India: Freedom of Religion

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I have the greatest possible respect for the sheer resilience and joy of the Indian people, and the fact that the country sustains such a vast and complex democracy. However, at the moment—as the noble Lord, Lord Singh, so eloquently argued—there are some real worries about the observance of basic human rights, especially the right to practise one’s religion.

On paper, India has an excellent secular constitution. As Amartya Sen has argued, “secular” here does not mean the banishment of religion from public life but the fact that all religions are treated, in theory, with equal respect and concern by the state and its institutions. However, in practice, because of certain Hindu extremist groups, there is sustained violence against Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. Human rights are indivisible, and my concern is with the freedom of all religions in India—Muslims and Sikhs as much as Christians, although I wish to focus on Christians for a few moments.

A new report from the Evangelical Fellowship of India documented 177 recorded attacks on Christians last year. Church services were stormed and Christian leaders harassed and assaulted. There were beatings and violence, including the rape of a 71 year-old nun. There were even reports of 18 church pastors being arrested. This, the report stressed, is a drop in the ocean because most cases are simply not recorded by the police or local government. These attacks on Christianity must also be understood in relation to the caste system, because many Christians are Dalits—the former untouchables. As is well known, Dalits suffer disproportionately by every possible criteria: the number of rapes, lack of clean water and sanitation, poverty, and inability to obtain justice from the police and judiciary. It should also be noted that Christian Dalits do not qualify for the positive discrimination measures that other Dalits enjoy, so they suffer twice—both as Dalits and as Christian Dalits. A full list of these gross injustices is being set out this month at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Not surprisingly, a good number of Dalit Hindus in the past sought to convert to Christianity or Buddhism. However, it should be noted—to the shame of the church—that caste has now also heavily infiltrated the church. The point here is that Christians are the object of attack by Hindu extremist groups, because these groups believe that they seek to attract converts from Hinduism by the promise of escape from the caste system. Whether this is true or not, it is very difficult for people to convert should they want to because of the threat of violence. Yet freedom to convert from one religion to another is fundamental to Article 18.

Mr Modi, in his younger days, was a member of the RSS, the main Hindu extremist group. He has not disowned that past, nor, as far as I am aware has there been a ringing condemnation of Hindu-inflicted violence against other religions. At the moment, there seems to be a culture of impunity, which can only poison the atmosphere further and lead to an increased number of attacks. Will the Minister, in our dealings with the Indian Government, call on Mr Modi to be clear, forceful and unequivocal in condemning these Hindu extremist groups, and firm in ensuring that perpetrators of religious violence are brought to justice? On too many occasions, there has been little or no action against criminals when the victims have been Christian Dalits or simply Christians.

There is one final aspect of this I wish to mention. I learn from people who know India well that NGOs are now being intimidated and are fearful of speaking out on this and other issues. Personnel who have links with foreign countries are having difficulty getting their visas renewed. In short, there is a growing climate of fear in which free speech is muffled and silenced. I hope that our Government will make it quite clear to the Indian Government that this is totally unacceptable.