04.02.2013 India. Catholic leaders have asked the Indian government to ban two radical Hindu organizations on the grounds that they are behind a series of attacks on Christians.
Joseph Dias, head of the Catholic Secular Forum in Mumbai, said his organization has asked Home Minister Sushikumar Shinde to immediately ban the two groups Sanathan Sanstha (Eternal Forum) and Abhinav Bharat (New India).
Both organizations are affiliated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS - National Volunteer Corps), an umbrella organization for right-wing Hindu organizations working to turn India into a Hindu nation.
Dias highlighted the link between anti-Christian attacks and Hindu fanaticism, saying: "Almost every day there is an attack on a Christian minority community somewhere in the country".
He mentioned that his organization has recorded 250 cases of attacks on Christians across the country in 2012 alone. These range "from new Christian converts being forced to drink cow urine, to the rape and murder of Christian clerics and Christian Dalits".
Michael Saldanha, a Catholic and retired judge of the High Court of Mumbai and Karnataka, also supports the ban, but said he thinks the inaction of Christian leaders is also partly to blame for the increased number of attacks. "The Christian community has become an easy target because our cardinals, bishops and priests are not willing to protest strongly enough to the government," he said.
He added that if church leaders were willing to stand firm and adopt a zero-tolerance policy against attacks on Christians, then "the rise in violence against Christians could be drastically reduced".
Dias further said that a closer examination of the list of attacks shows that the state of Maharashtra in western India stands out as the next potential trouble spot. The state ranks fourth on the list of recent attacks on Christians, with Karnataka, Chattisgarh and Madya Pradesh topping the list.
These three states are led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, while Maharashtra is led by a coalition government.
Maharashtra Home Minister R. R. Patil has now urged the federal authorities to ban the two Hindu groups because of their tendency towards religiously motivated violence. Dias supports this initiative. His organization, Catholic Secular Forum, has released a report titled "The 2012 Christian Persecution In India Report" based on information from the media, NGOs and representatives from the organization in different parts of the country. A copy of the report has been presented to Cardinal Oswald Gracias in Mumbai, who is the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.
Source: Ucanews
