Dimapur, September 3 (MExN): The Nagaland Joint Christian Forum (NJCF) on Saturday asserted that vandalizing of sacred worship places must be put to an end once and for all.
“There is an undercurrent movement to destroy the secular spirit in the country. Only when the authority takes what has happened seriously as a threat to the nation then, confidence and insecurity feelings of the minorities will be restored and the nation will move forward,” it said in a press release on September 3.
In the release, the Forum stated that the incident at Tarn Taran district in Punjab was ‘most unfortunate. It demanded justice along with the assurance to the Christian community and other minority groups that “we matter to the nation as much as the majority.”
The NJCF noted that India has always taken pride in her size as the world most populous democracy in the world, “However, unfortunately, this is turning out to be a threat to the religious minorities in the big nation.” It maintained that the “uncontrolled element fuelled by certain religious fanatics in the country has emboldened certain scrupulous groups to create restless and unsafe situations across the nation,” and the recent vandalization of a church in Punjab has once again raised an alarm that Christians are never secure in the hands of the majority.
While appreciating the Chief Minister of Punjab for reassuring the people by proclaiming that a probe has been initiated into the ‘highly condemnable’ incident, the NJCF, nevertheless, viewed that “until the people who are in power at the centre take a drastic step and action it will be labelled as ‘conspiracy.’”
We are not new to this kind of situation. Minority groups have gone through untold miseries time and again leading them to lose their faith and trust in the system to protect them, it maintained.
The Forum noted that “Hate crimes in the country against religious minorities are always a labelled as false report and a conspiracy and the authority usually explain their way out. Thus far, we have not heard of befitting penalization of the guilty.”
In this connection, the Forum stated that it is now time to put the speech of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi to the US congress in 2016 into action. “For my government, the Constitution is its real holy book. And, in that holy book, freedom of faith, speech and franchise, and equality of all citizens, regardless of background, are enshrined as fundamental rights,” it said, quoting Modi’s speech that appeared in the Economic Times on June 8, 2016.
“Unless the good speech is translated into action in a time such as this, the future of the nation is bleak. A nation cannot be called developing nation/developed nation unless the fear which inhabits in the minds of the people are dealt with,” it asserted.
According to the Forum, “‘Force conversion’ has no constitutional definition; it is only used as a shield for perpetrators and those who are trying to create animosity among the people.” Religion be it Christianity, Islam or others lie within the ambit of “freedom of religion,” and religious buildings used for worship is not only considered as sacred but is an integral part of the community spiritual experience, it argued.
Urging the government of Punjab to do all that they can to bring the perpetrators to book and deal with them sternly according to the law of the land, the Forum underscored that the “authority should not leave the matter at the ‘sympathy’ level but most investigate and go down to the bottom and expose the link because what happened in Punjab is not an isolated case.”
“We call upon people of different religious traditions and faith in India to live in peace. Violence will beget violence; it is only love that will give birth to peace and harmony,” it further stated.
