Biren Singh is the Modi of 2002
The Prime Minister cannot criticise or sack the Manipur Chief Minister, for the latter is pursuing the anti-minority model that the former had invented 21 years ago The nation must thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only for belatedly breaking his silence on Manipur, but also for the language he used to condemn the parading of two Kuki women stripped naked in public there, with one of them brutally gang-raped. Modi said his heart was filled with “anger and sorrow” at the barbaric act captured in a video that went viral. His remark is in sharp contrast to the regret he expressed, in 2013, over the 2002 Gujarat riots. If “someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course, it is. If I’m a chief minister or not, I’m a human being. If something bad happens anywhere, it is natural to be sad,” Modi told the Reuters news agency. Modi’s sensitivity seems to have deepened ever since he became the Prime Minister in 2014. But he had as the Gujarat Chief Minister provided a model of politics that other chief ministers could follow to enhance
MY GOD MY GOD, WHY HAVE THEY FORSAKEN US? – A REFLECTION ON MANIPUR
I am on a two-year sabbatical; that is a privilege considering the shortage of priests in the Archdiocese of Mumbai. It would seem that every hand should be on the deck and here I am, away in Goa. While my compulsions of health and ideological issues have forced me to take time off, the “fire within me” does not seem to burn out. God, it seems, won’t let me go even though my Archbishop so kindly did. So, it is with fear and trepidation I write my thoughts while entrusting my life to being HIS disciple who spoke his mind. Everything within me tells me to shut up and sit back and take my sabbatical easy but then there is this ‘Jeremiah moment’ that I seem to be experiencing all of this week. What is that you ask? I echo the sentiments of the prophet Jeremiah, not that I am even a far cry to who or what he was but that ‘Jeremiah moment’ resounds loudly. Jeremiah 20:9 says, “If I say, “I will not mention him (God), or speak any more in his name, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I
Woman stripped and raped in Manipur speaks: Police were with the mob, they left us with those men
'The police were there with the mob which was attacking our village. The police picked us up from near home, and took us a little away from the village and left us on the road with the mob. We were given to them by police.' A day after a video of two women from the Kuki-Zomi community being paraded naked and sexually assaulted in Manipur surfaced, one of the victims told The Indian Express that they had been “left to the mob by the police”. Two women, one in her 20s and the other in her 40s, can be seen being made to walk naked down a road and towards a field by a mob of men. Some of the men can be seen dragging the two women towards a field and forcibly groping them. In a police complaint that was filed on May 18, the victims had also alleged that the younger woman was “brutally gang raped in the broad daylight”. In the complaint, they had said that they had fled to a forest for shelter after their village in Kangpokpi district, was attacked by a mob and that they were later rescued by Thoubal police and were being taken to the
US Official Calls Religious Intolerance in India ‘Frightening’
washington — Religious discrimination in India, the world's largest democracy, has reached a "frightening" level, and some experts warn that the country must change its course or face targeted sanctions from the U.S. government. "India has done better in the past and has to change course because the cycle of downward spiral in a country of that importance and the number of people who are involved. It is quite frightening," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, told lawmakers on Tuesday. "Religious discrimination should not be a matter of national pride," he said. The USCIRF has recommended that India, along with Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria and Vietnam, be added to the U.S. government's list of Countries of Particular Concern, or CPC, because of the worsening limits on religious freedom in these countries. It also has called for targeted economic and travel sanctions against Indian government agencies and officials that are allegedly involved in violation of religious freedom. The scathing criticism comes only weeks after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the White House and addressed a joint session of Congress. In 2005, the U.S. State Department revoked Modi's tourist/business visa because of his alleged role in religious and communal violence in
Christian arrested, accused of converting Dalits in India
Police in a northern Indian state have arrested a Christian man for allegedly converting 230 families of Dalits (former untouchables). Uttar Pradesh state's police arrested Bajrang Rawat on July 17. He was accused of converting the Dalit families to Christianity by promising to cure their ailments, said a report by Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. Rawat has been illegally living on railway land in Barabanki, 27 kilometers from the state capital Lucknow, along with other poor families since the past year, Akhilesh Narayan Singh, an additional superintendent of police, told the media. Copies of the Bible and other Christian books were recovered from Rawat’s house while a probe was on to ascertain the involvement of other people in helping him, Singh said. “We have been in contact with Singh, who is investigating the case, and it is too early to comment,” Christian activist Minakshi Singh told UCA News on July 19. “There are several unanswered questions," said Minakshi Singh, general secretary of the charity Unity in Compassion based in Uttar Pradesh. There are questions like "why Rawat, who is from Lucknow, was staying in Barabanki on railway land? Who are the Dalits? Are they Hindus or from other faiths?" She also expressed doubts if "the religious conversion had taken place" or if "it was just propaganda by some group?" All this will
MP: Christian priest, two others get two-year sentence for unlawful conversion
Jhabua (MP), Jul 19 (PTI) A court in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district on Wednesday sentenced a Christian priest and two others to two years' rigorous imprisonment for converting members of a tribal community by offering allurement. District judge Lakhanlal Garg also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on Father Jamsingh, pastor Ansingh and their assistant Mangu. The three were convicted under section 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act, public prosecutor Mansingh Bhuria said. The article is published on www.ptinews.com/
A Troubling Trend for Religious Freedom in India
While freedom of religion is integral to our American pluralist life, many countries experience religious oppression through anti-conversion laws. These laws intend to elevate the state-endorsed religion; codified laws forbid individuals from changing from the majority religion to a minority one, particularly Christianity and Islam. India, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan have anti-conversion laws. Recently, there has been growing concern about officials enacting new, more restrictive, and discriminatory laws in India. India is the birthplace of many world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. In 1950, the nation adopted a Western-style secular democracy. The country is home to thousands of ethnic groups and nearly two dozen official languages. Out of this diversity, one would expect ethnic and religious tolerance to reign. Recently, Hindu nationalism has become a growing force politically. Hindu nationalists subscribe to the Hindutva, or ideology that only Hindus are true Indians and that all other religions, especially Christians and Muslims, are foreigners who must be expelled. India’s People’s Party (BJP) won the national election in 2014. Known Hindu nationalists, including Prime Minister Modi, lead the party. At a conference in 2021, Hindu Mahasabha political party leader Pooja Shakun Pandey and other Hindu leaders made hate-filled remarks about
Police discreetly profiling Christians in central Indian state
A controversial questionnaire seeking details of churches and other Christian institutions was leaked in the media Police in a central Indian state have been asked discreetly to collect information on Church institutions, an officer has admitted after the media leaked details of the questionnaire. An exercise to profile Church institutions is said to have been going on in the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Madhya Pradesh state since the beginning of July. Indore city’s police commissioner, Makrand Deoskar, on July 15 confirmed that a questionnaire was sent out. But “it is an internal communication for the station house officers [SHOs] of local police stations and not for Church officials.” The questionnaire was “inadvertently shared with Church officials,” the city’s top cop explained. “It was withdrawn after opposition from the Christian community,” Deoskar claimed. The SHOs were reportedly asked to gather details such as the name of the missionary institution, its work and purpose, details of foreigners involved in mission work, and details of activities in the past three months. It also asked to collect the institution's bank details and see if the institution was involved in religious conversion or political activities such as helping people in agitation. It wanted to know if the institution was getting foreign funds. “Some of our churches and
Christian community in India faces surge in violence
The United Christian Forum (UCF) reports that the Christian community in India has endured 400 incidents of violence within a span of 190 days this year. According to the UCF, attacks occurred at a rate of at least twice per day during this period, escalating to three times per day in the month of June alone. During the month of June, UCF documented 88 instances of violence specifically targeting the Christian community, primarily originating from Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. AC Michael, the National Coordinator of UCF, expressed concerns about the government's "indifferent" response to the situation in Manipur, stating that this has emboldened right-wing factions and contributed to the increased number of incidents in June. "Month of June alone has seen 88 incidents which are largely from North Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Looks like the indifferent attitude of the government to the violence in Manipur has embolden the violence perpetrators in these states," said Michael. The UCF's half-yearly report for 2023 reveals a significant rise in the number of incidents compared to the same period in the previous year, which documented 274 acts of violence against the Christian community. Among the 23 states that reported violence against the Christian community in the country,
11 Indian Christians released from jail
A court in a northern Indian state has released 11 Protestant Christians who spent a week in jail after their arrest under the draconian anti-conversion law. A local court in Bahraich district in northern Uttar Pradesh state granted bail to Pastor Babu Ram and 10 others, who were released on July 17. “We are happy that our brothers are released from jail,” said Dinanath Jaiswal, a social worker who helped the Christians in their legal fight. Police arrested them on July 9 during a Sunday service following complaints from activists of the hardline Hindu group, Bajrang Dal (lord Hanuman’s army). The activists forced their way into the prayer hall and accused the pastor and others of being involved in religious conversion, which is a crime under the state's anti-conversion law. The activists called the police who took the pastor and those attending the Sunday prayer service into their custody and produced them before a court. “Thirteen Christian women were also taken into custody by the police. But a local court granted them bail,” Jaiswal told UCA News on July 18. Police charged them with illegal assembly, conspiracy, and criminal intimidation. “It is unfortunate that police keep registering totally fake cases against Christians who are merely attending the Sunday prayer services," Jaiswal said. He said that life has
