By Aakar Patel
Attacks on Bengali Christians and their churches have begun following the BJP’s victory in the state.
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Last week, a group of us, led by Karwan-e-Mohabbat, the organisation founded by former IAS officer Harsh Mander, heard testimonies from Christians across the state. We concluded that this was a new phenomenon, that it was being condoned, if not actually encouraged, by the government, and that it would accelerate over time.
One of us, former TMC MP Jawhar Sircar, theorised that the attacks were happening because thugs were positioning themselves as party leaders. Given the relative absence of a BJP organisation at the local level in the state, this space was being occupied by those seeking to make a name for themselves through violence. This theory seems convincing, particularly after hearing the survivors’ accounts, and it leads us to conclude that the attacks will only increase.
The stories were similar to what has been happening in other states captured by the BJP. Mobs descend on places where people have gathered for prayer, sometimes in village churches and sometimes in people’s homes.
The churches are desecrated; in one instance, a cross was vandalised. Those gathered for worship are abused and beaten up. Women worshippers are not spared and are sometimes sexually assaulted. Christian children are slapped around. Pastors bear the brunt of the violence. Property is looted, and cases are usually filed against the victims. One study estimated that there had been 48 attacks since the BJP came to power in May. In 33 of these instances, no FIR had been registered at all.
In one instance, a pastor who was attacked in his own house was jailed for over a month after the attackers’ complaint was given greater credence than his account of the assault and trespass.
Again, this is also a familiar pattern. The police take their cues from the ideology of the government, and we are left in no doubt about where the BJP stands on this count.
The attackers take offence at the fact that some worshippers wear bangles and sindoor. The idea that this is a nation where faith is fluid, where one can visit a temple, a gurudwara and a dargah and have faith in all three, is now unacceptable.
Some other things are worth noting here. First, at least so far, mainstream churches have not come under attack. This means that Roman Catholic institutions and other established churches in Kolkata and other cities have been deliberately avoided by the mobs. This is likely to be a strategic decision because any attack on them would invite greater pushback from within India and, indeed, the world. Imagine, for instance, BJP-backed mobs vandalising Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
Second, Bengalis must not assume that they are insulated from this sort of hatred merely because of their traditions and liberal outlook. The rest of India offers a glaring example of how easily societies can descend this path and how little resistance they encounter, particularly from the state. There is almost no interest among IPS officers and senior bureaucrats in doing what is right, as opposed to doing what the government wants them to do. There may be others, but I can think of only two IAS officers in my lifetime who resigned on matters of principle in the face of state-driven communalism. One was Harsh Mander, who quit after the 2002 pogrom, and the other was Kannan Gopinathan, who resigned after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. That is it.
With two years remaining in his Rajya Sabha term, Jawhar Sircar resigned in 2024 over the RG Kar rape case.
The norm is that people who may have appeared perfectly normal for decades can turn on a dime and enthusiastically embrace majoritarianism. Take a close look at our Foreign Minister, for instance.
“How was it possible for a mere handful of foreigners from a distant land to make themselves masters of a large subcontinent, the inhabitants of which numbered many millions?” asked Sir Penderel Moon in his two-volume work on the British conquest and dominion of India.
His answer was that the British conquered the country with the assistance and connivance of Indians themselves and then ruled over it for a century with their collaboration.
The same phenomenon is being played out today, with those who have sworn allegiance to a secular Constitution selling themselves for the baubles of office.
The third point is that this is a continuation of the erosion of our Constitution under the BJP. Peaceful assembly under Article 19 is dead, and even its previous relegation to designated protest areas such as Jantar Mantar is now being curtailed. Similarly, Article 25 is no longer a meaningful fundamental right. It promises us that we all have “the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion”. These are merely words and do not reflect the reality of the laws. They are a fib that we tell the world, alongside grand but meaningless phrases such as Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and Sarvadharma Samabhava, in a nation where the propagation and practice of faith have been criminalised.
Muslims across India have long identified the real and sole objective of Hindutva, which, unfortunately, Christians in Bengal are now also beginning to discover.
