference on internal security that was held in New Delhi on Aug. 5, 2000, said, "The activities of communal and fundamentalist elements no doubt pose a grave danger to the secular fabric of our country. We cannot forget the continuous attempts to divide the people on the basis of religion, relegating to the background our history and ideal of unity in diversity. Not only were there serious communal clashes but also the Babri Masjid was demolished. Threats are being made even now to build a temple to Ram at the site of the Babri Masjid. As a result, minority communalism is raising its head in some parts of the country. The Hindu religion is also being denigrated. Hindu gurus have not advocated attacks against other religions in order to love one’s own religion. Recent attacks on Christian missionaries in some parts of the country are a matter of concern for the entire nation."

The Sangh Pariwar activists are contesting every inch of secular space and are tearing apart the social fabric of India on communal lines. They are posing as the sole defenders of Indian culture. If secularism is not maintained, democracy in India will be in danger, which, consequently, will lead to fascism. Therefore, the magnitude of this serious issue needs to be properly recognised. In case international public opinion is not mobilised to arrest the nefarious moves of these elements of extremism, the consequences will be grave, and the lives of millions of people in India will be in danger.