Suicide bombings at two Lahore churches left 15 dead and more than 70 injured. The Christians in Pakistan are in a sorry plight and receive little protection from the government. The country’s blasphemy law and Hurdood ordinance are strongly against minorities. A governor in Punjab was killed for speaking out against them. It is the institutional bias and official tolerance in Pakistan which have encouraged the rise of Islamic terrorism led by the Taliban, the Jamaat and the like. India has a healthy democracy and yet it is also sliding down the slippery path of religious intolerance. If the decline of Indian secularism is not arrested forthwith, the country will also be in the same noxious environment as Pakistan. Haryana’s newly elected Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattan intends to introduce compulsory teaching of the Bhagwad Gita in schools. Cow slaughter has been banned in the state. Attackers hoisted a Ram flag in the state’s Hissar district tearing down an under-construction church. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had no qualms about saying that a mosque was not a religious place. The Maharashtra government has imposed a ban on possession, sale and consumption of beef.
What is far from shocking is the gang-rape of a 74 year old nun and the assault of two other women in a convent at Ranaghat in West Bengal which is perhaps unprecedented in the country. The convent was also robbed. The police had been inactive and the eight accused have not yet been arrested. West Bengal Chief Minister visited the place and predictably put the blame on the BJP as also did Archbishop de Souza. Rome and Western countries are also horrified. Whether or not a political party is behind the gruesome atrocity, the virus of communalism has to be eradicated from Indian society once and for all.
