There have been times when the Christian community
celebrated Christmas with peaceful heart. Gone are
those days when we thought of Christmas as times of
peace, joy and happiness. The carol singing was
considered as taking the message of peace and joy that
come with a birth of Christ to the people but the
recent happenings of violence against the carol team in
different parts of county and the threat calls issued
by the hardcore Hindu fundamental organizations have
made it an event inviting troubles and violence. Under
this circumstances the question comes to our minds is
that, will the Christianity that has faced numberless
persecutions throughout the history stop preaching the
message of peace? Will these mindless violences force
the Christians from doing charity and humanitarian
services as demanded by Christ?
How much truth is there in the allegation of forced
conversion of people belonging to the economically
weaker sections, very specially tribals and scheduled
caste? The Christians in most of the states are very
minuscule minority which has no politically voice. The
number of families in most village Churches can be
counted on fingers. So how will the powerless
Christians force the villagers to get converted to
Christianity? The Churches in these villages are mostly
very shabby and runs in small rooms which silently
proclaim the bad economic condition of the churches and
families associated with it. How could one justify the
allegation of alluring Hindus with regular or irregular
economic aid to get converted Christianity?
The Christian community must be running more than
twenty five thousand educational intuitions across the
country. And adding to it, the Christian community in
the country runs thousands of charity organizations
supporting millions of peoples to improve their lives.
If these organizations and educational institutions as
alleged by the fundamental organizations, were working
with the sole aim of conversion, then what would have
been the population of Christians in the country? If
these allegations to be true then how could many of
leaders of the Hindu fundamental organizations and
Bhartiya Janta Party leaders including Mr. L.K. Adwani
(Former Deputy Prime Minister) remain a Hindu? In the
recent years in Chhattisgarh many personal working in
educational institutions were attacked in very many
ways including very serious allegations of sexual
abuses. In spite of all these the faith of people in
the services offered by the community is still in a
growing pace. So do the allegations of using
educational and charity organizations for conversion
stand ground?
If we analyses these attacks on the institutions, some
of them are organized just to popularize to fundamental
list ideology and to stop Christians from working for
the poor and downtrodden peoples belong to be lower
strata of the society. Some of them are planned and
executed to get access to the administration of the
educational intuitions so that leaders of fundamental
organize get their choice of students get admitted to
the schools. One of the majour reasons could also be
that the Christian community is branded as supporters
of Congress Party and the socio-political organizations
following Hindutva ideology take political vendetta on
the Christians. It is true that there may be few
incidents of violence taking place due to religious
reasons.
A clear study of attacks on Christians could reveal the
fact that in many of these cases fundamental
organizations have executive their vicious plans with
the help of the police. In some of the incidents the
victims were beaten up, man handled and very badly
abused in the presence of the police or in the police
stations but police made little efforts to stop them.
In the case of the recent attacks on priests and
brothers (Christians) in Satna and Bhuranpur and
Aligarh in U.P are clear examples of police supported
violence. There are many cases reported that the
members of the fundamental organizations in the midst
of the prayer came with the police and took away the
pastor and believers who objected to the police
stations. If police find that the arrested persons have
no influence in the higher ups, then they are mentally
and physically tortured and in many cases police
register cases under the Freedom of Religion Act and
other sections of IPC and send them to jail. One might
tend to ask the question, are these police men
safeguarding the rights of people or executers of the
plans of the fundamental organizations?
There are serious violations of freedom of religion
guaranteed in the Article 25 of the Constitution of
India which grantees every citizen freedom to practice
and propagate his/her faith. How could one interpret
conducting prayers in houses, conventions, retreats,
Bible studies, carol singing, etc as methods of forcing
or alluring people to conversion? The misinterpretation
and misuse of the provisions in the Freedom of Religion
Act is a clear violation of the spirit of the Article
25 of the Constitution of India. We need to place the
Christmas and the worries of the Christians in the
background of these rising unseen violent situations.
In the midst of most uncertain times we pray, Oh! Lord,
Have Thine Own Way, yes it calls for a total surrender
of oneself at the feet of the Cross, Wish you all a
Happy Christmas.
Father Dr. Anand Muttugnal
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