ICC Note:

Following a recent report of a nun being raped in India, many have claimed there is a trend of nuns coming under sexual attack in India. Christopher Joseph at UCA News goes back 25 years looking at the pattern of assault and injustice visited upon India’s nuns who have been sexually assaulted. Is rape and sexual assault being used as a tool to persecute and shame Christians in India? 

By: Christopher Joseph at UCA News

7/10/2015 India (UCAN) – It is 25 years since the Indian media reported what they then called the first rape case involving Catholic nuns in Independent India. No one has yet been punished for the crime.

Police did arrest four men in connection with the July 13, 1990 rape of two nuns in their convent in Gajraula, near Delhi. However, the trial proved farcical when it was determined they were in jail when the crime was committed.

The court rebuked the police and awarded the nuns compensation. The court also said the case could not be closed until the real culprits were arrested. But it is now a forgotten case. High-ranking Church officials told me this week they have no clue as to how the so-called investigation is progressing.

Media reports said the case was handed to India’s top investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation. Theoretically, they are still investigating the case.

Between 1990 and 1995, New Delhi’s Theological Research and Communication Institute recorded 20 more cases of murder, rape and assault on Catholic clergy and nuns in India. Since then the number of incidents has grown with about 100 attacks being recorded in recent years.

In the last year the figure has doubled to more than 200, since Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, according to data supplied by Christian leaders.

Another nun was allegedly raped last month in Raipur, while a 71-year-old nun was raped in a convent near Kolkata. Police are investigating these crimes, but if the probes follow a similar pattern to other incidents, all involved, except the victim, will forget about the crime until another one happens.

In the rush to move forward, no one seems to be bothered about getting justice for the victims.

In nearly all cases the perpetrators get away with it.

Over the past 25 years, only one person has been convicted and jailed for raping a nun. This crime occurred in Odisha in 2008. Two others were handed prison terms for sexual assault in the same case but they are out on bail.

No one else has been convicted or punished for raping a Catholic nun in this country despite some cases reaching court. This kind of impunity encourages criminals to commit more heinous acts.

Christian leaders say these crimes are part of an orchestrated effort by Hindu hard-liners to harass and subjugate the religious minority.

Police see the offenses as being among thousands of routine crimes being committed across the country. Hindu leaders dismiss Christian allegations against them as baseless and politically motivated.

All have their points, but if the criminals in the first few cases were caught and punished appropriately, the situation today would have been different.

We are seeing a pattern. Crime repeated; words repeated; victims forgotten. The Church and state move forward with no sense of sin in their omissions.

One nun, who was raped some time ago, told me how she has become frustrated with the protracted court case and wishes to see it end, even if it means the culprits go unpunished.

Each time the case comes up she is forced to re-live the ordeal answering questions from lawyers and the media, she said.

In most cases, the rapes were not spur of the moment crimes committed while carrying out a robbery. In the Kolkata case, they specifically chose the 71-year old nun leaving younger nuns in the convent alone.

In the Raipur attack, the culprits deliberately chose the 47-year nun, taking care not to disturb two younger women sleeping next door. They also came prepared with drugs to give to the nun. It was evident they were making a statement against Christians with their crime.

Rape can mean a statement of subjugation in Indian society. It can mean: ‘We trample upon what you love, respect and revere… your sister, wife and mother. You live as a subject to us or get out.’

It remains a fact that not a single Hindu Brahmakumaris nun has been sexually attacked in all these years.

Often rapes of nuns are also connected to the land they own or property they live in. After the Gajraula case there were reports the rapes were engineered to scare the nuns away and acquire their land at a cheaper price. Similar reports were published after the Kolkata rape.

In 1991, a politician was accused of encroaching on convent land in Bangalore and threatened to do a “Gajraula” if the nuns made an issue of the incident.

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