Dr. John Dayal
Member: National Integration Council, Government of India
National President: All India Catholic Union (Founded 1919)
Secretary General: All India Christian Council (Founded 1999)
President: United Christian Action, Delhi (Founded 1992)
23d December, 2005
Dr Manmohan Singh
Hon’ble the Prime Minister of India
South Block, New Delhi
Re:
Dear Prime Minister
It is a privilege to greet you in this season of Advent and wish you a
Merry Christmas on behalf of Christian Community in India represented by
the All India Christian Council, the Catholic Union and UCA.
Trough you, we also wish our fellow Indians a prosperous New year 2006
with prayers that it bring Peace, Security and happiness to our land.
Dear Prime Minister, we however regret our joy in the approaching
Christmas, the festival that brings with it the promise of Freedom,
Liberation and Salvation in the birth of Christ, is diminished and
overshadowed by daily reports of violence against Churches, Priests and
the faithful, police atrocities and incidents of miscarriage of justice
in which the victims are the poorest of the poor Christians and their
fellow Dalits.
As we informed the Government of India in an earlier letter, we fear
that the total number of incidents of violence against Christians in
the country in the year 2005 may be as many as 200, a large number of
them in the Udaipur division of Rajasthan and in parts of Madhya
Pradesh, and Orissa. Our appeals to State governments have been in vain.
In many cases, local political leaders and officials are part of the
conspiracy of violence. The National Commission for Minorities remains
a silent spectator and is Chairperson has given us cause to suspect his
own attitude towards Christians, a minority that his Commission is sworn
to protect.
Even in this dismal scenario, there are some incidents that stand out,
and that cry out for your sympathetic consideration and urgent action.
Christian Tribals of Jhabua still in Jail while their tormentors roam
free: 14 Christian members are in an Madhya Pradesh jail for the past 2
years. They were arrested during the riots of 2004. They are all
innocent poor illiterate tribals and their families of all these people
are in pitiable state. At least three BJP MLAs are involved in the
violence together with some Sadhvis of the RSS who had come from Gujarat
and took part in the violence. They remain free.
Situation in Rajasthan: As far as Christians are concerned, there seems
to be a free season against them in this state. This is so both in the
tribal areas, and in urban places such as Ajmer, Kota and Jaipur. The
police and the political apparatus are entirely supportive of the RSS
aggressors.
Anti Dalit Violence: Christians have suffered as much as members
professing other faiths in the general sharp rise in caste violence
against the Dalit community. Even within a few kilometers of Delhi in
places such as Sonepat, Christian families have had their houses burnt.
The bureaucratic approach to relief, as in the case of the Tsunami
victims, leaves the double-disadvantaged out of reckoning
Dalit Christians: We had great hopes that the return of the Congress at
the head of the UPA government would restore human dignity, civil rights
and protection of law to Christian converts from the Scheduled castes.
An earlier Congress government had in 1996 brought to Parliament a Bill
to restore to the Dalit Christians all rights enjoyed by Hindu, Buddhist
and Sikh Dalits. Our hopes have been belied. While we thank you for
giving the Justice Mishra Commission the addition task of discussing
this issue, it falls far short of the demand of justice.
May we request you once again that your government reintroduces the Bill
in Parliament to give our people the rights snatched by the
Presidential order of 1950 without waiting for the Mishra commission
report. Assessing Economic Disempowerment of Christians. We have
requested you to establish a commission to asses the poverty and
economic status of Christians, especially the Dalit Christians so that
they are incorporate in Government’s poverty alleviation and relief
plans. Such a Commission has been already set up for the Muslims under
Justice Sachchar.
Giving Christians the Right to Adopt Children. We continue to be
discriminated by the law in the case of adoptions. The tsunami and
other natural disasters, the death of young parents in terrorist
attacks such as the explosions in New Delhi, have left many orphans who
need to be adopted into loving families. The government must expedite
the law. The church has been campaigning for it for more than a decade.
Visa bias: Hundreds of wives of Christian NRIs are either denied visas
to come home with their families. In many cases that we have personally
investigated, wives married to Indians for two decades and with three or
four children and valid visas, have been turned away from Delhi and
Mumbai airports. This amo8unt so using the Visa as a form of religious
persecution, and sheds a shadow of bigotry on our regulations. I am sure
our government will look into this matter. These women are wives and
mothers, no anti-Indian terrorists. Nor are they persons out to forcibly
convert Indians to Christianity. Indian priests of all religions are of
course never refused a visa go enter any foreign country.
Dear Prime Minister, as Christians we want justice for all victims of
violence, discrimination and economic and social deprivation in the
country. The Church is itself involved deeply in this process. The
government from its side is apparently is doing much in these matters,
but in implementation and by default, Dalit and poor Christians are
always left out, as much as Church workers fail to get the protection of
the law.
May we humbly request that your government take urgent steps in the
above matters to make the New Year happier for the Christian community
and everyone else in the country.
With warm personal regards.
John Dayal