Kerala Christian daily slams RSS article on Kesari saying 'lies'

Kottayam: Deepika, the mouthpiece of the Catholic Church, has slammed the article written by Hindu Aikya Vedi State Vice President ES Biju in the RSS mouthpiece Kesari, which has issued severe, unwarranted and baseless allegations against Christian minorities. Deepika commented in its editorial that the ‘venomous’ RSS article is not surprising since the organisation is a communal movement that has distanced itself from India’s freedom struggle. The organisation, which used to ‘oil’ the British divisive machine, is still continuing the same work, the Daily wrote.

It highlighted that the Kesari story is full of false information and lies that justify the anti-conversion bills that the BJP states are pushing, ignoring the Constitution. It noted that at one point, the Kesari article says outright that the Constitution should be changed.

The newspaper noted that the Kesari article called for vigilance among Hindus, claiming that Christians are a threat to the country as well as the world. It said that what must have angered the RSS was the dissent against the recent anti-conversion laws, implemented by the BJP states, arguing they are unconstitutional and should be questioned in court.

The Kesari article clearly shows the RSS's strategy of calling for an amendment to the Indian Constitution by demonising Christians. For those who don't know and others who pretend that they don’t know where the BJP's one hand is, while the party is extending its other hand to the shoulders of Christians in Kerala, can continue dreaming a religious nation governed by Manusmriti, it said, adding that others will not abandon the Indian Constitution, which emerged from the freedom struggle and patriotic heritage. The unconstitutionality of the bills prohibiting religious conversion of Ghar Wapasis should be questioned, it said.

The Kesari article had claimed that secret conversions that Christians were carrying out were exposed when the Chhattisgarh Railway Police arrested two nuns on July 25 and produced them in court on charges of conversion and human trafficking. According to Deepika, those who accompanied the arrested nuns were already Christians, and therefore illegal conversion was not the real issue there, but the mob attack conducted in “Pakistan style” by the Hindutva organisation Bajrang Dal, led by a “fanatic woman” must be referring to the Bajrang Dal woman leader and Hindutva vigilante Jyoti Sharma.

Deepika reminded that there are BJP leaders who take medical treatments from Christian-run hospitals, who studied in schools operated by Christians, who admitted their children in such schools, etc. Kesari writes that Christian missionaries intentionally brought the English language into local areas to eliminate local languages, which is an argument that contradicts what was mentioned above, Deepika says.

Deepika concluded that the descendants of the national leaders who fought against the British and Hindutva and achieved independence cannot give in to the tactics of divisive politics. For them, the breath of life is not the Manusmriti, which is revered only by those who want to make the country a religious state and a black book of caste-based, vile laws and misogyny, but the Indian Constitution, which was formed at the initiative of those who burned the Manusmriti.