APOORVANAND - Jharkhand Government Is Misusing Gandhi, Public Funds to Fuel Anti-Christian Hate
Mahatma Gandhi has a
new job. Three years after he was appointed as the brand ambassador of the
Swatchta Abhiyan of the government of India, he has now been deployed as the
chief spokesman and mascot of the Jharkhand government anti-conversion drive. The government of
Jharkhand and the BJP crossed yet another rubicon when it published a full
page advertisement in all the newspapers with a quote from Gandhi denouncing
Christian missionaries for their act of conversion and prosely-tising among
Adivasis and Dalits.
The quotation, with a smiling Gandhi walking with a stick
in his hand, is misleading and mischievous. It is erroneous and puts words in
Gandhi’s mouth that are not his. Let us see the
advertisement first. It is published by the government of Jharkhand and carries
the photograph of the chief minister. It is in Hindi and begins with the
declaration, “An intiative to realise the dream of Bhagwan Birsa Munda and the
late Kartik Uraon.” The quotation
attributed to Gandhi says,
“If Christian
missionaries feel that only conversion to Christianity is the path to
salvation, why don’t you start with me or Mahadev Desai? Why do you stress on
conversion of the simple, illiterate, poor and forest-dwellers? These people
can’t differentiate between Jesus and Mohammad and are not likely to understand
your preachings. They are mute and simple, like cows. These simple, poor, Dalit
and forest-dwellers, whom you make Christians, do so not for Jesus but for rice
and their stomach.”
Let us leave Gandhi
aside for a moment. Irrespective of what he said or felt, this government and
the chief minister must withdraw the advertisement and apologise to the
Christians of Jharkhand and India as it directly targets Christian religious
institutions. This misuse of the state apparatus to attack a section of society
is so brazen and blatant that it takes your breath away. Christians, including
the missionaries among them, are legitimate citizens of this country and
pay their taxes.
This advertisement is funded by the state, which means that
suspicion, malice and hatred against the Christians is being created using
their own money. As if they are being made to dig their own grave.
It would have
been perfectly in order for the advertisement to have
been issued by the RSS or its affiliates because one knows their animosity
towards Christians and Muslims. But the state, even when governed by the
RSS’s political arm, the BJP, cannot do such a thing.
Secondly and more
importantly, the state government is humiliating India’s Adivasis and
Dalits by terming them as mute, ignorant and simpletons who have no mind of
their own, even when it uses a figure like Gandhi to mouth its bias. Gandhi as an
individual is entitled to his view of the Adivasis and Dalits and would
have to answer his critics and defend himself, but the state cannot hold, leave
alone publicly display, such a paternalistic and patronising approach
towards two sections of society who are otherwise deemed intelligent enough to
elect their government. By endorsing Gandhi’s view in this matter, the BJP
government of Jharkhand is demonstrating that it believes it is the
guardian of the eternally ‘juvenile’ tribals and Dalits.
