4th Feb 2015 Letters

A cable theft left us (and several others) without telephone and internet connectivity over the weekend. Thrilled to be disconnected from the virtual world, I got busy with household responsibilities. And also managed to attend the Sunday evening service at our parish church, St. Alphonsa’s.

Imagine my confusion when I found myself staring at several whatsapp messages Monday morning. The same church had been vandalized. Last night. Some reports term it an “attack on the church”, the cops call it “burglary”. The fact that this most recent one comes just a few days before the Delhi State elections surely seeks to politicize the issue. I think of it as neither. We are exactly where we were a decade back. I wouldn’t even begin to think of it as one religion against another. 

That’s trivializing it and will serve as perfect ammunition for those seeking to divide us. An attack on a church is an attack on democracy. Liberty of belief, faith and worship is one of the cherished tenets of our democracy. Those bent on intimidating Christians in India are attacking democracy – their futile efforts will only serve to unify, not divide. 

Without falling victim to dogma and hysteria, and rather than succumbing to the usual communal narrative, what emerges for me from this incidents is a narrative that undermines equal citizenship for persons of all faiths; and the freedom to practice one’s faith without fear or insecurity.

There is clearly a failure of the State in addressing the social and political challenges that feed these attacks. And as long as our Government led by the Prime Minister Modi chooses to remain silent, the PM’s desire to transform India into a regional giant and a global force will never translate into a reality.

I refuse to be an unequal citizen. I will not let fundamentalists or burglars (whichever way you wish to see it) deny me my freedom. Gandhi was shot because the ‘freedom’ he propounded intimidated his killer. Freedom is what these miscreants are afraid of. All over the world. 

There has been yet another attack on a church in Delhi on Feb 2.   This is the fifth such attack on churches in Delhi in the last few months and it comes just before the Delhi elections.  Since the Indian Govt. led by Modi has not done anything to denounce or stop the attacks against our churches we must increase the security of all the churches in Delhi at least until the elections are over by which time we shall know if these attacks are an attempt to polarize the Delhi voters on religious lines or not.

The BJP sensing defeat in the Delhi assembly elections, appears to be pulling out all stops to prevent the Aam Admi Party (AAP) from winning fairly and squarely. The ‘expose’ of allegedly bogus donations to the AAP by a breakaway group from it, shows that the BJP will go to any extent to win the elections by hook or by crook.

That the controversy broke hardly five days before the voting day gives enough credence to the suspicion that this is a trumped up charge by disgruntled and frustrated elements of the breakaway group at the instigation and silent backing of a powerful political player. That the matter pertains to donations that were supposed to have been made more than nine months ago, makes one wonder, why bring it up now, at election time? And whose agenda is this rebel group serving? Everybody knows that both the BJP and the Congress are the biggest recipients of unaccounted money. So it is a typical case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The AAP has refuted any wrong doing. If it had anything to hide, why would it put it out in the open on the internet? Secondly, the party claims to have done due diligence by accepting payment by cheque and obtained the donor’s Pan card. It may be added here that the accounts of the AAP have been inspected twice by the home ministry and nothing amiss has been found.

Further, the AAP has sought to take out the wind from the allegations by calling for a probe by a Supreme Court- monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT). This is fair enough. That the opposition led by the BJP are trying to capitalise on thiis ‘expose’ shows their desperation. 

However, the people of Delhi are smart enough to discern and their response will be made at the elections on Saturday, February 7th. Hopefully, they will give a befitting reply to the rumour mongers.

I refer to the article regarding the desecration of yet another church in Delhi. It was very depressing  to read about the incident, which should be a wake up call for all the Christians especially  in Goa who should show their solidarity with the poor  Christians in the rest of the country who  are living under constant threats and  insecurity! This is the fifth church to be desecrated in recent months that too in Delhi!  

This time the Tabernacle  was broken open and the sacred Host thrown away as the photograph shows. Some time back in yet another church the grotto and  a statue of Our Lady was smashed and the police downplayed the incident saying that it was the handiwork of a drunkard!    

It is not at all  surprising that all of a sudden these so called ‘ drunkards’ have started targeting our churches ever since the communal elements and their organizations in the country seem to feel that they can say or  do whatever they want . Ghar Wapasi, anti-conversion row etc means that they have only one agenda and that is to polarize the voters . 

With more and more people getting disillusioned with the  governments  unfulfilled promises, their frontal organizations are now raking  up such  issues which they feel will  atleast  keep their votes intact and will still vote for their party  though grudgingly but on religious lines!