Mumbai(March 30)- All India Christian Council(AICC) came down heavily on the 'shining India and feel good'claimed by BJP led NDA government; which is one of the slogans being used for campaigning the coming general election.

Dr. Abraham Mathai, the General Secretary of the Council of the Maharashtra chapter, issued a statement here in favour of the council said that the tribal women are tonsured in Orissa, and nuns and priests are beaten up falsely over the rape of a nine-year old girl?Can we still feel good and say India is shining? The rising sensex is definitely not an indication of India Shining. India needs to shine in the rural places where people are dying because of starvation, farmers are committing suicide due to huge debt traps, women have little or no dignity and dalits are beaten to death when they seek an identity.

The statement continued:
“We believe that in the light of atrocities on minorities, women, tribals, dalits, farmers and other oppressed sections of society, how can we accept the high-spend propagation that India is shining? Can we believe this elaborate deception woven around the Indian middle-class?own tax money?

The All India Christian Council, along with Admiral Vishnu Bhagawat and Mahest Bhatt condemns a Government that ignores the very rights on which a fair society is based.

The Tribal women who were tonsured in Orissa because they refused to reconvert are present here today and stand testimony to the inhuman society we live in. The glory of a women is indeed her hair, and we have lost the gory from India.

The nuns and priests, who were first beaten up by the locals and later by the police in the Jhabua rape case of a nine-year old girl who was subsequently killed and dumped in the Convent premises, have no rights either as the consequent arrest of the real culprit has proved. Perhaps nuns and priests just make an easy target for whipping up a communal frenzy. Do we wait for another version of the Bhagalpur blindings to enact itself out before we wake up our rather immune sensitivities?

“How can we elect any government to power without having them explain to us why all of this happened to these innocents? What action have they taken against the perpetrators? You cannot wish amnesia on a nation of one billion people!?said Shri Mahesh Bhatt.

Avers Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat said, “The constitution is our guiding stat where all citizens are equal and nobody has the right to take the law into his own hands.?


The maturity of a society is reflected in the way in which it treats its lowest common factor. And I’m afraid we haven’t done too good a job of it. It is time we looked beyond economic figures to the quality of life we pursue and truthfully answer the question, ‘Is India really shining?’”

The attack against Christians has intensified recently in various parts of the country, which has really hurt the Christian community in general and the government has been questioned of its secular, democratic credentials by many Christian bodies.


Peter Chatlai