Reconversions fuel, fan this Ajmer fire

Villagers are also under pressure to withdraw their children from the 700-strong St Martin Secondary School, which was established hack in 1908. Some 180 students have been already withdrawn since the dominant Rawat community warned that those who did not comply would be declared outcastes.

Ajmer Bajrang Dal member Arvind Sharma claims there have been three ‘‘similar’’ incidents in the past one month. ‘‘A three-year-old child in St Ansel’s School, Ajmer, was also beaten up by his teacher. The Hindu Samaj has to think of ways of protecting itself.’’ Soon after the incident he mentions, Father Jose Mathias, Principal of St Anselm’s, was publicly humiliated by Hindu activists.

Ajmer Superintendent of Police Saurabh Srivastava says: ‘‘The Christians are feeling anxious and insecure. They have begun requesting for police security even for trivial school functions. We also don’t wish to take any chances.’’

The anti-missionary passions were further stoked when on September 30, an Ajmer building material supplier, Manjit Singh, alleged that his 13-year-old son Gurdeep had been tortured by the vice-principal of St John’s School. In azhis FIR, Singh said the vice-principal summoned Gurdeep, a class monitor, to a laboratory and beat him up for failing to control his noisy classmates.

He added that the vice-principal then pulled out Gurdeep’s tongue and placed a hot spoon on it. Reportedly rendered mute since then, Gurdeep is said to have recounted his experience five days later through a written statement.

On Wednesday, members from some of the city’s 200 Sikh families along with the ABVP and Bajrang Dal burnt effigies of the vice-principal as well as of the Church of North India’s (CNI) Bishop Theodor. The next day, all 13 Protestant schools in the district remained closed in protest, while a group of Christians from across the state presented a memorandum to the Collector, requesting him to take action against the miscreants. Ajmer Collector Niranjan Arya has instituted an inquiry headed by the sub-divisonal magistrate.

Noting that it was ‘‘curious’’ that Gurdeep’s parents did not report the ‘‘injury’’ for five days, Principal of St John’s School J.C. Joseph says: ‘‘She (the Vice-Principal) has been with us for 24 years and is a sincere teacher…Corporal punishment is forbidden in our school.’’

Adds CNI Secretary Justin Boniface: ‘‘They have insulted our dharamguru publicly…Although the vice-principal has been suspended, the Church authorities remain unconvinced about her guilt.’’

Incidentally, a report by a special three-member medical board has said there are no blisters on Gurdeep’s tongue and diagnosed the problem instead as ‘‘functional mutism due to anxiety’’. The real cause for it, the report adds, is yet to be ascertained.

But Manjit Singh insists the issue is not religion. ‘‘We are not interested in the religion (of the teacher), it could have happened even in a Hindu school. But we want the guilty teacher to be punished.’’ In the same breath, he adds: ‘‘The teacher may have had communal sentiments because she pulled my son by his jooda, which is an insult to our religion.’’

Former Ajmer president of the Youth Congress and now Jagriti Manch patron Rajiv Sharma was among the first politicians to jump into the picture, promptly setting up a website christened ‘meri murga’ and featuring Father Jose Mathias of St Anselm’s School. Says Sharma: ‘‘We want to fight against converted Christians who are flooding missionary schools and giving a bad name to Christianity.’’

Adds ABVP president Kailash Sharma: ‘‘We are taking up the issue of government funding of minority institutions in our movement, which begins on October 11. As these

incidents prove, Christian schools are clearly misusing their power.’’