By Saji Thomas

Church leaders and others in Madhya Pradesh state believe a "political witch hunt" is going on as attacks on Christians continue unabated.

The government wants to polarize voters on the basis of religion as a state assembly election approach, alleges Father Anand Muttungal, spokesperson of the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian people's party) formed the current government in the central state in December 2003, with a five-year term. The party is seen as the political arm of right-wing Hindu groups that want to create a theocratic state in India.

Father Muttungal cited two recent anti-Christian incidents as part of a "political witch hunt," a view shared by Naresh Saraf, a member of the main opposition Congress party.

Most recently, suspected Hindu militants harassed a Protestant pastor in July.

In the other incident, on June 30, some BJP activists staged a sit-in before the office of the collector of Bhopal district, demanding action against a Catholic school for allegedly denigrating an ancient mystic poet.

Bhopal, some 745 kilometers south of New Delhi, is the state capital.

Pastor Amos Singh of the Evangelical Church of India narrated to UCA News on July 5 his experience with Hindu radicals. The 50-year-old pastor said they asked him the previous day to vacate his house, a tin shed that he uses also for prayer services, in Balaghat, 350 kilometers southeast of Bhopal.

Earlier, on July 2, other Hindu militants attacked him at Rewa, 450 kilometers north of Balaghat, where he had gone to guide a two-day retreat for 150 people. Five people forced their way into the room in a church compound where he was sleeping. They threw him on the floor and shouted, "Beat him!" and "Set him on fire!"

When the pastor's wife tried to intervene, the intruders held her at knifepoint. "They then began to beat me up with iron rods and lathi (batons)," the pastor added. The assailants also attacked other people, and one woman suffered head injuries.

Pastor Singh said the attackers belong to some Hindu groups that oppose Christians. Militants had tried to stop the retreat on July 1, the first day, but the Christians conducted it with police help.

"I am happy to suffer in the name of Christ," the pastor said, adding that the attacks served to indicate the Church's revival in the state.

In the June incident, the protesting BJP workers asked the collector to de-recognize St. Thomas Senior Secondary School in Bhopal.

They complained that the school magazine had published on March 1 a joke about Kabir Das (1398-1518), a prominent personality in the history of Indian mysticism. The local media portrayed the action as dishonoring the poet, who is revered in India for teaching loving devotion to the divine and an egalitarian society.

Principal Father Thomas Mancharuvil told UCA News his school apologized for the incident and removed the teacher who was in charge of the magazine soon after the reports appeared. The school had printed 960 copies of the magazine. It managed to recover 930 of them and removed the page containing the joke.

The school sent a note of regret to the state school education board and also published it in the local press. "The issue was closed there," Father Mancharuvil maintained.

The priest described the continuing agitation as "very unfortunate" and blamed parents of some failed students. The parents had pressed the school to issue transfer certificates falsely stating that the children had passed their exam, but the school refused.

Condemning these incidents, Saraf told UCA News the state government supported the anti-Christian groups as part of its "vote-bank politics."

Saurabh, a Jain businessman, agreed the attacks are aimed at creating a Hindu vote bank. He warned such moves would spread hatred among various religious communities.

Pastor Anil Martin, also of the Evangelical Church of India, predicted Madhya Pradesh would witness more such incidents as the election approaches. He said Church workers should take "maximum care" while carrying out their duties.

UCAN
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