|
Religious rights take a hit
by Scott Baldauf
CS Monitor (29.10.2002) / HRWF Int. (30.10.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Here in India's southernmost state of Tamil Nadu, a state ordinance banning "forced" religious conversions is setting up the conditions for a clash between the state's religious minorities and majority Hindu community.
On its face, the new law C which went into effect last Thursday and which punishes offenders with up to four years in prison C does not specify any particular religious group as its target. But members of Tamil Nadu's small minority communities C Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists C say the law is aimed at preventing lower-caste Hindus from converting to other religions.
"Christians do not believe in forced conversion C it is a sin; real conversion has to do with a change of the heart," says Bishop Devasagayam, head of the Anglican Church of South India in Chennai. "This ordinance is for political mobilization, and for political mobilization, you need to create an enemy," he says, referring to the minority community. "But we are confident that if we can put up a united stand against this law, no party can ignore the aspirations of 40 percent of the people."
Supporters of the law say that the best way to reduce tensions in India's multicultural society is to prevent aggressive missionaries from shifting the balances of power from one religious group to another. Some Hindu radical groups even say the law should be replicated nationwide. Detractors say that such measures only stir communal tensions and are a fundamental breach of the Indian Constitution's provisions for religious freedom.
Regardless, the debate's intensity reveals the extent to which religious and caste identity have become driving forces of this country. "In Indian society, there are two registers," says Dipankar Gupta, an anthropologist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "On the political register, we don't recognize that the caste system exists, but on the social register, we do see caste differences."
The Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Ordinance is only the third of its kind in India. It includes a ban on the use of "allurements" to convert, but fails to define that term or what constitutes forced conversion in general.
"When we are feeding the poor, is that propagating our religion?" asks Bishop Devasagayam. "Anything a Christian does C whether it's teaching in schools or working in hospitals or slums C could be considered an 'allurement' to convert."
Promoted by former Tamil film star and current state Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalitha, the new law could hardly have come at a worse time. In September, the US Committee for Religious Freedom issued a scathing report on India, citing in particular communal riots last spring in the state of Gujarat, which claimed the lives of 1,000 Indians, mostly Muslims.
Since that report, the country has witnessed a number of other brutal attacks on ethnic or religious communities, including the massacre of Hindu worshippers by two Muslim gunmen at a Hindu temple in Gujarat and the mob lynching this month of five outcaste Hindus in Haryana state for the "murder" and skinning of a cow.
Many Hindus say religious minorities themselves are causing trouble. In this state, for instance, the conversion of two villages C one to Christianity and the other to Islam C set off riots in 1981 that killed dozens. In recent months, the Seventh Day Adventist church has announced a campaign to convert 1,000,000 Hindus, particularly those from the Dalit community.
Dalits are those Hindus who are so far down on the social ladder that they cannot drink from the same cups as other Hindus or worship in the same temples. Indian law officially outlawed such vestiges of "untouchability," but in many rural parts of India, they are widely practiced.
"There is no ban at present for the social upliftment of the masses through education or hospitals, but in the name of social change, they should not convert people," says the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, a top Hindu teacher and saint, in an interview at his ashram in Kanchipuram, west of Chennai.
As one of the key proponents of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness, the Shankaracharya has preached that India's future lies in recapturing its past, a time when Hindu values and traditions held the countries many faiths, religions, and traditions together into a cohesive, Hindu-led whole.
But historians counter that such a period never truly existed, arguing that historically, Hindu leaders (as well as Muslim conquerors) more often used their political power to repress minorities.
While peddling Hindutva, the Shankaracharya has not been averse to talking with various communities, and he is widely credited with calming tensions in Gujarat last May. "I'm ready to have dialogue with Christians if they come, without any politicians," he says, crosslegged on a chair covered in leopard-print cloth. "Hinduism does not fight with anybody. But if a fight comes, Hinduism doesn't leave it."
For Tamil Nadu's religious minorities, that fight began long ago. After 2,000 years in India, they argue, Christianity can no longer be considered a "foreign" religion.
Most Christians in Tamil Nadu and neighboring Kerala believe that Christianity was brought to India by the Apostle Thomas around AD60 At Chennai's Santhome Cathedral, the supposed hand-bone of St. Thomas is kept.
At the same time, most Christians still believe that their role is to reform some of the more brutal aspects of caste oppression through social work and philanthropy.
That social development C found in 6,000 Christian schools statewide and countless hospitals, clinics, and social welfare centers C has had a profound effect on the livelihoods of South Indians, making them some of the most educated members of Indian society and guaranteeing good jobs in government bureaucracy and the growing world of high technology.
Social work has not necessarily filled churches. Official census figures show that the Indian Christian population has actually shrunk, from 2.4 percent in 1981 to 2.3 percent in 1991.
"Even if the conversion efforts are aggressive, it is good for the Dalit people," says Paul Pragasan, a Church of South India pastor in Chennai. "I look at this as social revolution. It's not so much a religious issue as it is social development from oppression to freedom, from illiteracy to literacy, and it is the upper class of the country who want to stop this."
For now, the ordinance has at least one achievement to its credit. It has united the fractious minority community, bringing together Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and the millions of Dalits who make up nearly 40 percent of the state's population.
At a rally last week, on the grounds of the St. Andrew's Church in Chennai, thousands of Christians and Muslims gathered to hold a fast and protest the new law. It was the state's largest such protest or political meeting in recent memory.
"All these people here are those who live outside the system," says Mr. Pragasan, the pastor. "I'm a Dalit, he's a Dalit, he's a Dalit. This is not the intended purpose of the ordinance, but it has brought us together, and if we unite, we are the majority."
Back to the Table of Contents
Madras High Court admits petition against Tamil Nadu anti-conversion ordinance
PTI ( 28.10.2002)/ HRWF Int. (29.10.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The Madras High Court on Monday issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government on a petition by a Christian missionary challenging the recently promulgated anti-conversion ordinance on the ground that it violated Freedom of Religion as guaranteed under the Constitution.
Admitting the petition of 70-year-old Pastor Thangaraj seeking that the ordinance be declared null and void and unconstitutional, a Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice B Subhashan Reddy and Justice C Nagappan, issued notice to the state returnable in two weeks.
The petitioner, residing in Thiruvalluvar District, contended that the impugned October 5 "Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion" ordinance was detrimental to the social fabric of the nation and would go against the uplift of socially, educationally and economically deprived and oppressed communities.
The "ill-conceived" law would be a tool in the hands of Hindu fundamentalists, bureaucrats and politicians to prevent voluntary conversions, he alleged and said its enforcement would create fear in the minds of the minority communities and disturb public tranquillity.
He described the allegations that force or fraudulent means were being applied to convert persons from one religion to another as false, imaginary and unreasonable.
He also sought a stay on implementation of the ordinance till disposal of his petition.
Back to the Table of Contents
Jaya stands ground on anti-conversion decree
Indian Express (21.10.2002)/ HRWF Int. (23.10.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Unfazed by vehement protests by members of minority communities against the state government's Ordinance banning ''forcible'' conversions, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa today reiterated that it was not directed against any particular religion, but was only intended to prevent conversions against a person's will and wish.
''The Ordinance has been promulgated only to prevent conversions through force or allurement. It is not directed against any religion or minorities,'' Jayalalithaa told a 16-member delegation of the Tamil Nadu United Minorities Forum which met her at the Secretariat here.
According to an official release issued later, the delegation which called on the CM included Pondicherry Archbishop Michael Augustin, Chennai CSI Bishop Devasahayam, Vellore bishop Chinnappa, Madras-Mylapore deputy bishop Laurence Paes and Muslim leaders Abdul Khader and Nizamudeen and Dalit leader Krishnaparayanar.
When the delegation expressed fears that the Ordinance had the potential of being misused, the Chief Minister assured them that the AIADMK government had never failed to protect the interests of the minorities and would always try to safeguard them, the release said.
The minority community leaders, however, told newsmen that as the Chief Minister did not give any assurance about withdrawing the Ordinance there was no change in their plans for agitation that includes a hunger strike and a conference on October 24 when the Assembly session is scheduled to begin.
There was also no change in their decision to close as many as 6,000 educational institutions run by minorities, demanding immediate withdrawal of the Ordinance.
Pointing out that that the minorities had openly supported the secular front led by the AIADMK in the last Assembly polls, they said, ''The Ordinance and subsequent explanation by the government are a slur on the selfless service done by them for upliftment of poor and downtrodden.''
Back to the Table of Contents
Gunmen kill 29 people in attack on Hindu temple
by Thomas Kutty Abraham
Reuters (24.09.2002)/HRWF International Secretariat (26.09.2002) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - - Gunmen killed 29 people in an attack on an Indian Hindu temple on Tuesday that could reignite communal unrest and raise tensions with Pakistan.
Police said more than 70 people were also injured in the attack and a further 100 people were feared trapped inside with the unidentified gunmen who stormed the Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar, the capital of Western Gujarat state.
Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, blamed "the enemies of the country" for the attack and said four children and six women were among the dead.
Gujarat is still recovering from the country's worst Hindu-Muslim bloodshed in a decade in February and March, which started after a Muslim mob burned 59 Hindus to death, triggering reprisals in which at least 1,000, mostly Muslims, died.
Police said the raid had stoked fears of fresh communal violence, particularly in Gujarat commercial capital Ahmedabad.
"There is tension and fear in Ahmedabad. People are scared that something could happen at night," K.K. Mysorewala, duty state intelligence police inspector, told Reuters.
A hardline Hindu group linked to India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party plans to call a strike to protest the attack.
"We are holding a meeting later today to decide on it. It could either be a state-wide strike or a national strike," Jaideep Patel, general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Gujarat unit told reporters outside the temple.
Hundreds of anxious relatives gathered at the main gates of the temple, as Indian rescue and security forces rushed to the area and pulled out the dead and injured on stretchers.
"I heard a loud noise and gunshots. I didn't know what was happening. Then we were told by the temple trustees to get inside a room," said survivor Gurumukh Palwani, 40, who managed to get out of the temple with his two children.
"There were about 600 people at the time of the attack. Thank God I am alive," he said, tears running down his cheeks.
"There are three militants armed with automatic weapons. The militants are still inside the temple," inspector R.B. Rawal in the Gujarat state intelligence control room told Reuters.
A loud explosion was heard inside the temple complex in the early evening, but there were conflicting reports on whether or not the gunmen had seized any hostages.
Advani makes Kashmir Link
Advani said according to initial information, the gunmen, armed with AK-47s and grenades, drove up to the temple complex in a car, jumped a fence and shot dead a woman nearby.
"They next shot dead a temple volunteer and then started hurling grenades," Advani quoted a monk as saying."
Without naming Pakistan, he implicitly pointed a finger at Islamabad by saying that "the enemies of the country" were using the attack to shift attention from disputed Kashmir, where state elections are currently underway in Indian Kashmir.
"I see in this a very deliberate design," he told reporters.
New Delhi has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring Islamic militant attacks in Kashmir and elsewhere in India -- a charge Islamabad denies.
Both countries have mobilized close to a million men on their border since an attack on India's parliament in December which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants, and the nuclear-armed rivals came close to war in June over Kashmir.
The attack on the temple coincided with the second round of the state election in Kashmir, which has so far passed off relatively peacefully despite threats by separatists to derail the poll by attacking those taking part.
"It (the Gujarat raid) could even be a terrorist retaliation in frustration over their failure in Kashmir," Venkaiah Naidu, president of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said in a statement.
Pakistani Information Minister Nisar Memon condemned the temple attack and said it reflected the failure of Hindu nationalist leaders to build a tolerant society in Gujarat.
"We condemn this attack on an Indian temple by whoever has done it," he told Reuters. "This is the kind of society that the leadership of the BJP has built in Gujarat."
Temple sect supported worldwide
Officials said the gunmen entered the temple complex at around 4.30 p.m. local time.
"I am fortunate to be alive today," said 16-year-old Priti Nahata, who hid along with a group of other people in a room until the police came and told them it was safe to leave."
Bloodstained bodies could be seen from the gates being carried out of the temple on stretchers.
Another white-haired man lying on a stretcher, his legs dangling, stared in shock, his arms across his chest, his white undershirt and brown pants splattered with blood.
Indian police tightened security across the country to head off the risk of communal violence.
"As a precautionary measure, we have sounded a high alert across the state," said a police spokesman in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. "We are not taking any chances."
Akshardham Temple is a Hindu religious and cultural complex visited by some two million people annually, according to the Web Site of the Swaminarayan sect which runs it.
The imposing 10-storey pink sandstone temple houses a golden idol of Lord Swaminarayan, an 18th century Hindu monk who started the sect. Swaminarayan's followers believe him to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu god of preservation.
The sect says the monument is made entirely of 6,000 tons of pink sandstone, with no steel or cement used at all, to ensure it will last for a thousand years.
The sect has 450 temples in 45 countries and its temple in Neasden, London is considered a landmark for its architecture.
Back to the Table of Contents
Killing for ? Mother ? Kali
It was at most a fringe practice, but a spate of ritual killings in India shows that human sacrifice lives on
by Alex Perry Atapur
Time Magazine (24.07.2002)/HRWF International Secretariat (25.07.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - For the magic to work, the killing had to be done just right. If the goddess were to grant Khudu Karmakar the awesome powers he expected from a virgin's death, the victim had to be willing, had to know what was happening, watch the knife, and not stop it. But even tranquilizers couldn't lull 15-year-old Manju Kumari to her fate. In his police confession, Karmakar says his wife, daughter and three accomplices had to gag Manju and pin her down on the earthen floor before the shrine. In ritual order, Karmakar wafted incense over her, tore off her blue skirt and pink T shirt, shaved her, sprinkled her with holy water from the Ganges and rubbed her with cooking fat. Then chanting mantras to the "mother" goddess Kali, he sawed off Manju's hands, breasts and left foot, placing the body parts in front of a photograph of a blood-soaked Kali idol. Police say the arcs of blood on the walls suggest Manju bled to death in minutes.
Human sacrifice has always been an anomaly in India. Even 200 years ago, when a boy was killed every day at a Kali temple in Calcutta, blood cults were at odds with a benign Hindu spiritualism that celebrates abstinence and vegetarianism. But Kali is different. A ferocious slayer of evil in Hindu mythology, the goddess is said to have an insatiable appetite for blood. With the law on killing people more strictly enforced today, ersatz substitutes now stand in for humans when sacrifice is required. Most Kali temples have settled on large pumpkins to represent a human body; other followers slit the throats of two-meter-tall human effigies made of flour, or of animals such as goats.
In secret ceremonies, however, the grizzly practice lives on. Quite simply, say the faithfulknown as tantricsKali looks after those who look after her, bringing riches to the poor, revenge to the oppressed and newborn joy to the childless. So far this year, police have recorded at least one case of ritual killing a month. In January, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, a 24-year-old woman hacked her three-year-old son to death after a tantric sorcerer supposedly promised unlimited earthly riches. In February, two men in the eastern state of Tripura beheaded a woman on the instructions of a deity they said appeared in their dreams promising hidden treasures. Karmakar killed Manju in Atapur village in Jharkhand state in April. The following month, police dug up the remains of two sisters, aged 18 and 13, in Bihar, dismembered with a ceremonial sword and offered to Kali by their father. Last week on the outskirts of Bombay, maize seller Anil Lakshmikant Singh, 33, beheaded his neighbor's nine-year-old son to save his marriage on the advice of a tantric. Said Singh: "He promised that a human sacrifice would end all my miseries."
Far from ancient barbarisms that refuse to die, sacrifice and sorcery are making a comeback. Sociologists explain the millions who now throng the two main Kali centers in eastern India, at Kamakhya and Tarapith, as what happens when the rat race that is India's future meets the superstitions of its past. Sociologist Ashis Nandy says: "You see your neighbor doing well, above his caste and position, and someone tells you to get a child and do a secret ritual and you can catch up." Adds mysticism expert Ipsita Roy Chakaraverti: "It's got nothing to do with real mysticism or with spiritualism. It comes down to pure and simple greed." Tarapith in particular is a giant building site of new hotels, restaurants and stalls selling plastic swords and postcards of Kali's severed feet. Judging by the visitors here, Kali appeals to both rich and poor: the rows of SUVs parked outside four-star hotels belong to the ranks of businessmen and politicians lining up with their goats behind penniless pilgrims. ("The blood never dries at Tarapith," whispers one villager.)
There are no human sacrifices at the temple these days. But the mystique of ritual killing is so powerful that even those who actually don't perform it claim to do so. In their camp in the cremation grounds beside the temple, a throng of tantrics tout for business by competing to be as spooky as possible, lining their mud-walled temples with human skulls and telling tall tales of human sacrifice. "I cut off her head," says 64-year-old Baba Swami Vivekanand of a girl he says he raised from birth. "We buried the body and brought the head back, cooked it and ate it." He pauses to demand a $2 donation. "Good story, no?" While most of this is innocent, some followers, like Karmakar, are inevitably emboldened to take their quest for power to the extreme. Karmakar, like many others, was caught. But in the dust-bowl villages of India, where superstition reigns and blood has a dark authority, the question is how many other "holy men" have found that ultimate power still rests in the murderous magic of a virgin sacrifice.
Back to the Table of Contents
Threats to missionaries, evangelists and Christian leaders
CSW (29.04.2002) / HRWF (29.04.2002) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Over the last few years many Christians in India have faced increasing persecution at the hands of Hindu militants. Among those most targeted are missionaries, evangelists and Christian leaders. A large number of these have been attacked and even killed.
At the present time - April 2002 - the open threats from the Hindu militants have started to increase again. A few days ago, in a widely circulated e-mail, a prominent Hindu militant made a thinly veiled death threat against the Christian leader Dr John Dayal. Dr Dayal is the Secretary General of Christian Solidarity Worldwide's partner organisation the All India Christian Council (AICC). He has campaigned vigorously on behalf of Christians and other minorities, especially the Dalits (formerly known as the Untouchables). His effectiveness in this is probably the reason why he has been targeted. The AICC has been in the forefront of exposing the recent Gujarat carnage against the Muslim community where over 2,000 people have been killed.
This is not the only recent incident of threats and intimidation. Typical is an e-mail from a supporter of the militant Hindu umbrella organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), concerning the planned series of evangelistic meetings by a Christian evangelist Dr Paul Dinakaran in Sikkim.
The writer encourages fellow militants "to disrupt the proceedings and if possible intimidate and threaten" Dinakaran, and urges that "If he does not vacate Sikkim in three days time an attempt should be made to kick him out and set his residence on fire."
As well as these specific threats, there are general ones. Another e-mail from a Hindu militant a few days ago - again intended for wide circulation - has these words: "On the other hand, if Muslims and Christians use perfidy and force in conversion, as they frequently do, we have to act with merciless ferocity and militant determination...We have to deliver the only message that militant Islam and jingoistic Christianity understand - ruthless, unwavering force without quarter, delivered calmly without passion or attachment."
Although these are examples of current threats, it remains the case that many missionaries, evangelists and leaders face ongoing danger, year after year. The following example, reported by a western missionary who was in India with her husband, but who has since returned to Britain, helps to show the sort of threats and intimidation such people face.
"The local community had had visits from the police and had been told to inform on us...Our Hindu friends came to us and told us that we were on a killing list. The local Catholic priest was too. It had been passed to all the local shopkeepers who had been told to inform on us. Everything we did or said was thereafter re-hashed until we had assumed sinister subversive roles and were a danger to the community...More and more friends came to us and told us to get out...RSS members organised an attack and went to their leader for his final word to support it. He refused...I thought we would carry on but the level of surveillance was such that I could not even visit the local library without CID following me..."
Back to the Table of Contents
India death toll at 20 in Hindu-Muslim strife
(Zenit.org) (20.04.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (23.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - b Two days of Hindu-Muslim clashes in the western state of Gujarat have left 20 dead and more than 100 injured, the Associated Press reported.
Several neighborhoods in Ahmadabad, the state's main city, were under siege today as Hindus and Muslims clashed and set houses and businesses on fire.
The renewed violence paralyzed India's Parliament, as lawmakers assailed the fragile coalition government for failing to end the unrest, CNN reported.
Two Muslim men were killed in Ahmadabad today. One was stabbed by a Hindu throng and the other was stoned by a mob, police said.
Those killed Sunday included 10 Muslims, when police fired into a swelling crowd on the Hindu festival of Ramnavami. Eight other people were killed in clashes between the two groups, including at least three Hindus, AP said.
At least 91 people were seriously injured Sunday with burns and bullet wounds, police said.
The death toll from India's worst religious rioting in a decade now stands at 853. The strife started Feb. 27 when Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindus activists returning from a pilgrimage.
Back to the Table of Contents
One dead in fresh violence in riot-hit Gujarat
Reuters (16.04.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Police opened fire to to break up clashes between Hindus and Muslims in bloodied Gujarat killing one man as fresh violence erupted, police officials said on Tuesday.
The killing overnight in the western part of Ahmedabad was the latest in a wave of religion-related deaths across the western state that has left more than 800 people, mostly Muslimes, dead.
"Hindus and Muslims were throwing petrol bombs and stones at each other, forcing police to open fire," a police official told Reuters. No violence was reported elsewhere in the state but two people were wounded on Monday while three died on Sunday.
The violence started in late February but has ebbed since peaking in March.
"Most of these clashes have been started by rumours that either a Hindu gang is coming to attack a Muslim community or vice-versa," the police official told Reuters.
Another senior police official said violence would continue to simmer, with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government expected to dissolve the legislature on Wednesday to pave the way for a possible June election.
"One can be sure of one or two incidents a day like this until the election is over," said the official who wished to remain unnamed.
"Some want to keep the violence alive to show the government can't contain it," he said.
"It's also in Hindu hardliners' interests who think violence is the only way to keep alive revived Hindu nationalist feelings."
The BJP enraged the opposition and some of its own allies when it rejected calls at a weekend meeting to fire Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has been accused of turning a blind eye to the violence -- charges he has rejected.
Instead, it urged an early vote in Gujarat where human rights groups and the opposition say the death toll could be as high as 2,000.
The BJP has said it is confident of sweeping back to power on a wave of pro-Hindu sentiment in Gujarat which is deeply polarised along religious lines.
But even if the government, whose terms ends next February dissolves the assembly, with more than 100,000 people, mostly Muslims, in camps and Gujarat still smouldering, the election commission might reject an early vote, analysts said.
Around 750 people have died in reprisal killings, clashes and police firing since February 27 when a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindus, burning to death 59 people.
Back to the Table of Contents
Indian court to speed ruling on Ayodhya row
NBC News (20.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (22.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - An Indian court pledged on Wednesday to speed up hearings of a byzantine half-century-old legal case over a disputed holy site at the root of the country's worst religious bloodletting in a decade.
The decision by the Allahabad High Court to begin daily hearings and appoint more commissioners to take evidence came as opposition lawmakers renewed calls for Home (Interior) Minister Lal Krishna Advani to quit over the violence in western India.
''What's happening in Gujarat is state-sponsored terrorism," Ranghuvansh Prasad Singh, lawmaker from the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal, shouted in parliament.
His party accuses the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of a profound bias against India's more than 120 million Muslims.
More than 750 people, mainly Muslims, have been killed since February 27 in violence fuelled by a Hindu-Muslim dispute over the site in the northern town of Ayodhya.
The politically explosive case is one of the most complex ever faced by an Indian court, involving claims by fundamentalist Hindus that the god-king Ram was born on the site before recorded time. The witnesses include historians and archaeologists. Ten years ago, a frenzied Hindu mob demolished a mosque at the site, triggering riots in which 3,000 people died.
The federal government asked the Allahabad High Court to accelerate hearings after the latest violence broke out. But lawyers said it could still take at least a year to get a verdict in the case which has been pending before the courts for more than half a century.
The hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) -- from the same ideological family as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- has repeatedly threatened to storm the site where the 16th- century Babri mosque once stood.
Bless temple plans
Irate over the court case's slow progress, it held a special prayer ceremony last week in Ayodhya to bless its plans to build a magnificent temple to Ram on the spot, though it obeyed a court order to hold the ritual outside the disputed area.
The fundamentalists say the Babri mosque was built by Muslim Moghul invaders and want a temple to redress the perceived insult and reclaim a Hindu nationalist identity they say was stifled by Muslim and then British colonial rule.
So far, only 23 witnesses out of nearly 200 have given evidence and many others have died before being heard.
A three-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court said in its ruling given in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state, that it would name extra officials to take evidence to speed up earings.
Legal proceedings began in 1950 but were all but forgotten until being raked up again in a Hindu revivalist wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s, culminating in the mosque's destruction.
Since then the Ayodhya dispute has become a rallying call for Hindu hardliners, a cause of fear for minority Muslims and a problem for whichever government has been in power.
Muslim lawyer Zafaryab Jilani welcomed Wednesday's ruling but said the court could still take a year just to hear evidence. ''After that, it is up to the court to give the final verdict.''
The dispute has trapped Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee between his traditional hardline Hindu supporters and his secular allies in the coalition government.
The hardliners came in for another volley of criticism from a key BJP ally on Wednesday after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, said over the weekend that Muslims should win the goodwill of Hindus to ensure their safety.
''We strongly condemn the big brotherly attitude of the RSS,'' C. Kuppuswamy, an MP representing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) which has 12 lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, told reporters. "We are anxious that peace is maintained in the country.'' (Additional reporting by Y.P. Rajesh in New Delhi)
Back to the Table of Contents
Police stop bone-eating sect from digging up skeletons
Ananova (13.03. 2002) - HRWF International Secretariat (14.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - India-Police in southern India have stopped members of a sect from digging up human skeletons from a graveyard and eating them.
Three spear-carrying members of the Kolayar 24th Manai Telegu Chettiars reportedly danced to a cemetery near Coimbatore.
Officers were there to stop them. One of their members says the move is threatening the group's future.
According to The Times of India, they had planned to dig up graves in Sundakkamuthur graveyard and eat bones in a ritual that's supposed to stop members of the group dying on a holy day.
The ritual is known as Mayana Kollai.
''Now that we have been prohibited from practising our ritual, I do not know what will happen to the community,'' group member Arumugam Chettiar said.
The ritual came to light when TV channels covered the event last year.
Back to the Table of Contents
India awaits crucial court ruling on religious dispute
The Independent (12.03.2002) / - HRWF International Secretariat (14.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - India held its breath today ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on a seemingly intractable religious dispute that goes to the very core of India's commitment to its secular constitution, reports AFP.
The highest court in the land will Wednesday hear a petition seeking a ban on plans by hardline Hindus to hold a special ground-breaking ceremony on Friday for a temple they wish to build in the northern town of Ayodhya.
The Hindus want to hold the ceremony on government land adjacent to the disputed site of a 16th century mosque that was torn down by Hindu zealots nearly 10 years ago.
A week of intense negotiations involving leaders of the Hindu and Muslim communities as well as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and top cabinet ministers has made little headway in resolving the dispute.
A "compromise" formula put forward by the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP - World Hindu Council), which is spearheading the temple construction drive in Ayodhya, was rejected by Muslim leaders. Since then the VHP and other right-wing Hindu groups have sent mixed signals as to how they might respond should Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling go against them.
Some insist that the judiciary has no say in religious matters and Friday's ground-breaking ceremony will go ahead come what may, while others have agreed to abide by the court's decision.
"If prevented, we will court arrest. Our programme will be extremely peaceful," VHP president Ashok Singhal told reporters in Ayodhya on Tuesday.
The looming showdown comes as India is still reeling from its worst outbreak of Hindu-Muslim sectarian violence in nearly a decade that claimed close to 700 lives in the western state of Gujarat. The unrest was triggered on February 27 by a Muslim attack on a train carrying Hindu activists back from Ayodhya.
The religious dispute has posed a major challenge to Vajpayee and his ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party, which has been criticised by opposition parties and some allies within the coalition government of failing to take direct action to defuse the situation.
But the options open to the government are limited as it struggles to apply the tenets of India's secular constitution to a deeply emotive sectarian issue.
The two sides fighting for control of the temple-mosque site in Ayodhya are so firmly entrenched that any attempt by the government to impose a solution runs the risk of triggering a communal backlash.
Vajpayee said Monday that the government would prevent "any activity" in Ayodhya prior to the Supreme Court judgement. But some critics say the prime minister is simply passing the buck.
"By putting it all on the court, the political leadership is not just failing to discharge its own responsibility, it is also being unfair to the judiciary," the Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial.
"The court is unjustly burdened with a matter that essentially requires political effort for a resolution," the Express said.There is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will even accept the petition. In the past, it has refused to rule on matters it deems to lie outside its jurisdiction.
Should the matter be placed back in the lap of the government, Vajpayee will be left facing some stark choices.The leaders of more secular-minded parties within his coalition said Monday that the government would have no choice but to "uphold the status quo" in Ayodhya, which would mean a confrontation with hardline Hindus intent on converging on the disputed site on Friday.
The BJP's authority as the dominant party in the coalition has already been undermined by a disastrous showing in state elections last month, and the Ayodhya row has only served to further weaken its position.
The stakes could hardly be higher. Some 2,000 people were killed in communal riots that followed the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
Back to the Table of Contents
Muslim legislator killed in northern India
Associated Press (06.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (06.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - A Muslim legislator in India's most populous state was shot and killed by a Hindu gunman during a political rally Wednesday. Police said the slaying was unrelated to the religious rioting in western India.
Manzoor Ahamad of the Samajwadi Party was standing in a large crowd of party workers when the gunman accosted him and fired, the police said. The gunman, identified as Abhishek Bhardwaj, was immediately caught by other people in the crowd and beaten up before being handed over to police.
Police are still "trying to establish the motive of the killing. It looks like there is some personal animosity," police Deputy Inspector General D.S. Singh told The Associated Press.
The shooting occurred outside the governor's house in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
The secular Samajwadi Party won the highest number of seats in the recent legislative elections in the state, but not enough to form a majority government. The party rally was called to demand that the governor allow it to form a coalition government.
Police said the killing had nothing to do with the Hindu-Muslim riots in the western Gujarat state, which left 602 people dead since Wednesday.
Back to the Table of Contents
Christians were targeted in India
By Rajesh Mahapatra
Associated Press (06.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (06.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - A leading Christian group on Wednesday called for a ban on Hindu extremist groups, saying they had also targeted Christians during last week's religious violence in Gujarat state that left more than 600 people dead, mostly Muslims.
The All India Christian Council said in a statement that the Hindu groups have "engaged in a constant hate campaign against the minorities" and are training hundreds of thousands of people in armed warfare.
The council said it would ask the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights and other international bodies to investigate the activities and funding of the World Hindu Council and its affiliates.
The World Hindu Council has branches worldwide and is supported by donations from Hindu expatriates.
Christians comprise 2 percent of India's 1 billion people while Muslims are 12 percent. Hindus are more than 80 percent.
The Christian council's secretary-general John Dayal said members of the World Hindu Council and other groups burned down a Catholic mission in Sanjeli village, attacking two priests with stones, and that a Hindu mob ransacked a missionary school near Godhra.
The account could not immediately be independently confirmed.
Opposition parties and Muslim groups have already demanded a ban on the World Hindu Council and other hard-line groups.
The hard-liners are accused of encouraging riots that killed hundreds of Muslims over six days in Gujarat state. The riots followed a Feb. 26 attack by a Muslim mob on a train carrying Hindu activists back from the town of Ayodhya, where the World Hindu Council wants to build a temple on a site of a razed 16th century mosque.
Fifty-eight people were killed in the train and 544 in the subsequent riots. Violence subsided on Tuesday and no fresh incidents were reported Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Muslim volunteers performed a mass burial for the unclaimed bodies of 186 Muslims, including a six-month-old girl, in Ahmadabad, the largest city in Gujarat and the worst hit in the violence.
Fighting back tears, volunteers wrapped white sheets around the bodies and placed a white lotus on the shrouds before lowering them in the freshly dug graces. Four Muslim priests recited verses from the Quran.
"The people who killed the train passengers were not human beings and cannot belong to any community, any religion or any group," said Ataullah Khan, a Muslim volunteer who runs a transport business in Ahmadabad. "But the people who caused hundreds of deaths in this city are also not human beings. There is no need for revenge."
Meanwhile, a Muslim legislator in India's most populous state of Uttar Wednesday. Police said the slaying was unrelated to the religious rioting in western India.
Manzoor Ahamad of the Samajwadi Party was shot while he was standing in a large crowd of party workers outside the governor's house in the state capital of Lucknow, police said.
The gunman, identified as Abhishek Bhardwaj, was immediately grabbed by the crowd and beaten before being handed over to police.
Police are still trying to establish his motive.
Back to the Table of Contents
Over 400 Dead In Religious Violence
The Guardian (02.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (04.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Vengeful Hindu mobs torched Muslim homes, killing scores, and rioting spread through western Gujarat state Saturday as the death toll in India's worst religious strife in a decade reached 408, officials said.
The violence continued unchecked for a fourth day despite army troops being deployed with orders to shoot rioters on sight. A strict curfew was imposed in 37 towns in the state. In a national television broadcast, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appealed for peace and restraint.
Though the bloodshed was spreading, it seemed confined to Gujarat state, where police reported rioting and arson in the cities of Surat, Bhavnagar, Vadodra and Ahmadabad, the state capital and city worst-hit by violence.
Mobs set fire to Muslim shops in at least three neighborhoods Saturday and prevented fire trucks from approaching, fire brigade officials said.
In the eastern town of Vadodra, at least seven Muslims working at a bakery were burned alive Saturday, police said. On Friday, at least 122 Muslims were burned to death by Hindus in three separate attacks in Ahmadabad and two other villages, police said.
The bloodshed began Wednesday when Muslims torched a train carrying Hindus returning from the northern town of Ayodhya, where a temple is planned on the site of a 16th-century mosque that was razed by Hindus in 1992. The planned construction of the temple has long been a cause of Hindu-Muslim tension. Fifty-eight people died in the train fire in the town of Godhra, south of Ahmadabad, sparking a retaliatory rampage by right-wing Hindus who have roamed the streets looking for Muslims to attack, and set fire to homes and businesses.
Muslims have accused police and soldiers of standing by and doing nothing as residents - including women and children - have been slaughtered, often with swords and sticks. State government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the death toll in four days of carnage is 408, including more than 40 killed in police firing. The state police put the toll at 383.
These are the worst religious clashes in India since 1993, when 800 people were killed during Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay.
"It's not a good thing what happened but this chain reaction is normal.Now everybody has to suffer,'' said Satish Aggarwal, a Hindu who operates a dairy kiosk in Ahmadabad.
A small crowd of Hindu residents gathered at Aggarwal's kiosk said Muslims were to blame for the events of the last few days.
"It's the Muslims' fault, it's the Muslims' fault,'' they shouted. Gujarat is the home state of Mohandas Gandhi, India's independence leader and an icon of nonviolence who struggled for reconciliation between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority during the post-independence religious riots of 1947. About 12 percent of India's 1 billion people are Muslims, while Hindus comprise 82 percent.
In Ahmadabad, many hotels, shops and restaurants have been destroyed and looting has been widespread. Bodies blackened by fire lay in the streets, along with burned-out furnishings and vehicles, shredded clothes and other personal belongings.
Muslims in many areas said police were favoring Hindus. Muslims streamed into hospitals, for treatment of stab wounds and burns, but also for refuge
The origin of the violence lies in the World Hindu Council's campaign to build the temple in Ayodhya. The 1992 destruction of the mosque by Hindus sparked nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people. Hindus claim the sites the birthplace of their most-revered god, Rama.
Back to the Table of Contents
Indian troops try to stop bloodshed
Authorities fear the violence could spread across India
BBC News (O1.03.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (01.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Hundreds of troops have been deployed across the western Indian state of Gujarat in an attempt to quell the worst outbreak of Hindu-Muslim bloodshed in ten years.
At least 200 dead have been killed since violence erupted on Wednesday, when a train-load of Hindu activists was attacked by a suspected Muslim mob.
The military operation has focused on the state's largest city, Ahmedabad, where police say they shot dead five rioters on Friday morning in the Bapunagar area.
That incident came hours after 27 Muslims were burned to death by Hindus in a shantytown in an Ahmedabad suburb.
About 1,000 paramilitary troops were ordered in after Hindus across the state went on the rampage to avenge the train attack.
The BBC's Jill McGivering said the clashes entered a new phase on Friday in Ahmedabad, as gangs of Muslims took to the streets to fight back against the Hindu mobs.
Gujarat's Home Secretary, K Nityananadan told the BBC the security situation was much improved on Thursday.
Criticism
Curfews have been imposed in cities across Gujarat and hundreds have been arrested, but opposition parties say the government dragged its heels in responding to the crisis.
But Defence Minister George Ferandes, who has arrived in Ahmedabad to oversee the deployment, insisted any delays were purely logistical. Police, who have been given orders to shoot rioters on sight, have also been widely criticised for opting at times to stand back and not interfere with the mobs.
Reports say the army has also fanned out to curb violence in the Gujarati cities of Baroda, Rajkot and Surat.
Security forces have also been put on alert across the country.
But tensions remain highest in Ahmedabad, where our correspondent described the atmosphere as frightening and lawless.
Deputy Police Commissioner RJ Savani told the Associated Press news agency that Muslims had started to defend themselves.
"All through Thursday we were busy trying to protect the minority community (Muslims) from attacks from Hindus," he was quoted as saying.
"But since this morning the retaliation has started. It has now turned to group clashes," he said.
Gujarat Home Minister Ashok Narayan said the situation would be brought under control.
Strike attempt
The first attack on Wednesday, which left 58 dead, targeted Hindu activists, most of whom belonged to the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) party.
They were returning from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state, where the VHP is threatening to build a temple on the site where Hindu activists tore down a 16th century mosque in 1992.
There are widespread fears that the latest clashes could trigger a repeat of the nationwide communal violence that followed the mosque's destruction.
The VHP defied the nationwide security on alert on Friday and tried to enforce a strike across the country in protest at Wednesday's train attack.
Back to the Table of Contents
Hindu Extremists Attack Catholic Church in India
4-Year-Old Among the 7 Injured in Sunday Assault
Zenit.org (18.02.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (19.02.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - A group of armed extremists of the pro-Hindu Bajrang Dal attacked a Catholic church during a Sunday Mass, injuring seven people including a 4-year-old child.
Seventy men barged into Holy Family Church in nearby Hinkal around 9:15 a.m. shouting anti-Christian slogans and lashing out at the 400-odd Christian worshippers with clubs and stones, the Catholic SAR News agency reported.
The men damaged the windows of the church and ransacked the parish priest's room, sources said. The mob charged the local Christians with converting Hindus to Christianity.
The parish priest, identified only as Father William by SAR, said the mob descended on the church while the Catholic children of the parish were attending catechism classes. The activists stormed the church led by some local Hindu leaders, after heated exchanges with the priest. The priest identified one of the attackers as Keshavamurthy, the district secretary of the local unit of Bajrang Dal.
No arrests have been made in the attack. Police have boosted security for the church.
According to local Catholic leaders, the Bajrang Dal group disrupted a carol singing program last Christmas. The Catholic community here believes that the Sunday incident could have been averted had the police taken action against those responsible for the earlier attack. Vijayanagar police inspector Marikale Gowda has promised to take action against the assailants.
In a press release, the Global Council of Indian Christians condemned the attack and demanded action against the culprits. The council also urged the Karnataka Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, "to show courage to put down with iron hand the religious fundamentalists trying to destroy the peace and tranquility in Karnataka."
"We demand the state government to persuade the central government, which has declared a war against terrorism, to ban Bajrang Dal and other Sangh Parivar activists perpetrating swadeshi terrorism in India," the press release added. Several Catholic associations and other Christian organizations have also condemned the attack on the church.
Back to the Table of Contents |
