Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s decision to incorporate a meeting with Pope John Paul II into the itinerary of his European Union summit last week was hasty, unnecessary, and unwise, and can be expected to have a long-term deleterious impact on this country’s sovereignty and national interests. What is more, it is unlikely to improve his government’s standing among the minority communities at home as they are opposed to his regime on ideological grounds. Were this not the case, the Muslim community would have been both impressed by and grateful for the riot-free record of the BJP Central and state governments. Yet the BJP has been nonplussed to find that this fact is of little or no consideration to the community’s political and religious leadership.
The meeting with the pontiff was ill-conceived on more than one count. To begin with, it bestowed the Papacy with the status of religious-political head of Indian Christians of all denominations, when the fact is that the Pope is the religious head of only the Catholic sect and his political sovereignty in the white Christian west is simply non-existent. This has given the Christian community in India the message that even Congress has not dared give to any minority – that it can legitimately turn to an extra-terrestrial leadership to redress its grievances.
By calling on John Paul II in the hope of appeasing aggrieved Christian sentiment at home, Mr. Vajpayee has virtually accepted that his government is accountable to an extra-terrestrial authority for the safety of its Christian population. The savvy bishop underscored this point with his demand that the attacks on his co-religionists be ended forthwith, as though the government was behind the incidents and could halt them at will.
This is a serious blow to our sovereignty and the government owes the nation an explanation for this abject surrender to a sectarian viewpoint. Readers would recall that I disapproved of President K.R. Narayanan’s virtually holding the Vajpayee government responsible for the Graham Staines murder in the absence of credible evidence. Mr. Vajpayee, however, has gone even further, rushing in where angels fear to tread, and inflicting untold damage to this country’s pristine secular traditions and its unique ‘live and let flower’ ethos.
It is amazing that no one in the entire government saw fit to ponder the deeper implications of this diplomatic goof-up. It is possible that there was not enough time for an in-depth review of the pros and cons before the Prime Minister actually departed for his foreign tour. But in that case the Ministry of External Affairs should have let sleeping dogs lie, rather than hasten to fix an appointment with the Pope in order to repent at leisure.
Christian leaders have been quick to take the cue from the Prime Minister’s political capitulation before the pontiff. Already a prominent intellectual has called upon Ms. Sonia Gandhi to get over her diffidence at being a white foreign-born Christian and openly assume the leadership of the community, and spearhead a movement to bring down the government. If the Vajpayee government was actually complicit in the incidents this would be a legitimate position. But the available evidence suggests the need to examine each incident on merit. For instance, the Congress government of Madhya Pradesh itself had to admit that the assault on four nuns in a remote corner of the state two years ago was the handiwork of converted tribal youths. Despite this, the canard is being perpetuated politically and through sections of the media that a BJP-affiliate organization was involved in the event.
Nor is this the only instance of willful misrepresentation of truth. Some time after the Madhya Pradesh incident, allegations of the rape of a nun in Orissa were ‘withdrawn’ after a medical examination disproved criminal assault. Thereafter, the lady simply disappeared into thin air, and neither she nor any responsible member of her order thought fit to issue an apology for uttering such a disgraceful falsehood. Similarly, the recent furore over the murder of a priest in Uttar Pradesh and the subsequent death of his cook in police custody has thrown up the revelation that the cook was arrested and kept in jail at the insistence of the religious brotherhood itself. Needless to say, they simply clammed up when confronted with the facts.
While a number of local incidents have been proved to be criminal events with no communal colour, and have even been accepted as such by the victims themselves, they continue to be projected otherwise by the high-profile, articulate and media savvy national leadership of the community. It is truly amazing that the Christian community should take no interest in the police theory of an ISI hand in the blasts in churches in Andhra Pradesh.
Yet the sustained and focused nature of the violence against Christian missionaries and institutions indicates careful planning and purpose. The record of the past fifty years suggests that such incidents more often than not have a political objective. In the present instance, although the BJP and its affiliates have been painted as the villains of the piece, the party has not derived any political mileage from the events. It is in fact upset at the adverse publicity the incidents have attracted internationally, and is hard-pressed to defend itself against charges of collusion with the culprits. Conversely, a major political party has been able to consolidate significant sections of the minority vote behind it by tom-tomming the allegations.
This, however, is no reason why the government should lose its nerve and invite international scrutiny on matters that are essentially India’s internal affairs. Personally, I expect the attacks against Christians to peter out as newly self-confident tribal communities consciously defeat conversion attempts by allurement or inducement, and compel missionaries to settle down to a de facto no-conversion policy, which is the crux of the present conflict. At the same time, Signora Gandhi’s waning influence in public life and in the Congress party will also ultimately inform the community’s approach on the matter, as there can be little doubt that much of the muscle-flexing the missionaries indulged in was on account of her perceived political stock. In this context, there may be some merit in the Sangh Parivar’s private claims that most of the attacks are being concentrated in Andhra Pradesh with the objective of compelling Chandrababu Naidu to withdraw support to the BJP government at the Centre.
Be that as it may be, by one small act of short-sightedness, the Prime Minister has opened the doors for intervention in India’s internal affairs by virtually all interested parties. If we offer the Pope an explanation on Christian affairs, how do we fend off members of the international community from intervening in sensitive matters such as Kashmir? If Pakistan assumes a proprietary interest in the welfare of Indian Muslims, do we pander to its vanity?
The government’s was clearly ill-advised, and the nation deserves to know the identity of the advisers who played on its fear of international opprobrium and persuaded the Prime Minister to defend himself in the Vatican’s court. The matter is too sensitive to be brushed aside; some heads must roll. Both the Prime Minister and the government would do well to appreciate that a nation that canvases support for a permanent seat in the Security Council should be more vigilant in the defence of its own honour.
The Pioneer, 4 July 2000