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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, JUNE 24: On the eve of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajapyee’s visit to Rome, where he is scheduled to meet Pope John Paul II, the senior-most law officer of the country, Attorney General Soli Sorabjee has come out strongly against those responsible for attacks on the Christian community.
Making his views public in a statement to a news agency, Sorabjee, in an oblique refence to the "oust-Christian" slogan of the Bajrang Dal, a Sangh Parivar outfit, said: "Persons who make statements that Christians are bigger enemies than Muslims should be locked up either in jail or in a lunatic asylum."
A local leader of the Bajrang Dal in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, had been quoted as saying that Christians were bigger enemies than Muslims and that his organisation was ready to fight wherever church institutions were active.
Sorabjee’s statement coincided with another by Vajpayee, who expressed deep concern over the incidents of violence against Christian individuals and institutions.
The Attorney General took exception to the attacks against Christians and the vandalisation of a cemetery in Andhra Pradesh and said that this would "damage the secular image of the country and the Government".
"Such scurrilous statements cause immense damage to the secular image of our country and Government, and induce a sense of insecurity in the minds of minorities," he said. They could also provide ammunition to hostile elements for anti-India propaganda, he noted.
In his statement, Vajpayee also expressed deep concern over the attacks on the Christian community and asked state governments to probe every incident thoroughly so that the culprits were brought to book speedily.
According to the Prime Minister’s media advisor, H K Dua, Vajpayee will meet with Pope John Paul II, the religious head of the Catholics, on Monday. On the eve of visit to Italy and Poland, he said that the recurring incidents of violence against the Christian community were a matter of deep concern to all those who believed in communal harmony and national unity.
"My Government is committed to upholding the law of the land which guarantees equal rights to all our citizens without any discrimination, but no rights to anybody or any organisation belonging to any community to spread ill-will and hatred towards another community," he said.
The Prime Minister said that the incidents of violence against the Christian community "are an aberration and an exception to the general texture of peaceful and cordial relations between the various communities". They damaged our secular ethos based on the principle of sarva panth samabhava (equal respect for all faiths)," he said.
