Christians wary as pro-Hindu BJP forms govt in India’s Odisha
The Christian community in an eastern Indian state has taken a cautious “wait and watch” approach after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide in the state, where anti-Christian violence claimed around 100 lives over 15 years ago.
The BJP pulled off a stunning victory in the just concluded Odisha state elections. It defeated the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), a secular regional party that ruled the state uninterruptedly for 24 years.
The BJP won 78 seats in the 147-member Odisha State Assembly and secured 20 of the 21 parliamentary seats in the simultaneously held state and parliamentary elections. The results were declared on June 4.
Mohan Majhi, a four-time BJP legislator, was sworn in as the chief minister on June 12. The 52-year-old politician was a teacher in a school run by the powerful Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS–National Volunteer Corps).
The RSS is considered the mother organization of the BJP and an umbrella body of all hardline Hindu organizations in the country that are blamed for attacking religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims.
“The change of guard is a matter of concern for us Christians as our people have not yet fully recovered from the shock of the 2008 Kandhamal riot,” said Father Ajay Singh, a priest from the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, based in the state capital Bhubaneswar.
It is the first time the BJP has come to power on its own strength in the state.
The new chief minister Majhi is regarded as “a strong and firebrand tribal leader” from the mineral-rich Keonjhar (now Kendujhar) district, which hit headlines in early 1999 for burning to death Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons.
“We will wait and watch how the new government will run the state as we cannot judge a new government based on the record of a political party or its affiliate groups,” Singh, who is an activist-lawyer, told UCA News on June 12.
The Catholic priest said the only relief was that the BJP failed to garner the 272 seats required for a majority in the parliament.
“The reduced majority was apparently due to its [BJP’s] anti-minority rhetoric during the high-pitched election campaign. The new government [in Odisha] will learn from it and treat everyone with real statesmanship,” Singh hoped.
A Church leader who did not want to be named said Christians “will need to exercise caution in our mission work due to the changed environment in the state.”
“Even when the BJP was an alliance partner [of BJD], its affiliate groups openly targeted us and our missions. Let us watch what is in store for us,” he told UCA News.
Hardline Hindu groups were reportedly behind the hate campaign and violence against Christians.
Christians make up 2.77 percent of the state’s 42 million people, over 90 percent of them Hindus and indigenous people.
This article is originally published on https://www.ucanews.com/news/christians-wary-as-pro-hindu-bjp-forms-govt-in-indias-odisha/105388
