Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
New Delhi (Agenzia Fides) - Nationalist radicalism which attacks India's Christians on the basis of Hindutva ideology is a threat not only for religious minorities in India, whether Christian (2%) or Muslim (circa 10%). Anti-Christian attacks in Orissa last Christmas, reported in detail by Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, (see Fides 30/1/2008) not only damaged relations between different religious communities, they also exacerbated hearts, increased polarisation, ghettoisation and the phenomenon of communalism, division and non communication among communities of different culture, ethnic origin or religion in a given society.
Those unmotivated, premeditated and organised aggressions, in which neither the local police or authorities intervened, except to stop humanitarian organisations from entering the area to assist the stricken people - are disquieting symptoms in Indian society of a spreading ideology of exclusion and death which totally ignores constitutional pluralism and rights, guaranteed in what is still the world's largest democracy.
This is a phenomenon - fortunately still minority in Indian society- of proliferating radical and nationalist movements, advocates of “political Hinduism”, which exploit religion for ideological and violent ends.
The aim of this pseudo-Hindu, pseudo-nationalism is to eliminate religious and ethnic minorities. Hindutva supporters want to take power and inaugurate a new all Hindu Indian society, as two Christian scholars denounced, Jesuit Fr Lancy Lobo and Amit Mitra (cfr. “Globalizzazione, nazionalismo indù e tribù Adivasi dell'India”).
This is outright betrayal of the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi (killed precisely by one of these extremists) the work of double falsification, political and religious. In fact as Indian Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen notes “the Hindu extremist movements insist on demanding the official end of Indian secularism and the recognition of India as a Hindu nation. If this request were granted, it would imply total transformation of one of the basic principles of the Indian constitution, and a radical break with the idea of the India - pluralist, tolerant and secular - which played a central role in the very same nationalist movement”. Sen says it incorporates and combines three different negative tendencies: “communal fascism ; sectarian nationalism; militant obscurantism”.
It is a movement which does not hide its support for what was the phenomenon of Nazism in Europe (cfr Savitri Devi, “L’India e il nazismo”) and which therefore represents a threat for the whole of humanity: an economic, political and military power such as India today should not be allowed to fall into the hands of an elite which has violent, discriminatory and death-bearing concept of power. We should also remember that India is a nuclear power which faces to the West Islamic cultural fault and unstable Pakistan from which it is divided by historical disputes; to the East it looks instead to the Chinese giant, always advancing, with just as many geopolitical and hegemonic goals.
This aspirant “Hindu Nazism”, besides undermining the nation's stability, is destroying its precious political and cultural heritage of democracy and freedom, the secular nature of its institutions, trust in the law and respect for diversities and minorities, firm points in a nation which today is an example of democracy for the continent of Asia. Therefore it cannot be overlooked or undervalued by the international community, seeing the tragic results which a movement such as German National Socialism, with minority beginnings but with identical power to manipulate, had in Europe in the 20th century.
It is this diffusion of political radicalism and its violent drifts, which believers in Christ are called to tackle. Not reacting to provocation or aggression. Praying and fasting. Making their voice heard in the competent institutional places. Dialoguing and meeting in reciprocal concern and brotherhood, with the great majority of Hindu leaders and believers, allies for centuries, to build harmony, advocates of peace, reconciliation and unity. Undertaking social and charity activity at different levels to promote harmony and justice. Following the shining example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, today followed by many religious and lay persons, faithful to her idea: every human person, of whatever race, culture, religion, social class, is created in the image of God and must therefore be respected and loved. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 31/01/2008 righe 38 parole 382)
