By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal, May 19: The innocent Muslims who were killed in the bomb blast while at prayer in the Mecca Mosque in Hyderabad on Friday (May 18) are victims of a well-planned challenge to India’s ethos of secularism, and the national integrity born of its plural culture.
Dr. John Dayal, member National Integration Council, Government of India, in a Press statement said that a similar conspiracy with a different set of agents is behind the well planned nation-wide assaults on Indian Christian Priests, Pastors, Nuns, Church workers and even their families. This conspiracy tests the legitimacy of the State’s promise of protecting its citizens, and the guarantees of the Constitution on Freedom of faith.
Dr. Dayal, who released the statement on behalf of the All India Christian Council and the All India Catholic Union, said Indian secularism has also been stressed by the sort of confrontation that has this week brought Punjab to the brink of communal violence on a large scale – mercifully contained by saner elements in the two communities. Even here, the State administration seemed paralyzed for too long a time.
He said the Indian experiment in democracy and secularism is unique in the world. India is a nation of such diversity – racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural, and the confrontation of caste, class and developmental disparities, that it requires constant vigil on the part of every citizen, and the Government. Jawaharlal Nehru’s reminder seems to have been forgotten, the statement said.
The success of the Indian democratic experiment is crucial for the world itself – for international peace, and the promise of equity and development for all mankind.
It is essential that political parties, political leadership, the State administration including its armed wings, religious leaders and civil society at large recognize their role in nurturing this still fragile unity.
Dr. Dayal said: “Hate-filled rhetoric of fundamentalist groups and fanatical gangs of thugs, egged on by political vested interests and unchecked by administrations and police forces, which are subservient to narrow political interests, aggravate the situation.”
The Christian community, itself a major victim of persecution, yet prays for peace. The community and its mass organizations call for restraint by groups whose feelings and followers have been injured.
Above all it calls for exemplary action by the government. Police forces must act not arbitrarily and in support of bigotry, but fairly, effectively and without fear or favour. The government must come out openly and assure the nation and the smallest and weakest of its communities and groups that it will protect them at all cost, as it will project democracy and secularism, the statement added.
Meanwhile, Christian mass organizations All India Christian Council and the All India Catholic Union, are organizing a prayer and Protest rally in New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on May 29 to focus attention on their own persecution and the threat to India’s unity, integrity and democracy. ([email protected])