India government falls, Christians relieved

Christian Century, May 19, 1999

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, made his comments 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 April 17. 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-largest party in the parliament - and is now led by Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - promptly made an effort to form a government, convinced it could do so with the help of several smaller parties. But Congress's hopes were dashed when three of those parties said no. General elections are now scheduled for September and the first week of October, with Gandhi likely to be matched against Vajpayee.

"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. That government, Rajaratnam said, "not only failed to stop" recent atrocities directed against Christians, but "even encouraged" such actions by supporting BJP-linked groups 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 said: "The nation needs a stable government. Our joy over the fall of the BJP government is not unqualified." Churches are "concerned about the divisions and contradictions" among opposition parties.

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, maintained that that government had "failed to protect the [religious] minorities adequately." According to the archbishop, who is the leader of India's 16 million Catholics, the BJP had been biased against Christians. At the same time, the archbishop insisted, Christians are 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, said he would not set forth 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 argued 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.