In India Supreme Court to hear petition on hate campaign against Christians

(26 April 2007) : In India the Supreme Court admitted a petition filed by an NGO Anhad against alleged Hindu extremists’ anti-Christian material and the hate campaigns spreading its tentacles in the country. The material in this case refers to compact discs (CDs) by communal organisations that allegedly suggested in 2006 that Christians in Gujarat state should be attacked. The CD contains communally explosive material, a sort that is capable of harming the social harmony at any given place and time. There is a caricature on the CD cover, of a “headless Christian priest” wearing a cassock and holding a cross and in place of the head a question mark. The caption on the top of this picture literally translates into ‘Church: in the name of service.’ The narrator, in the CD makes constant references to the evil forces and foreign powers that are out to destroy the Hindu religion whilst simultaneously flashing pictures of churches and Cross on the screen thus trying to portray “Christians as the evil forces”.

These CDs were widely circulated, distributed and openly sold in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and in some north-eastern states. Such hate campaigns trigger communal tension and result in harassment of innocent Church personnel including priests, nuns and even the lay faithful. Communal groups have started such hate-driven campaign seemingly to protect India from dangerous “community” branded as “Christians”.