Click to play videoChristians under attack in Orissa and Karnataka have pointed their fingers at Bajrang Dal, the radical Hindu group which claims to have a million members.
The National Minorities Commission has recommended a ban on the Bajrang Dal for its alleged role in the attacks on churches in Karnataka.
The commission, which sent a team to tour Mangalore, Bangalore and Udupi, has claimed that authorities in Karnataka had admitted that several Bajrang Dal supporters had been arrested for allegedly attacking churches.
Bajrang Dal’s Karnataka unit chief Mahendra Kumar has issued statements claiming that he had damaged prayer halls in Karnataka but no action has been taken against him, the commission has reported.
In Orissa, the Bajrang Dal has been accused of attacking Christians after the murder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his aides in Kandhamal district.
At least 35 people, mostly Christians, have been killed in Kandhamal during communal clashes that broke out after Saraswati’s murder on August 23.
Should the Bajrang Dal be banned for terrorising Christians? Or is the group not a terrorist group really?
CNN-IBN’s Bhupendra Chaubey asked this on Face The Nation to the group’s national convener Prakash Sharma and Congress MP and spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan.
Teesta Setalvad, activist for Gujarat riot victims and secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace, and Dominic Emmanuel, spokesperson and director of Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, were the other guests on the show.
Bajrang Dal is not a militant organisation but a nationalist and patriotic one, said Sharma. “We have fought in Jammu (over the Amarnath land row) and we have fought for Ram Janambhoomi. We weren’t violent or militant in both these struggles,” said Sharma, who spoke in Hindi.
The tragedy is that the debate on terrorism and what is violent and militant is being dominated by outfits spreading terror, said Setalvad.
The ISI, the Students Islamic Organisation of India, the Indian Mujahideeen or any outfit accused of spreading Islamic terrorism should certainly be banned, but the “problem” lies with the Indian state. “My problem lies with the Indian state, Indian media and Indian judiciary. How come we do not accept that outfits like the Bajrang Dal and VHP and their leaders for the last 15 years have destroyed the social fabric of the country,” she said.
“What is violence and terror? When a bomb blast takes place or hoodlums accompanied by their leaders generate terror against innocent people? Both fit the definition of terror. The law behoves that equal action is taken against both.”
Ban coming?
The Congress sidetracked its allies when they said that Muslim groups must not be harassed during the crackdown on terrorism but the party has lost no time in admonishing the Bajrang Dal and asking it to behave. Isn’t that hypocritical?
“There is absolutely no discrimination. Any organisation that promotes hatred and spreads terror we should treat them with the same absolute zero-tolerance policy,” said Natarajan. “I personally believe that in view of what has happened in Orissa and Karnataka that the Bajrang Dal should be banned immediately.”
Setalvad said ‘hoodlums accompanied by leaders’ are as bad as terrorists, but should mobs be equated to rioters?
“People who are blasting bombs are at least clearly saying what they are doing, but these people are more dangerous because they terrorise in the name of the nation. The nun who was raped (in Orissa) has said people crying Bharat Mata ki Jai and Jai Bajrang Bali attacked her,” said Emmanuel.
Sharma denied his group was involved in the attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka and claimed the violence in the two states was a “natural reaction” to the murder of Saraswati and the distribution of pamphlets denigrating Hindu Gods.
Hindu groups allege that evangelical groups lure poor Hindus into Christianity. It a charge that the Bajrang Dal has repeatedly made but it not true at all, said Emmanuel.
“There is absolutely no truth in that charge. A clear evidence of that is that the population of Christians in the country in the last 40 years has come down from 2.8 per cent to 2.33 per cent according to the 2001 census. If we are alluring people with money then our population should been at least 20 per cent if nothing else,” he said.
SMS poll on whether the Bajrang Dal should be banned?
Yes: 97 per cent, No: 3 per cent.
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