Hard-line Hindu vigilante groups disrupt Christmas celebrations on Modi territory

NEW DELHI: Laborious-line Hindu vigilante teams disrupted Christmas mass in components of India, together with in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s core territory forward of native elections within the coming months, media reported on Monday.
The disruption of Christmas celebrations on the weekend and final week included the vandalising of a life-size statue of Jesus Christ at Ambala in Haryana, a northern state ruled by Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), The Hindu newspaper mentioned.
It additionally reported activists burnt a mannequin of Santa Claus and chanted slogans in opposition to Christmas celebrations and non secular conversions on Saturday exterior a church in Varanasi, Modi’s parliamentary constituency and Hinduism’s holiest metropolis.
Anoop Shramik, a social activist in Varanasi, instructed Reuters he noticed about two dozen folks burning the Santa Claus.
Contacted by phone, the federal and state governments declined to remark.
On Saturday, Christmas celebrations have been additionally disrupted in Silchar, japanese Assam, after males, claiming to be members of Bajrang Dal — a right-wing group with shut ties to BJP, compelled their means right into a church, NDTV, an area information channel reported.
Chief of the principle opposition Congress get together and outstanding members of minority Christian teams urged Modi to behave.
“The PM ought to direct the BJP governments of Haryana and Assam to determine the miscreants and produce them earlier than a Court docket of regulation,” P. Chidambaram, India’s former finance minister and a senior Congress chief, mentioned in a tweet.
Since Modi got here to energy in 2014, right-wing Hindu teams have consolidated their place throughout states and launched small-scale assaults on spiritual minorities, saying their motion is to forestall spiritual conversions.
A number of Indian states have handed or are contemplating anti-conversion legal guidelines that problem freedom of perception and associated rights that the Indian structure ensures to minorities.
Elias Vaz, nationwide vp of the All India Catholic Union, condemned the newest incidents.
“The energy of India is in its variety and the individuals who have achieved this at Christmas are the true anti-nationals,” Vaz mentioned.
Christians and Muslims collectively account for almost 16 % of India’s 1.37 billion folks.