wfn.org | Leaders Express Relief After Collapse of India's Government

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

26-April-1999 
99166 
 
    Christian Leaders Express Relief 
    After Collapse of India's Government 
 
    by Anto Akkara 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW DELHI-Leading Indian Christians have expressed "relief" over the 
collapse of the 13-month-old coalition government led by the Hindu 
nationalist party BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) but they remain "anxious" 
about the political instability troubling their nation. 
 
    "The evil - the sword that was hanging over the head of the Christians 
- is gone," said K. Rajaratnam, president of the National Council of 
Churches in India (NCCI), a forum of 29 Protestant and Orthodox churches 
with 13 million members. 
 
    Rajaratnam, who is a Lutheran, was speaking to ENI after the BJP-led 
coalition, headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, lost a confidence 
vote in Parliament by the narrowest of margins - 270 to 269 votes - on 
April17. 
 
    Prime Minister Vajpayee was forced to seek the vote of confidence after 
one of the BJP's coalition partners - All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam 
(AIDMK), which has 18 members of parliament - withdrew its support on April 
14.  The BJP's main rival, the Congress party, which is the second-biggest 
party in the parliament, is already discussing ways to form a government. 
But with more than 40 parties represented in the 545-member lower house, 
any negotiations will be extremely difficult. 
 
    "Many Christians all over the country feel happy that it [the BJP-led 
government] has finally fallen," said Rajaratnam, saying that "Christians 
have reasons to be relieved," as they had "campaigned" for the downfall of 
the BJP government.  The BJP government, Rajaratnam said, "not only failed 
to stop" recent atrocities directed against Christians, but "even 
encouraged" such actions by supporting groups linked to the BJP which had 
been involved in violence. 
 
    Since March last year - when the BJP-led government assumed office - an 
ecumenical group, United Christian Forum for Human Rights, has recorded 
more than 150 incidents of anti-Christian violence - more than all the 
atrocities against Christians recorded in the previous 50 years. 
 
    Speaking from NCCI headquarters in New Delhi, Rajaratnam told ENI, "The 
nation needs a stable government.  Our joy over the fall of the BJP 
government is not unqualified."  Churches were "concerned about the 
divisions and contradictions" among opposition parties that now had the 
onerous task of forming another government without forcing a mid-term 
election. 
 
    Admitting that he was "partially relieved" by the fall of the BJP 
government, Archbishop Alan Basil de Lastic of Delhi, president of the 
Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, told ENI that the BJP government had 
"failed to protect the [religious] minorities adequately." 
 
    "No other government has dealt with the minorities as they did," said 
the archbishop, who is the leader of India's 16 million Catholics.  He 
added that the government had been "biased" against Christians. 
 
    At the same time, the archbishop insisted, Christians were "responsible 
citizens" anxious about the "political and economic instability" 
confronting the nation. 
 
    Bishop Vinod Peter, moderator of the Church of North India, a union of 
Anglican and Protestant traditions, told ENI by telephone from Nagpur that 
he would not make an "exclusively Christian reaction" to the latest 
political developments.  "I am sad about what is happening.  The nation 
needs good and stable governance," said the bishop.  Speaking from what he 
described as an "inclusive national perspective," he said that the BJP 
government had failed to curb inflation, to promote the welfare of the poor 
and communal harmony, and to preserve law and order. 

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