Many Christian leaders have rejected the statement made by Cardinal George Alencherry, who is based in Kerala, that Christians do not experience insecurity during the rule of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the country.
“Persecution against Christians has drastically increased ever since BJP came to power in the country,” said A. C. Michael, president of the Federation of Catholic Associations of Archdiocese of Delhi
Michael was responding to an interview of Cardinal Alencherry, the head of the Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church based in southern Kerala.
The interview was published by The New Indian Express on April 9.
The cardinal said that “Christians do not have any such insecurity now,” under BJP-ruled India and also praised the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However, Michael said the cardinal was wrong. “The fact is that there are continued waves of vile hate speech and targeted violence against the Christian community across the country,” UCA news agency quoted Michael as saying.
Michael also said the atrocities against Christians continue to rise every year since the BJP came to power in 2014.
The former member of Delhi’s state minority commission while quoting figures of the incidents of atrocities against Christians recorded by the United Christian Forum (UCF), said 597 cases were reported from across India n 2022 alone.
The UCF report indicates that there were 127 cases of violence against Christians reported in 2014. The number increased to 142 in 2015, 226 in 2016, 248 in 2017, 292 in 2018, 328 in 2019, 279 in 2020, 505 in 2021, and 597 in 2022.
“There have been reports of 200 incidents of violence against Christians across India in the first 100 days of 2023 itself,” Michael said to the news agency.
“There is no denial of the fact that there are incidents of intimidation, violence and even loss of life and property of Christian communities in some parts of the country,” Father Babu Joseph, a former spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) told UCA.
“While the comments of Cardinal Alencherry may to a great extent hold true in his home state where Christianity is two millennia old and have a considerable demographic and institutional presence, it isn’t the same across the country, particularly in areas where there is sparse Christian presence,” he added.
Human rights defender John Dayal also disagreed with Cardinal Alencherry.
“In BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh the police play an enthusiastic part in arresting pastors and other Christians based on false complaints and scores of them are still languishing in jail awaiting bail,” he said. In the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, he said, “The police are frozen in inaction.”
On Easter Sunday, the BJP initiated an outreach campaign to establish a presence among the Christian community in Kerala. Party leaders visited Catholic Church Bishops and a few selected members of the community in various areas of the state. Despite this, the ruling party in Kerala, CPIM, and the main opposition party, Congress, criticized the BJP’s actions as hypocritical.
