SELECTIVE OUTRAGE OVER VIOLENCE
Wednesday, 27 May 2015 | Kumar Chellappan | in Oped
While the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is vocal in its criticism of the Indian Government for the attacks on churches, nobody here has questioned the violence against the majority community
Even as the Modi Government completed its first year in office, in a report submitted to the US State Department, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has come down heavily on the Indian Government for its supposedly callous attitude towards attacks on minorities in the country. Incidents like the gang rape of a Christian nun and the vandalisation of churches are being depicted by USCIRF as acts of violence against minorities in India.
The newly elected general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Mr Sitaram Yechury, is moving around the country, warning the minorities about an impending danger in the form of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad which are waiting in the wings to ‘unleash an attack’ on them. All the members of the secular brigade are running amok and crying about the possibility of a communal riot which can take place anytime!
Some like the self-styled intellectual class add more fuel to whatever has been said by people like the BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, who exhorted Hindu women to deliver more children so that the Hindus do not end up as a minority in the country.
There were also some isolated incidents of attacks on the churches. The attacks on churches took place in West Bengal, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh (all the States are ruled by non-BJP Governments).
There were reports that a 71-year old nun was gang-raped in West Bengal’s Nadia district. Later it was known that those who were arrested in connection with the rape of the nun were illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and disgruntled elements from the minority communities.
A prominent member of the US business delegation which accompanied President Barack Obama during his visit to India said, “USCIRF is an organisation about which people in the US itself have not heard about. The so called commission has
only Christians, that too evangelists, as its members and, hence, their report is a one-sided vicious campaign against the Union Government.”
Admist all this what is disturbing is the ever-increasing number of attacks and vandalisation against Hindu religious temples and priests all over India. No one apart from the VHP or the RSS leaders bothered to condemn these attacks.
The month of April saw a group of anti-social elements with the patronage of certain Dravidian and Tamil nationalist organisations assault old and frail priests of Hindu temples in Chennai. The sacred thread they wear on their bodies as well as their hair-tuft were cut off by these rabid rationalists.
The nationalists also held a function to destroy the mangal sutra (the sacred thread wore by married women) to proclaim liberation of women. The Madras High Court intervened and stayed the mangal sutra removal campaigns taking into account the apprehensions expressed by the police that it would lead to the deterioration of law and order in the country.
No social activist came out in the open to express shock over the acts of vandalism perpetrated by the rationalist fundamentalists. There was no public outcry anywhere in the country for the regular attacks on the poor priests or for the mangal sutra removal campaigns.
While the US-based commission and the church are vocal in their criticism against the Union Government for the attacks on churches, nobody has yet dared to question the acts of violence and hooliganism unleashed on the temples in the country.
In Tamil Nadu itself, more than 100 temples have come under attack by various anti-Hindu forces. According to Arjun Sampath, leader of Hindu People’s Party, “Hundreds of Hindu temples across Tamil Nadu are vandalised regularly by anti-Hindu forces. They loot donation boxes that are kept outside the temples. Hundreds of ancient idols have been stolen from these temples.”
In the 1980s, when the temples in Kerala came under attack and many idols went missing, some of the Hindu activists approached EK Nayanar, the then Chief Minister of the State. He scoffed at them and said, “What kind of Gods you are worshipping? Gods who cannot take care of themselves? How will these Gods ensure your safety?” Would Nayanar dare to ask such a question to a Christian priest?
An emerald idol of Lord Shiva, gifted by a royal family of Nepal, to Sringeri Mutt in Kaladi, Kerala was stolen in 2009 and the police has failed to trace it till date. The idol is worth Rs400 crore in the international market. However, there has been no public outcry about it in the country.
The latest is the denial of employment to a Muslim candidate by a private company in Surat. This is a condemnable. But what about the denial of jobs to thousands of HIndu candidates?
This has happened and is happening. All advertisements put by recruiting agents who select candidates for West Asian countries in 1990s featured one pre-condition, “Only Christian and Muslim candidates need to apply”.http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/selective-outrage-over-violence.html