Teresa, her critics, and her followers

The Saint, the Fanatic and the Miracle

The Politics of RSS tirade against Teresa

JOHN DAYAL

One wonders if the Vatican will recognize the happenings in India in the last week of February 2015 as the Miracle it is looking forward before it canonizes Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, the Macedonia-born Albanian nun of the Loreto Convent who came to India, founded the Missionaries of Charity, took the country’s submerged tenth of the population to heart as an Indian citizen, was given the Nobel Prize, the highest Indian honour of the Bharat Ratna,  and became immortal as Mother Teresa. A title given by the people, much as the honorific of the Mahatma was given to another person who gave his life for political freedom for his homeland.

The latest “miracle” was a social revolution in some ways, a great churning and unification. A vast section of the billion-strong Hindu population rose in righteous indignation when the supreme leader of the nation’s fundamentalist group of religious nationalists chose to vilify the Mother, accusing her of using her works of love and charity  as means of  converting Hindus to Christianity in India. The Mother’s defenders ranged from film actors, men and women, to sports icons turned parliamentarians, such as Mr. Navjot Singh Siddhu. There was an angry interlude in Parliament where some of the most luminous members spoke of what she meant to them, and to the people of India. Many, including the Chief Minister of Delhi, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, fondly and gratefully, recalled their own days of service in her ashram in Kolkata, and how their meeting her changed their lives. The people of the City of Kolkata took it as a personal affront. For once, spokespersons of the Christian community became redundant, though, for the record, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and the Archbishop of Delhi issued statements

Mother Teresa is not yet a saint in the Catholic church. Love her or hate her, but her main work was with her hands, and with her heart, with people who even religion had forgotten. It was Caritas, Love, which is much more than charity or good works.  She had been abused vilified, opposed even in her lifetime, and by experts who knew their theology and their sociology. Many have written books, some made documentary films against her.  Hundreds of millions across the world, and a fair proportion of Hindus in India, called her a Saint long before her cause went to the Vatican.

What had happened in India this week was not a religious phenomenon, nor a clash of civilisations or anything as profound and  epochal as much as it was a political issue, though people for their own reasons did not so want to call it.

Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the  Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh,  RSS, is not a spiritual leader. He is a politician who heads a political and social group that thrives in the legal shadows and seeks to mobilize Hindus on an ideological argument of religious nationalism. The RSS has spawned a large brood of other organizations under the collective of the Sangh Parivar with the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently in power, as its political wing. The two most famous contemporary volunteer-leaders of the RSS are Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, Prime minister of India from 1998 to 2004, and Mr. Narendra Modi, who swept into power in May 2014. The Madhya Pradesh government, headed three terms by anther volunteer-leader, Mr. Chauhan, has just declared that the RSS is a cultural organisation and government employees are free to become members if they so wish. He has not clarified if policemen and judicial officials can also join the group which was banned for a time after one of its members assassinated Mahatma Gandhi back in 1948.

Mr. Bhagwat, as reported in the media this week, told a meeting that while Mother Teresa may be known for her service, the real motive for her work with the poor, the orphans and the  dying destitute was her desire to convert people to Christianity.

The importance of Mr. Bhagwat’s statement is in its timing, not in its content which is quite consistent with what he and his predecessors have been saying every since the Mother started picking up people on the verge of death on the streets of the city, and taking them home to a few moments of dignity and the experience of human love.

Mr. Bhagwat timed his remarks within a few days of the widely welcomed speech of the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, assuring Indians of their Constitutional guarantee of freedom of faith, and of security. Mr. Modi did seek to put the majority and minority communities in the same frame as equally culpable, but nonetheless, Christians in particular saw his remarks as a condemnation of the violence that has taken place against the community not just in the forests of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, but even in the national Capital, New Delhi.  Mr. Modi had not named the RSS and the Hindutva Parivar, but Christians had presumed that his remarks were also directed against that group.

Mr. Bhagwat too has continued to stress that India is a Hindu Rashtra, with one people professing one religion, a sort of a theocracy and not the polyglot, multi-ethnic country with just about every religion of the world, knit into a secular and functional democracy. Several leading lights of the ruling party also seem to believe this to be the case. There has been remarkably little toning down of the rhetoric despite a severe drubbing the party received some weeks ago in elections to the Legislative Assembly of the national Capital territory of Delhi.

His remarks also came on the eve of the RSS-affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad [VHP], which works amongst indigenous Tribes, celebrating its  golden jubilee on 28 February in Kandhamal district of  Orissa State, which saw massive religious violence against Christians in 2007 and 2008 in which more than 120 persons were killed, a nun and other women raped, 6,000 houses and 300 churches  destroyed. Dr. Praveen Togadia, the international head of the VHP is the chief guest at those celebrations. His role in precipitating that violence, which followed the assassination of a senior VHP leader in the district, was alleged, but never investigated. The district’s Christians had sought protection from the state government to ensure there was no hate, and no violence. The entry of Mr. Togadia to Kandhamal for the meeting was subsequently banned by the district administration.

Mr. Bhagwat’s statement reopens a larger political debate on the revival of religious propaganda to divert the attention of the people from issues of governance and economic recovery that Mr. Modi had promised in his electoral campaign, but is finding it increasingly hard to deliver. And though the government has made half-hearted efforts to insulate itself from the fall-out of such remarks, there are arguments by academicians, political observers and civil society that Mr. Modi and Mr. Bhagwat could be acting in tandem. A sort of Good Cop, Bad Cop partnership.

Many luminaries of the  BJP have come to the defence of Mr. Bhagwat even as the Prime Minister fails to denounce his statement. One of them is Ms. Meenakshi Lekhi, a lawyer and now Member of the Lok Sabha from Delhi.  She is also, and perhaps even better known as the daughter in law of the late Supreme Court senior lawyer, Mr. P N Lekhi who was in his time as well known as the redoubtable Mr. Ram Jethmalani for his pugnacious defence of the Sangh Parivar. In blogs and articles, she sought to trash the defenders of the Mother, in particular  her biographer Mr. Naveen Chawla, a former Chief Election Commissioner of India.

Ms. Lekhi’s arguments were based on the dictionary meaning of the term Missionary, which – and she quoted – the Oxford Dictionary said was a person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country, and Merriam Webster's said was  person who is sent to a foreign country to do religious work (such as to convince people to join a religion or to help people who are sick, poor, etc.) “Keeping these very simple definitions in mind, I would like to ask Mr. Chawla that when Mother Teresa herself said she was a missionary, if admirers, biographers and world leaders also identified Mother Teresa as a missionary, why are you [Mr. Chawla] then trying to wipe clean the annals of history by claiming that she is NOT a missionary, that she is not one who served in the name of religion, that she is not one who laboured to get people within the fold of Christianity, and that she was not here to promote Christianity?”

Ms. Lekhi, like a good lawyer, quoted also from the 275-rule called 'The Constitutions' of the Missionaries of Charity', and from the website of the Order that “devotional materials are distributed to the poor in the course of their work. ”Why is this fact being contested then? Do not take away from that noble woman that which has been the very core of her identity and her work - the promotion of Christianity and what is evident in the name of the organisation itself… At least Mother Teresa had the courage of conviction and honesty of purpose and never shied away from missionary activities, unlike organisations who do it under deceptive garbs.”

The BJP government has been making a case of late against what it describers as missionary work, a carry-all term that now seems to include all Christian social activity and lumps it as propagation of faith with a view to proselytization. The entire discourse around the need for a national law to curb conversions, and the move to curtail the already restrictive Foreign Contributions Regulation Act for Non-Governmental Organisations in the development and empowerment sectors, is precipitated on the argument that it creates rifts in rural and tribal society and also impacts the development objectives of the government.

Mother Teresa’s personal conviction that her work was propelled by Christ, who she loved with her life, and who she saw in every human being, and more so those in suffering, was sought to being reduced to a political argument of destabilizing Indian or specifically Hindu society.

Indians rejected the Sangh argument almost as soon as it was made. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal criticised Mr. Bhagwat’s comments, saying “I worked with Mother Teresa for a few months at Nirmal Hriday ashram in Kolkata. She was a noble soul. Please spare her.” Others pointed to the fact that the Missionaries of Charity had their ashrams in just about every country on every continent in the world.

The well-known police officer, Mr. Julio Rebiero, in an article summed it up for most admirers of the Mother, “As Ambassador to Romania I was concurrently accredited to Albania, the country of Mother Teresa’s origin.  On one of my visits to Tirana, Albania’s capital city, my wife and I were lunching with Reis Malile, the Foreign Minister and his wife when a message was received that Mother Teresa was on her way to Romania from Rome and wanted me to accompany her.  The Albanian Foreign Minister told me that they considered Mother to be their own and his government was very keen for her to open a centre of the Missionaries of Charity in Tirana.  Their talks with her had bogged down because of Mother’s insistence on positioning a Catholic Priest in her proposed centre.  This was not acceptable to the Albanian government as it was officially an Atheist State and did not allow the open practice of any religion.  Reis Malile wanted me to explain to Mother that Albania had been predominantly Muslim before all religions were banned.  If they allowed a Catholic Priest they would also have to allow Muslim Mullas and that would open the gates for myriad problems that they did not wish to face.  When I mentioned this to Mother she was very clear that god could be worshipped by different people by different names and in different forms and she saw no merit in the Albanian government’s denial of the right to worship to Muslims, Christians or other faiths. After the Communists were replaced and religions worship was permitted in Albania Mother Teresa was approached by some young boys to cut the ribbon before their entry into a Mosque which the government had earlier converted into a museum but was now restored as a place of worship. Mother Teresa willingly went and cut the ribbon. When I asked her about it she said that god is one and if Muslims want to worship god it is a good thing that they were doing and they needed to be encouraged.”

This is an argument that is politically not what the Sangh Parivar wants to hear. Its stock in trade is identifying Muslims as a people who will overwhelm the Hindus of India, its solitary power base, by a rapid growth of their population through polygamy and large families. It generates paranoia and hatred against Christians substituting proselytizing as the cause of the population growth.

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A Muslim Prayer Cap would Have Been Simpler, Mr Modi

A Muslim Prayer Cap would have been more affective, Mr.Modi

JOHN DAYAL

Mr. Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, does not take kindly to advice, specially of the unsolicited variety. But let me risk it;

Mr. Prime Minister, you would have done better, achieved a thousand times more, and  helped India’s cultural integrity, unity and amity – and therefore its prosperity – by the simple visual action of putting on a Muslim Prayer cap, delicately crocheted in white cotton thread, in front of the global TV news cameras. You need not have gone to a Jumna Masjid, or even to a meeting of your favourite Muslim leaders in Gujarat, or a private function at the homes of the three Muslim ministers in the Union government and the Bharatiya Janata party top leadership.

That would have perhaps undone much of the damage to your reputation among religious minorities since you infamously refused to wear a cap innocently offered with much love by a insignificant moulvi some time ago. It could not have undone culpability in the 2002 massacre of Muslims, but would have been a salve, no doubts about. One of the fascinating thing about you is how impressive and even magnificent you look wearing the various head-dress of various communities and groups in the beautiful and diverse country that is your and my motherland.

Muslims are the second largest majority in India, as they say, five times larger than the Christians in the land. They came a few decades after Islam was founded, and ar indistinguishable from anyone  of us. They have beards, but both you and I also sport facial hair, albeit neatly trimmed.  In the 1,000 or so cases of targetted violence against religious minorities, Muslims  have been victims perhaps 8,500 times. Christians about 150, as recorded by the Evangelical Fellowship of India report for 2014. They are subject of much targetted hate. They have been called traitors by your ardent followers and political aides, Pakistani agents, breeding like rabbits to overwhelm the One Billion Hindu population, and seducing young women in Love Jihad. In contrast, Christians are accused merely of  using Dollars to Harvest Souls. Just two Christians have been killed last year. We are still awaiting data on the number of Muslims killed.

But you, Sir, chose a Christian,  a Catholic, platform to articulate your commitment to secularism.

The Syro Malabar Catholic Church invited you to a function to celebrate the celebrations of the  canonization of two Catholic Saints born in Kerala. We would be ingrates if we did not therefore thank you for speaking up at last on hate crimes, as we had been urging you to do for the past six months, and specially as we requested you to do when a delegation met you at your residence on Christmas eve last. You were not exactly very warm at that meeting, blaming the Christian community of [exaggerating] minor incidents in the international media, even insinuating their “compulsions’ prevented them from standing with you on your development agenda.

You made the statement now, at a time of your choosing, and in many ways, at an audience of your choosing. There was no occasion for questions, no opportunities to request you to explain some ambiguities in your address, deliberate it would seem, and a few omissions. A major omission is  any reference to the 60 year old issue of Dalit Chrisians and their demands for parity in Scheduled Caste rights with Sikhs and Buddhists [and of course Hindus] of Dalit origin.

But your statement now is a change from what you had said then, after first ordering the cameras to be switched off. I would like to hope you wants it to address the Trust Deficit of religious minorities – not just Christians -- in your Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar, now certainly quite the mainstream of political discourse with its religious nationalism, which claims to have brought it to power. In many ways, however, it is addressed to an international audience, and specially the investing bankers and corporate giants, whose concern at the Human Rights and Freedom of Faith issues in India – which ranks as a Country of Concern in many international lists – was articulated by United States President Mr. Barack Obama as much as by the Editorial in the New York Times.  The Indian development agenda depends on massive infusions of western capital.

It will be of abiding intellectual speculation why you did not chose to make your statement at public meeting of the Muslim Ulema.  Muslims outnumber Christians in India by a factor of five. I said earlier, that may have been more affective in repairing the damage done to your image by the 2002 Gujarat riots and the recent abuse on Muslims by popular BJP leaders in the party’s electoral campaigns and public programmes. But perhaps it may not have helped you in the context of the current wave of Islamaphobia in parts of the Western world and its media.

Freedom of Faith is a part of the Indian Civilisation, of that there can be no doubt. Buddha and Mahavira’s rejection of Vedic hegemony is a part of that intellectual and expressional freedom. And the birth, much later, of the Sikh faith. The incorporation of freedom of faith and expression in the Constitution of India was also a consequence of the Freedom Struggle that saw the participation of all ethnic, linguistic and religious communities in the cause of Independence, equality and justice.  India is also a signatory to the United Nations Charter and its Declarations on Freedom of Faith and on Civil Liberties, stressed once again in the documents of the Hague convention which was called to celebrate them. As Prime Minister, you and your government have taken an oath to protect the Constitution, and all that it guarantees to citizens of India, and in fact, to even others who may be resident in the land.

There has been much tragedy and human suffering because the Constitutional guarantees have not been fully practiced. And because some political groups with  an ideology of religious nationalism and peculiar definition of patriotism have enjoyed immunity and government patronage, and protection.

We are happy that you did not call for a "ten-year moratorium" as you had in your speech on Independence Day last year, but said "We cannot accept violence against any religion on any pretext and I strongly condemn such violence. My government will act strongly in this regard." The talk of moratorium had not gone down well with civil society, and had seemed very cynical.

The minorities have not been attacking anyone. Neither have they exceeded, or violated, the limits set by the law of the land in their exercise of their rights to profess, practice and propagate their faith. You nonetheless brushed over the, warning against both minority and majority intolerance. The attempt at parity has its own meaning, and implications in small towns and villages where police seem to believe it is the Muslim, or the Christian, who is the cause of all troubles.

Despite the existence of laws against religious conversions, called Freedom of Relgion Acts, in six states – and with your government ministers demanding such a law for the entire country -- even politically hostile governments have not been able to indict anyone for inducing anyone to become a Christian through force or through fraudulent means. You yet chose to allude to “fraud”. It was clear where your mind lay. You did not refer to the issue of Dalit Christians, raised by Bishops who spoke before you at the function. Your party and your government are opposed to restoring Dalit Christians rights given to others of these castes, arguing this would open the floodgates of conversions out of Hinduism.

One cannot but welcome any direction from government that anticipates and prevents targetted religious violence and hate.  This actually needs a comprehensive law. The BJP has consistently opposed such a law, which Congress governments half-heartedly tried to bring in the last two Parliaments. But even in the absence of such a law, there are provisions regulations that can be substantially used by the governments in the States to control hate campaigns, coercion and violence. It remains to be seen if state governments and their police forces will act against hate crimes and hate mongers.

And the future will tell if groups professing religious nationalism have you as the Christian leaders have heard you. TV debates suggest the Sangh Parivar has not heard you. Or perhaps they think the Prime Minister does not mean what you says.

The Christian community in India is concerned at the intensity of the targeted and communal violence directed against it almost on a pan India basis. Violence against Christians picked up in independent India in the early 1990s reaching its peak in 2008 – 2009 with more than 1,000 incidents of violence and hate crimes reported against the Christian community. This continues today in the form of vicious hate campaigns, physical violence, police complicity. State impunity contributes to the persecution of the Christian community in many states of India.

Human Rights and Civil Society groups have documented the death of at least two persons in 2014, killed for their Christian faith. The list of incidents reflects 147 cases, with many more going unreported and undocumented. The two cases of death in communal anti Christian violence were reported from Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

An analysis of the data shows Chhattisgarh topping the list with 28 incidents of crime, followed closely by neighbouring Madhya Pradesh with 26, Uttar Pradesh with 18 and Telengana, a new state carved out of Andhra Pradesh, with 15 incidents. Much of the violence has taken place after the new government of the National Democratic Alliance came into power on 26 May, 2014.

The violence peaked between August and October with 56 cases, before zooming up to 25 cases during the Christmas season. The violence has continued well into the New Year 2015, with more Catholic churches in the capital city of Delhi targeted as incidents continue in other states.

Much of the violence, 54 percent, is of threats, intimidation, coercion, often with the police looking on. Physical violence constituted a quarter of all cases, (24 %), and violence against Christian women, a trend that is increasingly being seen since the carnage in Kandhamal, Odisha, in 2007 and 2008, was 11%. Breaking of statues and the Cross, and other acts of desecration were recorded in about 8 % of the cases, but many more were also consequent to other forms of violence against institutions. A disturbing trend was violence against Christians in West Bengal, where though one case was formally reported; there have been increasing incidents of hate speech and intimidation.

Police inaction and its failure to arrest the guilty in most cases, its propensity to try to minimize the crime, and in rural areas especially, its open partisanship has almost become the norm. Police ineptitude in forensic investigations has been seen even in New Delhi where four of the five cases in the months of December 2014 and January 2015 have seen no progress in the investigations. In the one case where there were arrests, the Church and the community have cast doubts on the police version of the motives of the suspects whose images were recorded in the Close Circuit TV cameras installed in the church.

The President of India, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, noted the rise of communalism and the targeting of religious minorities in your ad- dress to the Nation on 25th January 2015, the eve of Republic Day. President Mukherjee said “In an international environment where so many countries are sinking into the morass of theocratic violence ... We have always reposed our trust in faith - equality where every faith is equal before law, and every culture blends into another to create a positive dynamic. The violence of the tongue cuts and wounds people's hearts. The Indian Constitution is the holy book of democracy. It is a lodestar for the socio- economic transformation of an India whose civilisation has celebrated pluralism, advocated tolerance and promoted goodwill be- tween diverse communities. These values, however, need to be preserved with utmost care and vigilance.”

Mr. Mukherjee touched a point that has worried many among even those who voted for Mr. Modi hoping you would bring about a change from the corruption and economic coma in which the country had found itself in the last few years. The Union and State governments have been dismissive of the Christian complaints of targeted violence and persecution, both by political non-State actors and other elements.

Words alone will not be sufficient, Mr. Modi. The government must take urgent and effective measures to restore the rule of law and curb the targeted and communal violence. The guilty must be traced, and action under the law should be taken. Police officers must be held accountable for communal crimes in their jurisdiction.

EFI-RLC and others have made some recommendations to your government. I would wish your staff in the Prime Ministers Office convey them to you. These are simple:

            ·  Enact a comprehensive hate crimes legislation to safeguard the rights of religious minorities. 


            ·  The Ministry of Home Affairs should provide trainings on human rights and religious freedom standards and practices to the 
state and central police and judiciary; 


            ·  Although maintenance of public order is a state responsibility, the central government should issue an advisory to the state 
governments to repeal the anti-conversion laws; 


            ·  The government should ensure an active Commission for Human Rights and Commission for Minorities is operational in every 
state, and that members of each commission are appointed by transparent and non-partisan procedures; 


            ·  Prevent and pursue through the judicial process, all violent acts against religious and tribal minorities and Dalits. 


We would be even more grateful if some of these could be implemented.

God bless you

And God Bless India

Narendra Modi breaks his silence on violence against Christians

Great Speech, Mr. Modi, but is the Sangh Parivar listening?

JOHN DAYAL

A section of the Indian Catholic Church invited him to a function to celebrate the canonization of two Catholic Saints born in Kerala. We would be ingrates if we did not therefore thank the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, for speaking up at last on hate crimes, as we had been urging him to do for the past six months, and specially as we requested him to do when a delegation met him at his residence on Christmas eve last. He was not exactly very warm at that meeting, blaming the Christian community of [exaggerating] minor incidents in the international media, even insinuating their “compulsions’ prevented them from standing with him on his development agenda.

He has made this statement now, at a time of his choosing, and in many ways, at an audience of his choosing. There was no occasion for questions, no opportunities to request him to explain some ambiguities in his address, deliberate it would seem, and a few omissions. A major omission is  any reference to the 60 year old issue of Dalit Chrisians and their demands for parity in Scheduled Caste rights with Sikhs and Buddhists [and of course Hindus] of Dalit origin.

But his statement now is a change from what he had said then, after first ordering the cameras to be switched off. I would like to hope he wants it to address the Trust Deficit of religious minorities – not just Christians -- in his Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar, now certainly quite the mainstream of political discourse with its religious nationalism, which claims to have brought it to power. In many ways, however, it is addressed to an international audience, and specially the investing bankers and corporate giants, whose concern at the Human Rights and Freedom of Faith issues in India – which ranks as a Country of Concern in many international lists – was articulated by United States President Mr. Barack Obama as much as by the Editorial in the New York Times.  Mr. Modi’s development agenda depends on massive infusions of western capital.

It will be of abiding intellectual speculation why Mr. Modi did not chose to make his statement at public meeting of the Muslim Ulema.  Muslims outnumber Christians in India by a factor of five. That may have been more affective in repairing the damage done to his image by the 2002 Gujarat riots and the recent abuse on Muslims by popular BJP leaders in the party’s electoral campaigns and public programmes. But perhaps it may not have helped him in the context of the current wave of Islamaphobia in parts of the Western world and its media.

Freedom of Faith is a part of the Indian Civilisation, of that there can be no doubt. Buddha and Mahavira’s rejection of Vedic hegemony is a part of that intellectual and expressional freedom. And the birth, much later, of the Sikh faith. The incorporation of freedom of faith and expression in the Constitution of India was also a consequence of the Freedom Struggle that saw the participation of all ethnic, linguistic and religious communities in the cause of Independence, equality and justice.  India is also a signatory to the United Nations Charter and its Declarations on Freedom of Faith and on Civil Liberties, stressed once again in the documents of the Hague convention which was called to celebrate them. As Prime Minister, he and his government have taken an oath to protect the Constitution, and all that it guarantees to citizens of India, and in fact, to even others who may be resident in this land.

There has been much tragedy and human suffering because the Constitutional guarantees have not been fully practiced. And because some political groups with  an ideology of religious nationalism and peculiar definition of patriotism have enjoyed immunity and government patronage, and protection.

We are happy that Mr. Modi did not call for a "ten-year moratorium" as he had in his speech on Independence Day last year, but said "We cannot accept violence against any religion on any pretext and I strongly condemn such violence. My government will act strongly in this regard." The talk of moratorium had not gone down well with civil society, and had seemed very cynical.

The minorities have not been attacking anyone. Neither have they exceeded, or violated, the limits set by the law of the land in their exercise of their rights to profess, practice and propagate their faith. Mr. Modi nonetheless brushed over this, warning against both minority and majority intolerance. This attempt at parity has its own meaning, and implications in small towns and villages where police seem to believe it is the Muslim, or the Christian, who is the cause of all troubles.

Despite the existence of laws against religious conversions, called Freedom of Religion Acts, in six states – and with his government ministers demanding such a law for the entire country -- even politically hostile governments have not been able to indict anyone for inducing anyone to become a Christian through force or through fraudulent means. Mr. Modi yet chose to allude to “fraud”. It was clear where his mind lay. He did not refer to the issue of Dalit Christians, raised by Bishops who spoke before him at the function. His party and his government are opposed to restoring Dalit Christians rights given to others of these castes, arguing this would open the floodgates of conversions out of Hinduism.

One cannot but welcome any direction from government that anticipates and prevents targetted religious violence and hate.  This actually needs a comprehensive law. The BJP has consistently opposed such a law, which Congress governments half-heartedly tried to bring in the last two Parliaments. But even in the absence of such a law, there are provisions regulations that can be substantially used by the governments in the States to control hate campaigns, coercion and violence. It remains to be seen if state governments and their police forces will act against hate crimes and hate mongers.

And the future will tell if groups professing religious nationalism have heard Mr. Modi as the Christian leader has heard him. TV debates suggest the Sangh Parivar has not heard him. Or perhaps they think the Prime Minister does not mean what he says.