Dr. John Dayal
Member: National Integration Council
Government of India
National President: All India Catholic Union
(Founded 1919)
Secretary General: All India Christian Council
New Delhi, 20 March 2006
Dr Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
Dear Primer Minister ,
Greetings from the Christian Community.
May I thank you for the compassion and alacrity
with which you took my complaint to you about
the painful events in Kota against the Emmanuel
Mission. Union Home Minister, Mr. Shivraj Patil
was kind enough to write to me immediately expressing
your concern and promising on his own behalf
that he would have the facts as ascertained.
Later, the newly appointed chairman of the National
Minorities Commission, Ambassador Hamid Ansari
also wrote to me saying that he had sought the
facts from the State government of Rajasthan.
I am sure your communication with the State
government of Rajasthan will have its full impact.
It has already brought about a sense of relief
and hope in the community in general, and in
the victims of persecution in particular.
In my own identify as an NIC member and head
of two major Church organizations, the Catholic
Union and the Christian Council, I also visited
Kota, Jaipur and surrounding areas from 18th
to 20th March 2006 with a an investigative group
for a first hand experience and assessment of
the situation, as also our prognosis about the
persecution of our people and the pressure on
our institutions inn the state.
My colleagues on the team were distinguished
persons, including Sr. Mary Scaria, an advocate
of the Supreme court and secretary of the Justice
and Peace commission of the Catholic Delhi Archdiocese,
the Rev Madhu Chandra, Delhi region secretary
of the All India Christian Council and two independent
journalists, Mr. Anil Chamaria who is internationally
known for his incisive reportage in Hindi on
Minority and Dalit issues and Mr. Vishal Arora.
We visited Kota extensively and also had a feel
of the communal situation in the townships en
route, including Bundi and the state capital
of Jaipur. We also went through the entire coverage
in Hindi and English in all the newspapers in
the state relating to the recent as well as
earlier anti Christian incidents. We met the
District collector, the two ADMs and the SSP
of Kota as also the two concerned Station house
officers of Police Stations in the city police
district of Kota. In addition, we met with several
Christian leaders, priests, heads of Orphanages
and hospitals, patients and ordinary people.Among
them were both Hindus and Muslims,
Dear Prime Minister,
the main reason to write to you at this stage
is to bring to your notice the very volatile
communal situation in the state, and not just
against Christians. It is obvious that the Rajasthan
State government machinery including the Justice
system, and the Civil and law and order administration,
are overwhelmed by political pressure from the
BJP whose members roam free offering large sums
of money for the murder of Archbishop M A Thomas
others while the state machinery merrily strangulates
his orphanages and schools by summarily rescinding
their registrations without even giving enough
time to respond to a show cause notice. All
threads speak of a conspiracy aggressively executed.
I fear violence can flare up at any time and
anywhere, beginning with Kota. The community
feels threatened. Already several incidents
have taken place against the Catholic, Protestant
and Evangelical communities which constitute
the entirety of the Church in the State to prove
that while the Emmanuel Mission may be the immediate
symbol and victim, the conspiracy is against
the Christian faith and the followers in the
state of Rajasthan, and their social work with
the people and marginalized groups. Ten years
ago, the Sangh Parivar had threatened to make
the district of Banswara "Free of Christians
by 2000 AD". They failed to do so at that
time. They are trying very hard to carryout
their promise now. We seek your intervention
in this backdrop and emergency. This is with
the concurrence with the members of the Investigative
Team under the aegis of the All India Christian
Council which accompanied me and of which I
was the part.
For the sake of brevity, I break down my report
and complaint to you into five components, and
for each pleading your attention and concern.
The communal situation in Kota and the state
of Rajasthan, with specific respect to the Christian
Community. The conspiracy against the Emmanuel
Mission which began in 2002 when the BJP came
to power in the state leading to the rescinding
of the remigration of seven organizations and
the freezing of their bank accounts and the
consequences for the inmates of orphanages and
hospitals The precipitate action against the
Thomas family leading to non-bailable warrants
against Archbishop M.A Thomas and his son Rev
Samuel Thomas, Samuel's arrest from Noida in
Uttar Pradesh and the daily orchestrated public
protests against them The lack of action against
fanatical Sangh Parivar activists, directly
liked with the top leaders of the State government
and ruling party, who are offering Rs Eleven
Lakh for the murder of Archbishop Thomas and
Others Events related to the controversial book
called Haqeekat in which there are passages
allegedly injuring the religious sentiments
of devout Hindus.
1.
As Dr Joseph D Souza, President of the All India
Christian Council and I had told you and other
Central government leaders in our earlier letter,
defeated and frustrated religious fundamentalist
and hyper-nationalist groups of the Sangh Parivar
have Christians in several sensitive states.
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Orissa have been at the
top of our areas of maximum concern, with Madhya
Pradesh, Jharkhand and Karnataka close behind.
The provincial administrations and particularly
the education and police in all these states
are under the
control of the BJP.
All these states have sizable populations of
Dalits and indigenous or Tribal people who have
historically shown an abiding interest in the
life and message of Jesus. It needs to be recalled
that the Sangh Parivar had as early as the mid
1990s publicly declared that it would make the
Banswara district of Rajasthan `Christian-free?
by the end of the century. Despite a reign of
terror, Christians remain in Banswara. Kota,
with its history of tension between Muslims
and Hindus to which the Collector and Police
officers attest, seems the likely tinder box
for future tension and possible violence. The
fact that the Emmanuel Mission is active in
this city makes them the logical target. However,
Catholic schools have been attacked in Kota
and even a Leprosy hospital being run by Catholic
nuns has been targeted. Is a leprosy mission
a threat to security, or to any religion? Is
a leprosy clinic a forum for Conversion? Other
attacks have been in Jhalawar, Beawar and in
Jaipur
2.
The Conspiracy against the Emmanuel Mission:
Archbishop M A Thomas has been active in Kota
for more than thirty years. His is an independent
mission whose charism is caring for Orphans
and running schools and hospitals for them.
Although he is not part of the mainline Catholic
and Protestant Churches and works independently
of them, he is popular with the people and his
record of service has led to the government
awarding him the Padma Shree three years ago
But despite this, his work, and the success
of his institutions continue to invite hostile
attention. As soon as the BJP came to power
in 2002, clandestine enquiries were launched
against all his institutions which were subjected
to a harsh probe and financial audit by the
department dealing with Registration of societies
and charitable organizations. It is three years,
but so far they never confronted him with any
wrongdoing. Now suddenly without notice and
with no time for him to respond, the organizations
have been derecognized. Following this, their
bank accounts stand frozen. That leads to a
shortage of fuel and food for the orphanages.
For three days, the Orphans told our delegation,
the food had to be cooked on a wood fire as
they ran out of cooking gas. Now the collector
has assured us that he has ordered the gas agency
to ensure there is constant supply of the gas.
In the hospital, patients have been cared off
by the staff because of the presence of the
police and threats that if any one is treated,
the staff would be arrested and the hospital
closed down. Inmates include orphans suffering
from tuberculosis and at least one child in
a coma. The timing of these actions is the most
suspicious.
3.
The Thomas family itself is terrorized. Non-bailable
warrants were issued against MA Thomas and Sam
Thomas and their senior staff arrested on charges
of a controversial book being found on their
premises. Without going into the merits of the
case, it is obvious that the justice delivery
machinery was under great political pressure
to see that the Thomas family is incapacitated
and is no longer in charge of the institutions.
Samuel Thomas was arrested from Noida under
controversial circumstances, and it was only
some adroit action by the Police superintendent
that he was saved from lynched. He is now safe
in police custody, but there is much to be said
in which anticipatory bail has been refused
him in recent days. A notice is pasted at his
door declaring his father to be an absconder.
Samuel Thomas's wife, now in the US, has told
us by email that all charges are politically
motivated charges.
4 .
The lack of action against fanatical Sangh Parivar
activists, directly liked with the top leaders
of the State government and ruling party, who
are offering Rs 11 Lakh each for the murder
of Archbishop Thomas and others, speaks the
most clearly of the conspiracy and its political
roots and continuing patronage. I am attaching
herewith a copy of a press cutting highlighting
this murder order. It smacks of what Al Qaeda
does. And the law looks on silently, even weakly.
6.
The controversy of the book Haqeekat. The book
has been banned, so we have not seen a copy.
However, I have read excerpts in the RSS weekly
Panchjanya. They are not in good taste. The
law must take its course against the author
and translator, but is the Mission and its founder
in any way connected even if the book was found
on their premises. Even otherwise, by identical
yardsticks, former minister Arun Shourie, the
late BJP writer Sita Ram Goel, and many a Sangh
professor ought to be prosecuted for hurting
the feelings of Christians, apart from senior
BJP leaders who hurt the sentiments of Muslims
on a daily basis. Is the charge for which Archbishop
Thomas faces non bailable warrants of arrest
as an absconder?
Dear Prime Minister,
even our preliminary enquiry shows grave miscarriage
of justice, malice aforethought by those in
power and
connivance between the state machinery, the
activists of the Sangh Parivar and the State
government.
The immediate victims are not the Emanuel mission
or even the Thomas family, much as they have
suffered. The victims are the 2,200 orphans,
scores of patients, leprosy victims and others.
The mission, the Archbishop and the community
remain victims of injustice.
May I appeal to you once again to order a high
level probe into the entire matter and see that
justice is done. Meanwhile, the state government
must be told in no uncertain terms that its
actions are making India a target of derision
in the comity of nations. The warrants against
archbishop M A Thomas must be withdrawn, Samuel
Thomas must be released, the Emmanuel mission
organizations must have their registration restored
and their bank accounts made operative, and
the Christian community at large assured pf
safety in their own homeland.
Dear Prime minister,
we look to you for justice. Let the law take
its due course without political pressure from
the state and the ruling party of that state,
and without malice amongst the leaders and officials.
Thank you
John Dayal
For and on behalf of the All India Christian
Council team which investigated the Kota incidents.
