By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Thiruvananthapuram: Adding fuel to the burning Ghar Wapsi controversy in Kerala, Christian outfits have heavily criticized the Sangh Parviar fold and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for lapses in ensuring safety and constitutional rights of the minorities in the country.
Coming down heavily against the conversion controversy and ‘ghar wapsi’ programme, Archbishop Emeritus of the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Changanassery, Mar Joseph Powathil, said that the reconversion attempts were initiated on Christmas day to insult the minorities.
Mar Powathil, Archbishop Emeritus of Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Changanassery
In an article in ‘Laity Voice’ – an e-journal of the Syro-Malabar Laity Commission – Mar Powathil said the programme is being led by religious fanatics. Expressing deep concern on the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the continuing controversy, Powathil, in the article titled ‘Minorities are not immigrants, but sons of this land’, said it was an attempt to insult and pressurise minorities by conducting organised reconversions on Christmas day.
He also expressed concern over the announcement of the RSS leaders that India will become a 100 % Hindu nation by 2021. “Does the statement mean that other religions will be made to vanish from the country?” he asked and added, “The attempts to convert India into a religion-based nation are the violations of rights granted by the Constitution to the minorities. It is an encroachment upon the fundamental rights of the citizens in the country.”
He laid stress on the need to raise public emotion against the atrocities against the religious minorities. “Minorities have not come from outsides. They are born and were brought up here and selected philosophies they want to follow. Forcible religious conversion is in violation of our fundamental rights,” he said.
Image of the article
Making a law against the reconversion seems not a feasible option as it will create inconvenience to the fundamental right and will lead to misuse and misinterpretation, the article said.
As per a report in Hindustan Times, at least 58 persons, most of them Christians, were converted to Hinduism at two temples in Kottayam as part of the ‘ghar wapsi’ programme on Christmas day. The same report had quoted Chief Minister Oomen Chandy saying the situation did not warrant a government intervention as “There is no compulsory conversion or reconversion in the state and it will not take place. If somebody voluntarily takes any decision, what can the government do?”
Related:
Conversion: Politics of Religion