Indian Government Says “No” to Christmas Day in Schools. Attacks Christianity
Most minority communities including Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs are now living in an atmosphere of fear and persecution in India.
By Rakesh Raman
Close on the heels of an incident of arson in the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Sebastian’s Church in India’s capital New Delhi, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India has taken yet another step to hurt the sentiments of Christians in India.
It is reported that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) in India has officially asked certain schools to observe December 25 as ‘Good Governance Day’ instead of Christmas Day.
The HRD Ministry suggested that the schools should instead celebrate the birthday of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the Christmas Day by holding activities like declamation contests, quiz competitions, and screening of documentaries related to good governance.
While schools always remain closed in India on the Christmas Day, it was the first time that schools were asked to organize extracurricular activities on December 25.
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However, after vociferous protests by the opposition political parties in the Lok Sabha, the HRD Ministry issued a press note today stating that “all schools will follow their vacation schedule including vacation / holiday on 25th December.”
But the move of the HRD Ministry is largely being observed as an attack on Christianity because instead of asking schools to celebrate December 25 as Christmas Day, it has suggested to celebrate the birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is a Hindu politician in BJP.
Most minority communities including Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs are now living in an atmosphere of fear and persecution in India since the BJP formed the government in India during May this year (2014).
BJP has pledged to make India a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation) and expects all Indian citizens to adopt Hinduism as their religion or “way of life” in refined terms.
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Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India has taken cognizance of the complaints about the recent incident of arson in the Delhi Church and indicated that the incident took place at the behest of government officials.
Allegedly, according to NHRC, the police turned up late at the site of incident and tried to hush up the matter. But only after strong public protests it started investigating the incident. Request for reasonable compensation had also not been considered by the government, NHRC has observed.
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company
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Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
