The con­tours of hate and re­li­gious big­otry in In­dia have wors­ened over the decade, with a ra­bidly com­mu­nal sec­tion suf­fer­ing from Sikho­pho­bia, Is­lam­o­pho­bia, Christo­pho­bia and Dal­i­to­pho­bia. 11 years ago, on 8 Oc­to­ber 2008, WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh wrote an Open Let­ter to the United States Com­mis­sion on In­ter­na­tional Re­li­gious Free­dom urg­ing the bi­par­ti­san US body to closely mon­i­tor re­li­gious free­dom in In­dia and to place In­dia on the Watch List of coun­tries which vi­o­late re­li­gious free­doms. WSN re­pro­duces the let­ter in the wake of the re­lease of the movie “The Least of These –the Gra­ham Staines Story” and the 2019 US­CIRF Re­port on Re­li­gious Free­dom in In­dia.

Hon. Mr. Michael Cro­mar­tie -Greet­ings from the land of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur -who laid down His life for the pro­tec­tion of the right to re­li­gion.

Two faces of In­dia were re­vealed to the world in the last two months –nu­clear In­dia and in­tol­er­ant In­dia.  Nu­clear In­dia is a rel­a­tively new phe­nom­e­non, though the world has yet to fathom the de­signs of In­dia to be­come a su­per power and In­tol­er­ant In­dia has been around for ages, but as Chris­tians are the vic­tims this time around, may be the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity will take no­tice and ac­tion.

This is the re­cent toll: 37 Chris­tians killed, 101 churches at­tacked, one nun’s mod­esty vi­o­lated and 27,000 Chris­tians ren­dered home­less in Kand­hamal dis­tict of Orissa. Ram­pant forcible re-con­ver­sion of neo-Chris­tians is a reg­u­lar habit for the 6000 cen­tres of RSS, 1500 Tribal wel­fare pro­jects and 1,200 ed­u­ca­tion cen­tres –all manned by right-wing forces who are at war with all mi­nori­ties and re­gional peo­ples of In­dia.   The gov­ern­ment of Orissa re­sorted to lies and pro­tec­tion­ist mea­sures to hide the truth, its po­lice did not file First In­for­ma­tion Re­ports.  The gov­ern­men­t’s com­plic­ity with the Hin­dutva bod­ies is ap­par­ent and brazen.

The march of the bra­haman­i­cal forces against Chris­tians and Dal­its is on for a very long time and has been doc­u­mented by Hu­man Rights Watch and other hu­man rights groups, prompt­ing Dalit or­ga­ni­za­tions to call for the in­sti­tu­tion of an UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Dalit Rights.  In­dia is one coun­try which does not ac­knowl­edge the ex­is­tence of in­dige­nous peo­ples in the coun­try and con­tin­ues with the nomen­cla­ture of Adi­va­sis –the abo­rig­ines of In­dia.

In­dia is one coun­try which does not ac­knowl­edge the ex­is­tence of in­dige­nous peo­ples in the coun­try and con­tin­ues with the nomen­cla­ture of Adi­va­sis –the abo­rig­ines in In­dia.

The In­dian on­slaught is “sys­tem­atic, on­go­ing, and egre­gious” vi­o­la­tion of re­li­gious lib­erty.  Hav­ing suf­fered Sikho­pho­bia for many years, presently In­dia is go­ing through a phase of Is­lam­o­pho­bia on the one hand and Christo­pho­bia on the other.  The spread of Sikho­pho­bia across the coun­try fetched votes for the Con­gress party, the spec­tre of Is­lam­o­pho­bia fetched votes to fas­cist leader Naren­dra Modi in Gu­jarat and his party –the Bharatiya Janta Party all over the coun­try when their lead­er­ship and fol­low­ers brought down the cen­turies-old Babri Masjid.  Who will Christo­pho­bia ben­e­fit, is any­body’s guess.

 “ਪਾਰੋਸੀ ਕੇ ਜੋ ਹੂਆ ਤੂ ਅਪਨੇ ਭੀ ਜਾਨੁ ॥੧੬੭॥-You know that what­ever hap­pens to your neigh­bours, may hap­pen to you.”

Bha­gat Kabir in Guru Granth Sahib

Is­lam­o­pho­bia and Sikho­pho­bia are cre­ations of state agen­cies un­able to build a re­sponse to the fight for rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms and Christo­pho­bia has been started by fas­cist forces un­able to tol­er­ate equal­ity and re­duc­tion in their ranks and is abet­ted by the state through si­lence and com­plic­ity.

This year In­dia has cel­e­brated its six­ti­eth year as a so­cial­ist sec­u­lar re­pub­lic.  Later this year, the United Na­tions will be ob­serv­ing the six­ti­eth year of the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights.  It is op­por­tune time for the US­CIRF to hold a mir­ror unto In­dia and put In­di­a’s so­cial­ism and sec­u­lar­ism into a proper per­spec­tive and not to be in­flu­enced by the size and scale of the grow­ing mar­ket mech­a­nism in the coun­try.

From the burn­ing alive of Gra­ham Staines to the vi­o­la­tion of the mod­esty of a young nun, the em­bold­ened lumpens of the right par­ties which are re­ceiv­ing fund­ing from British and Amer­i­can res­i­dents have to stopped in the ranks.  Their re­sources must be cut off.  Ac­cord­ing to An­gana Chat­ter­jee, As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor of An­thro­pol­ogy at the Cal­i­for­nia In­sti­tute of In­te­gral Stud­ies, “the fol­low­ing Sangh-af­fil­i­ates, reg­is­tered char­i­ties in the US, al­lo­cated size­able amounts of money un­der ‘pro­gramme ser­vices’, dis­pro­por­tion­ately di­rected to Hin­du­tava-af­fil­i­ated groups in In­dia.  Per 2006 tax record, Ekal Vidyalaya al­lo­cated more than two mil­lion dol­lars to In­dia, In­dia De­vel­op­ment Re­lief Fund al­lo­cated 1.6 mil­lion USD, and Sewa In­ter­na­tional USA al­lo­cated 284,000 Dol­lars.”  All this money has di­rectly and in­di­rectly reached Orissa.

Ba­jrang Dal ac­tivists have been caught red-handed mak­ing bombs in Nanded and Kan­pur.  Some died mak­ing bombs.  The po­lice have failed to reg­is­ter cases, pros­e­cu­tion would be a far cry.  Prakash Sharma, Suhas Chouhan, Vinay Kati­yar, Suren­dra Jain of the Ba­jrang Dal and Dr. Praveen To­ga­dia should be de­barred from en­ter­ing US and other coun­tries. Sim­ply, they are ter­ror­ists who have not been clas­si­fied as such.

In­dia has to be put up on the Watch List of coun­tries where re­li­gious free­dom con­di­tions are such that they re­quire close mon­i­tor­ing due to the na­ture and ex­tent of vi­o­la­tions of re­li­gious free­dom en­gaged in and tol­er­ated by In­dia. The RSS, the VHP and the Ba­jrang Dal –to name a few have been en­gaged in all ac­tiv­i­ties against multi-re­li­gios­ity, sec­u­lar­ism and pur­suit of their pro­fessed aim of mak­ing In­dia a Hindu-In­dia, ac­tu­ally Brah­man-In­dia.

With the only de­clared coun­try –Nepal ceas­ing to be a Hindu coun­try, there is a greater sense of ur­gency in the ne­far­i­ous minds of these fas­cist zealots to make In­dia a Hindu coun­try.  This is the root cause for the grow­ing in­tol­er­ance in In­dia.

With the only de­clared coun­try –Nepal ceas­ing to be a Hindu coun­try, there is a greater sense of ur­gency in the ne­far­i­ous minds of these fas­cist zealots to make In­dia a Hindu coun­try.  This is the root cause for the grow­ing in­tol­er­ance in In­dia.

As you are man­dated “to ad­vance the vis­i­bil­ity of and se­ri­ous think­ing about how the United States can best ad­dress the chal­lenges of re­li­gious ex­trem­ism, in­tol­er­ance, and re­pres­sion through­out the world”, all such or­ga­ni­za­tions, who in the name of so­cial work are pur­su­ing their anti-mi­nor­ity and anti-peo­ple agenda, should be put un­der the scan­ner in the United States. If mi­nor­ity or­ga­ni­za­tions seek­ing to pur­sue their eth­nic rights can be listed as ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tions, surely it would be proper to de­bar those or­ga­ni­za­tions that have a proven record of racist ac­tions and eth­nic cleans­ing roles. The US­CIRF should not de­lay in check­mat­ing RSS, Ba­jrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The em­bargo on the en­try of mass-ter­ror spe­cial­ist and chief min­is­ter of Gu­jarat Naren­dra Modi should be fol­lowed up with these mea­sures.

It is sig­nif­i­cant that In­di­a’s Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Mi­nori­ties has for the first time since its in­cep­tion called for a ban on the right wing body, Ba­jrang Dal, but that is cer­tainly not enough.  Fas­cist meth­ods are be­ing adopted in this coun­try with such glar­ing im­punity that the events un­fold­ing daily are a grim re­minder of Hitler’s Nazi Ger­many.

Eth­nic mi­nor­ity peo­ples ea­gerly await the re­port of Ms. Asma Ja­hangir, the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Free­dom of Re­li­gion or Be­lief of the United Na­tions Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights, who this year spent two weeks to have a first-hand un­der­stand­ing of the re­li­gious rights sit­u­a­tion in In­dia.  US­CIRF can draw up on that in­for­ma­tion too and in­ter­vene soon.

Some­time back -a few years ago, US­CIRF came close to putting In­dia on the Watch List, but the in­ter­ven­tion of one of the com­mis­sion­ers saved In­dia.

As many ac­tivists in many coun­tries do not know about the role that your or­ga­ni­za­tion plays as a bi­par­ti­san fed­eral body as­sess­ing and propos­ing US for­eign pol­icy ac­tion to ad­vance free­dom of thought, con­science, and re­li­gion and other free­doms needed to pro­tect peo­ple at risk of abuses, such as killing, de­ten­tion, or tor­ture, I think that US­CIRF should make spe­cial ef­forts to pop­u­lar­ize its work and also un­der­take more re­gional stud­ies to ad­vance its man­date, par­tic­u­larly in South Asia. It is ap­pro­pri­ate that the US­CIRF seek data from var­i­ous cred­i­ble mem­bers of civil so­ci­ety in In­dia about the right to re­li­gion in the coun­try.

The US­CIRF has rightly stated that the “in­ter­nal af­fairs” ar­gu­ment used by au­thor­i­tar­ian and to­tal­i­tar­ian regimes dis­solves when those gov­ern­ments un­der­take in­ter­na­tional com­mit­ments.

Your Com­mis­sion has rightly stated that the “in­ter­nal af­fairs” ar­gu­ment used by au­thor­i­tar­ian and to­tal­i­tar­ian regimes dis­solves when those gov­ern­ments un­der­take in­ter­na­tional com­mit­ments.  To fur­ther its nu­clear am­bi­tions, In­dia has made a va­ri­ety of promises and the test on the re­li­gious lib­erty front would be a small one to gauge whether it will ful­fill its big­ger promises.  The world­view should be that Nu­clear In­dia must be kept un­der ob­ser­va­tion and while the cel­e­bra­tions are on in New Delhi and Wash­ing­ton, apo­lit­i­cal bod­ies must send out the right mes­sage –loud and clear.

While Kand­hamal still burns and poor Chris­tians are be­ing lynched and their homes ran­sacked, the Sikh, Mus­lim and civil so­ci­ety lead­er­ship has ral­lied be­hind the Chris­tians.  The Sikhs have done so as it is teach­ing they have im­bibed. Bha­gat Kabir in Guru Granth Sahib says   “ਪਾਰੋਸੀ ਕੇ ਜੋ ਹੂਆ ਤੂ ਅਪਨੇ ਭੀ ਜਾਨੁ ॥੧੬੭॥-You know that what­ever hap­pens to your neigh­bours, may hap­pen to you.”

“We must al­ways take sides. Neu­tral­ity helps the op­pres­sor, never the vic­tim. Si­lence en­cour­ages the tor­men­tor, never the tor­mented. Some­times we must in­ter­fere. When hu­man lives are en­dan­gered, when hu­man dig­nity is in jeop­ardy, na­tional bor­ders and sen­si­tiv­i­ties be­come ir­rel­e­vant. Wher­ever men or women are per­se­cuted be­cause of their race, re­li­gion, or their be­liefs….”

Eliezer Wiesel, Holo­caust writer, vic­tim of Nazism, 1986 No­bel Peace Prize Win­ner

The Chris­t­ian lead­er­ship, though very in­flu­en­tial, has all along in­ured it­self from the mis­ery and suf­fer­ing of other mi­nori­ties when un­der at­tack.  In June 1984 and No­vem­ber 1984, there were com­ments in the Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor and words of com­pas­sion from the Pope in Vat­i­can, but the Chris­t­ian re­li­gious lead­er­ship in In­dia chose si­lence and neu­tral­ity. Same has been the case when Mus­lims were the butt of at­tack in the car­nages in Mum­bai and Ahmed­abad.  It is high time for the Chris­tians to throw up po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship in the coun­try. It is my be­lief that if In­dian Chris­tians con­tinue to shy away from ac­tivism, turn a blind eye to mis­ery of other com­mu­ni­ties and limit them­selves only to ed­u­ca­tional, oe­c­u­meni­cal and pros­e­ly­ti­za­tion ac­tiv­i­ties, that would be a wrong pol­icy and detri­men­tal to them.

I am sure that you will take up the Chris­t­ian case. I also urge you not to for­get the case of Sikh stu­dents in France.  In a para­dox­i­cal state­ment, given out just a few days ago, in re­sponse to a jour­nal­ist’s ques­tion, Pres­i­dent Sarkozy has said that France re­spects Sikh cus­toms and prac­tices, but the Sikhs are wel­come to France with­out the tur­ban as the Sikhs will have to ad­here to French rules and reg­u­la­tions. Need we say more?

Holo­caust writer and him­self a vic­tim of Nazism, Eliezer Wiesel while ac­cept­ing the 1986 No­bel Peace Prize said: “We must al­ways take sides. Neu­tral­ity helps the op­pres­sor, never the vic­tim. Si­lence en­cour­ages the tor­men­tor, never the tor­mented. Some­times we must in­ter­fere. When hu­man lives are en­dan­gered, when hu­man dig­nity is in jeop­ardy, na­tional bor­ders and sen­si­tiv­i­ties be­come ir­rel­e­vant. Wher­ever men or women are per­se­cuted be­cause of their race, re­li­gion, or their be­liefs….”

Sin­cerely
Jag­mo­han Singh