ICC Note:
With BJP and Modi set to form India’s next national government, Christian leaders are calling on the next prime minister to create an inclusive India. Many fear Modi will revert to his sectarian and Hindu nationalist past which many fear will harm Christian and other religious minority communities across India. It remains to be seen as to how Modi and his new government will treat Christians, but many hope it will be different from his past.
5/20/2014 India (Eurasian Review) – “The new young India with over a 150 million new voters belonging to all castes and religions have voted for Modi’s promise to deliver jobs, opportunities and deal with the stagnant economic condition across the nation, it said, adding that inflation and price rise had demoralized people in urban and rural areas”, reads a statement of the All India Christian Council (AICC), issued after the massive election victory of Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi.
“Narendra Modi’s campaign on development was the right one. This was the main issue Indians were concerned about in 2014. This is one issue where all Indians are agreed regardless of their religious and caste background. The Christian community expects Modi and his government to take the community and other minorities along to make India truly inclusive in the great task of nation building”, adds the statement.
India’s religious minorities count some 200 million people, 27 million of which Christians. Modi’s victory, in part supported also by Christians and Muslims, is seen with some doubts and suspicions, in particular over the capacity of his new government to control the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), National Volunteer Association Hindu extremist group.
“We respect democracy and the voice of the people. We accept the results with grace and with optimism even. We will have to find out how we can tell the new government of our problems and our fears, and our expectations of a strong secularism, and hold it accountable for its misdeeds whenever it falters in giving us our security and our freedom of faith”, continues the All India Christian Council. The statement also confirms that Christians voted divided, and that the Dalit, the outcasts, voted for regional parties that support their rights, such as in the Tamil Nadu state.
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