Thiruvananthapuram: Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Sacred Heart Cathedral Church in New Delhi and a day after top BJP leaders in Kerala went around visiting Christian houses, the CPM State Secretariat on Sunday attempted to remind Christians of the brutalities right-wing forces had unleashed on the community.
"It was the Hindutva forces that had burnt to death Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons," the CPM State Secretariat said in a statement. "Last Christmas, unspeakable atrocities were committed against Christians, especially nuns. There is no respite to the violence inflicted on the community by right-wing forces in Chhattisgarh. It is in this context that the Prime Minister and the BJP leaders have started to visit Christian institutions and priests," the statement said.
The CPM said the attempts by the Sangh Parivar to curry favour with minorities it had once branded as an internal threat was nothing but "ridiculous". "It was in the Sangh Parivar's ideological text, M S Golwalkar's 'A Bunch of Thoughts', that minorities, including Christians, and Communists were declared as internal threats," the CPM Secretariat said in the statement. "This is precisely why the right-wing forces have let loose attacks on minorities and Communists in the country," the statement added.
The BJP's Christian outreach acquired an urgency after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the wake of the BJP's stellar electoral performance in three north-eastern states, declared that the BJP would capture Kerala. Following Modi's confident claim, Thalassery Archbishop Joseph Pamplany had remarked that the BJP would get an MP from Kerala if rubber prices were upped to Rs 300. This was widely seen as an influential Church leader's open acceptance of the BJP and, sensing an opportunity, the BJP has ever since intensified its efforts to woo the Christians in a big way.
Now, the head of the Syro Malabar Church, Cardinal George Alencherry, in an interview with the New Indian Express, has stated that Christians were secure in India and called Modi a "very good leader".
However, the CPM Secretariat said that Christian groups themselves were on the warpath against the BJP government after realising the danger of the BJP's divisive politics.
The CPM also made an indirect dig at the Church leaders in Kerala who seem to have fallen for the overtures of the BJP. "The same mix of threat and enticements the BJP had used to lure opposition leaders in various states are now being applied to Christian groups," the statement said.
