THERE’S more and more news coming from all over the country of churches being broken and believers thrashed. And from the leadership, a huge silence. I’m reminded of the play, ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ where the knights on hearing King Henry’s explosive words against Thomas Becket the Cardinal, rush in search of the Cardinal and murder him in the cathedral.
All they heard was the anger that the King felt, and later when the king, aghast, heard of the murder, his subjects knew that it was his anger that fueled the tragic death.
This is now happening in our country. As leaders pass laws against a miniscule two percent minority, who they accuse of forcible conversion, fringe groups react with even more vehemence than the law makers and assuming that their such mass wrongdoings are taking place and people are being forced to convert at knife point or through bribes, they pour their anger on the passive Christians, causing them untold misery and insecurity in their own homeland.
This terrible state of affairs is not going to take us anywhere in world opinion, even with us protesting that such atrocities are not happening, because the world has stopped believing such. They know it is happening.
There’s only one reason that the leadership is continuing to be silent. For votes. As long as the voters feel their kindred are being burnt at the stake if they do not convert, as long as parents feel that every young man on the road following a different religion is about to abduct their daughters and convert her to his religion, these terrible atrocities will continue.
Is there a need for such fear anymore? Shouldn’t the rhetoric change from religion to good governance or bad governance? Shouldn’t people see through this gimmick, and instead of being misled by such unfounded fears start feeling their bellies to find if they are full?
It is time the centre steps in, before it is too late, as governments like Karnataka and others keep creating fear in the minds of minorities. Russia is slowly finding out that a war they thought would take a few days, and now is going on to a year, that world opinion matters. And the world still remembers the atrocities of a Hitler and doesn’t want such happenings again.
Russia is careful as they carry on the war, because though they fight, they safeguard the people, but are we being careful, as visuals of the minorities running out of their churches hurt, are now being seen everywhere?
Police are mute spectators or don’t register FIRs, and the murders in the cathedral grow, as leaders make the people feel insecure just to garner votes. Let’s stop this madness of a majority hounding a two percent minority as the world’s binoculars, especially at Christmastime, are turning and focusing on these our destructive activities..!
