The gangrape of four Christian nuns in a dispensary-cum-school centre at Naupara, an obscure hamlet in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, has triggered off a nation-wide controversy pregnant with far-reaching national and international consequences. The nearly 20 million strong Christian community is suddenly turning from a placid lake into a stormy sea.
The priests as well as the laity, generally confined exclusively to religious and social services, were compelled to take to the streets. There was an impressive demonstration led by the Catholic Bishop in the capital on October 3 which was followed two days later with protest meetings and closure of Christian institutions all over Kerala. It is widely believed that Christian missionaries and institutions are being targeted by the Sangh Parivar outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal.
The Naupara incident has assumed larger proportions and developed political overtones partly because it comes in the wake of ever-growing and blatantly communal violence since the advent of BJP-led coalition at the Centre and because the assailants at various places have not cared even to conceal their identity and affiliation.
Similarly, the Shantiniketan High School at Zankhav (Gujarat) run by the Jesuit priests of the Loyala Education Trust was vandalised by hooligans allegedly spearheaded by a BJP leader Ganapatbhai Vestabhai. The FIR lodged by the Trust went unheeded whiles the miscreant proudly proclaimed: Our government (BJP) rules in the State and at the Centre. No one can touch us".
What has brought into focus the ideological dimensions of this spate of anti-Christians violence are the reactions of leaders of the VHP and Bajrang Dal. Instead of showing remorse or repentance, the top brass of the saffron Brigade has brazenly justified terrorisation of Christian missionaries. The national convener of the Bajrang Dal, Surendra Kumar Jain, declared his intention to launch a 'Second Quit India Movement' against the Christian missions. B.L. Sharma 'Prem' national secretary of the VHP, explained this spurt in violence as expression of "anger of patriotic Hindu youth against anti-national forces".
The VHP general secretary Acharya Giriraj Kishore made it even more explicit in a press conference with the statement that "Christian missionaries should leave India if they indulge in converting the allegation he made assertions that the National Socialist Council of Nagaland and United Liberation Front of Assam were terrorist outfits working against Hindus, that Hindu temples were destroyed in Manipur and that attacks on Hindus were Continuing in the north-east, Kerala and Gujarat despite change in the government at the Centre.
Significantly enough, the view of these gentlemen are almost verbatim reiteration of the views about Christians expressed by the RSS ideologue Guruji M.S. Golwalkar. In his major work, Bunch of Thoughts, he had described Christians along with Muslims and Communists as 'internal threats' to the nation. He proclaimed: "There activities are not merely irreligious, they are also anti- national ..
The litany of hate was closed with the statement: "So long as Christians here indulged in such activities and consider themselves as agents of the international movement for the spread of Christianity, and refuse to offer their first loyalty to the land of their birth and behave as true children of the heritage and culture of their ancestors, they will remain here as hostiles and will have to be treated as such".