Indian cardinal says violence was planned

BY JOHN PONT1FEX
A CARDINAL from India has expressed fears that Christians in the country have become the victims of a "game plan" to destabilise the Church's presence.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay said he was increasingly concerned that a recent spate of attacks against Christians were part of a planned campaign by Hindu fanatics aimed at "troubling" the Church.
The cardinal made his comments in an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need almost four months after fundamentalist groups attacked nearly 100 Church buildings in an atrocity which left several people dead and thousands homeless.
As the events in Orissa, east India, gripped the nation, Church leaders reassured the country's 23 million Christians that the incidents were unprovoked.
But Cardinal Gracias, president of the Latin Bishops' Conference of India, said he had now changed his mind after receiving reports from government officials investigating the attack.
He said: "The events in Orissa seem to have been a provoked attack on the eve of Christmas. There was a massive counterattack which could not have been unplanned.
"What worries me is that Orissa could be part of a larger game plan aimed at troubling the Church here and there."
He reported that a month ago, two nuns from Bombay needed counselling after becoming the latest religious Sisters to be attacked and accused of trying to convert people.
The attack took place on Palm Sunday, close to central Bombay, where the Sisters were holding Aids awareness classes. The Sisters were beaten up and had their veils pulled from their heads.
The cardinal highlighted concerns about the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He said: "I think the BJP has triggered off something, a concern about a weakening of the Hindu consciousness, frightening people into thinking there were dangers where in fact no dangers existed. This gave rise to fringe groups which indulged in violence. That was the problem."
Cardinal Gracias added that he had called on BJP leaders to appeal to fundamentalists to end the violence, "The [Hindu] leaders assured me every time that they are doing something and I believe that they wanted to do their very best but sometimes they cannot control these small fundamentalist groups."
Cardinal Gracias stressed that attacks against Christians had not necessarily increased in the last couple of years but his comments are set in a context of worsening inter-religious tension caused by new laws banning conversions in some Indian states. Critics of the law claim they have created a climate of suspicion towards non-Hindus, especially the Church, which is seen as a colonial legacy.
The problems are compounded by the massive growth of the Church in India, especially in the extreme north-east, where in some parts Catholicism has grown from nothing to almost 25 per cent of the total population in the space of two decades.
At nearly 18 million strong, Catholics including faithful from the ancient SyroMalabar and Syro-Malankar Oriental Churches make up nearly 80 per cent of all Christians in a country with a total population of more than 1.1 billion.
India is a priority country for support from the charity Aid to the Church in Need, the charity for suffering Christians.
Annually, the charity supports about 700 projects in India concentrating on formation of seminarians, Sisters and lay people.