Rights blacklisting a wake-up call for India, say Church leaders

(August 20, 2009) Indian Church leaders say an official US group's move to blacklist India for its poor record of protecting religious minorities is a wakeup call for the country. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF said it added India to the list because of a "disturbing increase" in religious violence. It particularly mentioned the anti-Christian and anti-Muslim riots in Orissa and Gujarat states in 2008 and 2002 respectively. The commission released its latest report in New Delhi on Aug. 12 ahead of the first anniversary of violence against Christians in Orissa state in eastern India. Shashi Tharoor, a junior minister in the federal External Affairs department hit back at the report saying India does not need any outside agency to educate it on how to protect its minorities. However, Father Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, CBCI, said the USCIRF decision indicated the international community's growing concern over India's repeated failure to curb religious intolerance. All India Christian Council secretary general John Dayal said India would have been able to rebuff the US scrutiny more effectively if several thousand Christians in Orissa were still not in refugee camps and if the killers were still not roaming scot-free ..." Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash, who directs a centre for human rights in Gujarat, said some state governments were directly or indirectly involved in anti-minority violence. On many occasions the real victims were blamed and prosecuted, he added.