Amid growing extreme Hindu nationalism in India, dozens of speakers called for concerted action to uphold the country’s constitution and fundamental rights, at a conference on 25–27 May, to mark four years of government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
‘There is a grave threat to plurality,’ Professor Ganesh Narayan Devy, a scholar on India’s religious and linguistic diversity, told the Citizens’ Conclave on ‘Building an Inclusive India’ in New Delhi, attended by over 800 delegates from across the country. ‘We are living at a time when you are branded as anti-national for expressing a different view [contrary to Hindu nationalism],’ said Devy.
‘[Hindu nationalists] demonise and attack us: 2017 saw a 20% increase in the number of atrocities against Christians,’ Tehmina Arora, a lawyer and director of a rights group, told the conference.
On the status of Christian minorities, she added: ‘When you go to the police, they hardly cooperate and often refuse to register complaints. There is a growing culture of impunity. We could file only 25 criminal cases, as against the 240+ incidents reported in the year.’
Instead, she said that anyone who is accused of converting Hindus ‘will be beaten up’. ‘You [can be] taken to a police station when you pray!’ she added.
She cited the instance of more than 50 villages in central Chhattisgarh state passing resolutions banning the Christian faith soon after the BJP government assumed office on 26 May, 2014.
