You can stay in touch with the Brays and our CIS Missionary members by signing up for the daily “Fetch A Prayer” or by following us on our personal blogs and Face Book pages. For information, please call Bill Bray personally at 434-227-0811 or send an email to bray.william@gmail.com.

If you live in Charlottesville, join us on Tuesday nights at the Downtown Prayer Room (DPR) to Pray for All Nations from 7:30 to 9 PM. (The DPR is located opposite the police headquarters on Market Street.)

From Dalit Freedom Network
In association with All India Christian Council

INDIA (ANS) -- The national edition of the Hindu newspaper just published the script, in English, of the infamous Hindi-language Compact Disk which was released by a major political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), in the recent election campaign in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP succeeded in demonizing Muslims, painting them as cow-killing, Hindustan-hating, traitorous vermin! One reading will convince everyone not only NOT to vote for the alleged Muslim-lovers in the campaign, but also to pick up the knife the cow butcher left in the play-acted scene, and plunge it in the back of the nearest Islamic child, woman or man. If by mistake, your victim turns out to be a Christian priest, Nun, Pastor, or mere child, there is more material coming in another Indian state to prove the followers of Christ are no less anti-Indian than the Muslims. Hate campaigns in Indian politics are common, and hate is typical occurrence in common political discourse since Lal Krishan Advani used it as the main instrument of his 'historic' Rath Yatra which effectively laid the foundations for the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition and the bloodbaths in Mumbai and elsewhere that followed soon thereafter.

Advani did not change has tactics after assuming high office. It was my privilege - even if the effort eventually ended in failure - to see if I could take Advani and his acolyte Rajnath, now his successor as BJP chief, to the bar of the national law, urging the country's police to lodge complaints for their hate campaigns against religious minorities, particularly against my own Christian community during their so called Suraksha Rath Yatra.

On 13 April 2006, I filed a written report with the Station House Office of the Parliament Police Station, and also wrote to the Chief Election Commission and other important leaders. I told them how the BJP and its officials were spewing anti-Christian venom, making accusations that Christians and others are coercing conversions of tribals and Dalits, and threatening more laws against conversion, especially targeting Christians. Meanwhile, their political motivations are clear as their mentors carry on a series of coercive conversions of tribal and Dalit Christians.

'This patently fouls the political environment. This also divides communities and pushes the nation to the brink of divisiveness on the basis of religion, which challenges the very secular foundations of the Indian state and its Constitution. Above all in human terms, this put the microscopic Christian community into a state of despair and fear, which is most unhealthy for its development and search for equality in the land where it has lived for almost 2,000 years. This talk of Indic religions and alien religions pushes India back into a feudal and medieval mindset from which our ancestors in the Freedom struggles and the fathers of the Indian constitution had striven to liberate it.'

'The BJP president, who had been speaking at a string of public meetings, turned unusually aggressive; Singh had a single theme: Those who are converting Hindus, take heed. There is no mercy for you. Warming to his subject, Singh said Christian missionaries tried to convert people in the name of service, but 'there cannot be a more cruel joke than the use of money or service to convert the poor.'

Referring to Rajasthan government's fresh law cracking down on conversions, he claimed, 'as soon as I became the BJP president, I told all my party chief ministers to enact laws to check conversion and foil the designs of Christian missionaries'.

'Conversions comprise the biggest danger to society, he told his audience, and 'we cannot allow the demographic profile of the country to be changed. We will not let Hindus be converted into a minority, as somebody has said they would be by 2060. As long as the BJP is on the political scene, it will fight such attempts tooth and nail'.

Singh had a word of praise for conversions in the other direction: 'it is something unparalleled - a scion of a royal family washing the feet of people upon their return to the Hindu fold.'

It is difficult for a common man to bring a charge against one such as Advani or Rajnath Singh. Needless to say, I did not hear from the election commission either; it is impossible to move the courts. Even the Press Council allowed for much poison against Christianity and Islam coming from the Sangh Parivar on TV, print, especially in the speeches the party makes, which the media covers faithfully.

When late Pope John Paul II was vesting India, the Organiser and the BJP went overboard. The magazine highlighted the demand an 'atmosphere free of cultural pollution.' 'Let it be borne in mind that to allow a Hindu to get converted to Christianity is tantamount to making him religiously intolerant and uprooting him from his social, cultural and familial ties and transforming him into a potential secessionist'. It called on Hindu bodies to come together to halt the 'rampant conversion' and also to 'bring back to our fold those who were converted to intolerant faiths by force, fraud or allurement.'

If it were I making such a statement, or even a milder one, I would surely be in prison. T John, the Syrian Orthodox Minster of Karnataka in the Congress government lost his position within hours of making a statement which was perhaps insensitive, but certainly not coming within the definition of hate. Commenting on a natural calamity in Gujarat, he dared define it as a divine wrath for the persecution in that state. There were several cases under Section 295 against him in Gujarat, and the Congress chef minister of Karnataka threw him out.

The Supreme Court, in March 2004, affirmed that no person, not even the most popular leader, should be allowed to give speeches that destroy the country's secular fabric or stoke communal violence. Expressing anguish at 'vested interests fanning fundamentalism of all kinds,' state judges observed '... the state should have no religion of its own and no one could proclaim to make the state have one such or endeavor to create a theocratic state.'

'Religion cannot be mixed with secular activities of the state and fundamentalism of any kind cannot be permitted to masquerade as political philosophies to the detriment of the larger interest of society and basic requirement of a welfare state,' the bench said. 'Communal harmony should not be made to suffer and be made dependent upon the will of an individual or a group of individuals, what ever is their religion, be it of minority or that of the majority'.

In my case, the SHO had apparently not understood his law. The Supreme Court is clear. A man's record of hate speech is sufficient to trap him. The court said if civil authorities were of the view that a person's speeches or actions were likely to trigger communal antagonism and hatred resulting in fissiparous tendencies that could affect communal harmony, prohibitory orders could be imposed to avert any untoward happenings. Past conduct and antecedents of a person or group or an organization may certainly provide sufficient material or basis for preventive actions.

The Election Commission has directed filing of a complaint against BJP President Rajnath Singh, UP party leader Lalji Tandon and others involved in the production of the controversial party election campaign. The Commission also issued notice to the BJP, asking why action should not be taken against it under the Election Symbols for releasing the information containing 'inflammatory campaign material, derogatory to the sentiments of certain community'.

The BJP must be afraid of what impact the Election Commission ruling will have on its performance in Uttar Pradesh, now in the throes of election - the ultimate but unlikely punishment is a ban on the party and individual candidates. It has chosen hollow bravado as the way out, and also to blackmail the Election Commission, raising anew old allegations against the Election Commissioner, who it says is close to the Congress party. Rajnath Singh, the party president, seems to be hoping that he will be arrested at this stage, allowing him to win some political points within his own party.

The BJP maintains it has no regrets over the controversial statements carrying inflammatory references to Muslims, but also insists that these are not part of the official campaign materiel. Even though it put its few top Muslim leaders before the TV cameras to say all this, the BJP defense sounds hollow. The production group says the material for writing the script and preparing the visuals were given by the party, and now they are being threatened if they do not take the entire blame.

I personally receive hate mail - by post, email and occasionally hand delivered or couriered to my home, several times a day. Sometimes it threatens physical action. My wife gets angry, though never frightened, bless her, but I have learned to live with it.

But the Church must remember that hate campaigns are always - and this is a political guarantee out of history stretching back to Hitler - followed by increased marginalization, heightened mass suspicion, local violence, and eventually officially sponsored programs.

We must tell the national government, the Election Commission of India and the Supreme Court that they need to take urgent and exemplary action against politically motivated and religiously bigoted hate campaigns by powerful persons and parties who target the small, the weak, and the minorities. Our survival as a united and secular nation may depend on such simple pre-emptive appeal to the rule of law. This publication must be forged into a nail, the last in the Sangh coffin.

Dr. Joseph D'souza leads multiple organizations both in India and internationally. He is the International President of the Dalit Freedom Network whose mission is to empower the Dalits in their quest for human dignity, economic development and socio-spiritual freedom. D'souza is an activist for social justice and freedom of conscience and works for the cause of the marginalized and oppressed in different parts of the world. D'souza is also the Associate International Director of Operation Mobilization. In India he serves as the President of the All India Christian Council. If you wish to contact him, his phone numbers are: +1 770 329 5156 (USA mobile) and +91 984 807 9994 (India mobile).