Asia Times: India's ruling party stung by US criticism



	September 14, 1999	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

India's ruling party stung by US criticism
By Ranjit Dev Raj

NEW DELHI - Stung by a US State Department report criticizing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for religious intolerance, India declared Saturday that it rejected ''any intrusive exercise'' on how it conducts its affairs.

''Those who concern themselves with monitoring religious freedom would be well advised to focus their efforts on countries which remain under the pale of bigotry and intolerance and where minorities are discriminated against by law and their freedom progressively curtailed,'' a foreign ministry statement said.

The object of the irritation was the Global Survey on Religious Freedom, mandated by US Congress and released last week. It criticizes the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other Hindu organizations for their attitude to religious conversion.

India's strong reaction came as former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral accused the government of not being serious about arresting a religious fanatic who, eyewitnesses said, led a murderous attack on the Australian evangelist Graham Staines and his two young sons in January.

The jeep in which the Staines were sleeping at a jungle camp in eastern Orissa state was surrounded by suspected members of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu fundamentalist organization, and set on fire, killing all three.

''It is impossible to understand that the entire machinery of the Indian state is not able to trace him [primary accused Dara Singh] after nearly nine months,'' Gujral said during a panel discussion on the Wadhwa Commission's report on the incident. Dara Singh, police in Orissa said, was also responsible for the murders of a Muslim trader Sheikh Rahman and a Roman Catholic priest Arul Doss last week.

Gujral dismissed the charges of conversion leveled against Christian institutions by leaders of several Hindu organizations, which have stoked unprecedented hostility towards missionaries ever since the BJP came to power in March last year. He added that he and members of his family were indebted to Christian institutions for the education they received. ''If any testimony is needed I would say that never in my life have we ever heard a hint of anything like conversion.''

The Wadhwa Commission report, tabled last month, failed to link Dara Singh to any Hindu fundamentalist organization, to the dismay of Christian groups and political parties which profess secularism, like the opposition Congress party.

Gujral said the Wadhwa Commission report was not about an incident but about the whole question of secularism and religious tolerance in this country: ''If society does no revolt against such incidents the country's unity itself would be in grave danger.''

The BJP termed the US State Department survey ''mischievous'', and its spokesman, J P Mathur denounced it as ''one designed to tarnish the BJP's image during the general elections country''.

According to the survey, ''tensions between Muslims and Hindus, and to a lesser extent Christians, continue to pose a challenge to the concepts of secularism, tolerance and diversity on which the state was founded''. It said the BJP was an offshoot of the RSS which ''espouses a return to Hindu values and cultural norms'', and that members of both organizations have been implicated in incidents of violence and discrimination against Christians and Muslims.

While both organizations express respect and tolerance for other religions, the RSS in particular opposes conversions from Hinduism and believes all Indians should adhere to Hindu cultural values, the survey said.

A marginal party at the beginning of the decade, the BJP rose spectacularly, riding a wave of religio-cultural sentiment whipped up over the rebuilding of an ancient temple said to have been demolished by sixteenth century Muslim rulers. However, the BJP has considerably toned down its fundamentalist rhetoric for the current general elections - staggered through this month and early October - under pressure from electoral allies in the National Democratic Alliance.

The US survey did not hold the government itself responsible for attacks on Christians and Muslims and acknowledged that the constitution of India provided for freedom of religion and that the government respected this.

However, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman was emphatic that the US ambassador-at-large for religious freedom and other officials were not welcome to visit India to discuss religious freedom. He said the constitutional guarantees were additionally protected by the judiciary and effectively enforced by executive authorities.

(Inter Press Service)

asian sex gazette