Why the arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh challenges BJP in Kerala
The UDF delegation that visited Durg jail comprised MPs K. Francis George, Benny Behanan, Saptagiri Ulaka and N.K. Premchandran; joining them were Congress minorities cell leaders and Chhattisgarh leaders Arun Vohra and Tamradhwaj Sahu. In Delhi, outside Parliament on July 28, protesting MPs accused the BJP government in Chhattisgarh of targeting minorities.What really happened on July 25? The nuns, accompanied by tribal girls Kamleshwari, Sukhmati and Lalita and a tribal youth, were at Durg railway station. The girls were apparently being taken to Agra for training. A group of Bajrang Dal activists arrived at the railway station and created a ruckus. The nuns were taken to the Government Railway Police (GRP) police station where Bajrang Dal office-bearer Jyoti Sharma allegedly threatened them with dire consequences.Sharma claimed the girls, residents of Orcha in Narayanpur district, had gone to Narayanpur town where they were abducted, and that their parents were also approaching the police in Narayanpur. On the contrary, though, the mother of one of the girls, Kamleshwari, told the local police her daughter had gone with the nuns for work out of her free will.In Kerala, the arrests are reverberating socio-politically. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the apex body of Catholic Church leaders in the country, expressed shock. 'It's a humiliating incident for Catholics in the country. The nuns who went to Chhattisgarh with valid documents to employ three women in a Catholic-run hospital were sent to jail and charged with forceful religious conversion and human trafficking. We do not indulge in conversions of any manner. It seems the constitutional guarantee of minority rights has no relevance in the BJP-ruled state,' Mar Andrews Thazhath, the archbishop of Thrissur and CBCI president, told INDIA TODAY.advertisementThe anger on the ground is palpable. As Felix J. Pulluden, a lay Catholic leader in Ernakulam, put it, 'BJP governments in the states and at the Centre are pursuing their anti-minority agenda. Church leaders sold the Christian community to the BJP and are now raising the pitch over the arrests of the nuns.'With both the ruling CPI(M) and Congress-led Opposition pledging solidarity with the nuns, the state BJP finds itself in a quandary. With an imposing assembly election next year, the party faces the risk of erosion of the Christian community's trust, thought to have been carefully gained over the past few years through a series of outreach initiatives led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.The BJP's Lok Sabha election victory from Thrissur last year was partly credited to the support of Christians. Incidentally, archbishop Thazhath had supported the BJP candidate Suresh Gopi. A litmus test now lies ahead: local body polls in Kerala expected to be held in December. Next up: assembly polls, in which the party aspires to win up to 50 seats and have a formidable presence in the 140-member legislative assembly.advertisementSubscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends
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