Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

as I speak, an hour ago, I got an SMS, that a church is burning outside Bangalore, in
Bangalore rural. I would not like to torture you with a litany of the toll of the last two
months. It is attached in my written speech which is on the table. But sir for us, the
threat has never been solely against the Christian community, it is major victims that we
are in recent months. The Nun, who was raped, was a catholic but it is a democracy
which has been ravished. It is a women’s dignity that has been ravished. It is all that is
holy in India that has been ravished. I as Indian citizen am ashamed, and the Prime
Minister quite correctly spoke for the nation when he said the nation has been put to
shame. Sir, the Chief Minister is here and I and my colleagues have been at the doors
of each one of you separately and therefore we take this opportunity to speak to you
collectively. Is Kandhamal not a part of India, does the Constitution not run there?
Does the writ of Law not go there? Can Indian police forces not enter there? Or is it
a foreign country or a plot of land of the moon? How does this happen? Sir, many of
us are members of this National Integration Council and continue to be members because
it was set up by great Jawahar Lal Nehru. It has not met for three years and I think
that is one of its major tragedies. Perhaps, if it had, we would have been not reduced to
the situation where we face a trial by gun, sword, fire, raping, tantamount to ethnic
cleansing of three hundred villages in Kandhamal. The choice given to my people
there is very simple, fifty thousand people have been told, please come home, if you
become a Hindu. Forcible conversion of this nature and this is what we are accused
of. Violence, they say, is retribution, just retribution many of them say, for forcible and
fraudulent conversion to Christianity. Sir, I take this opportunity and I think I speak
for every Christian in India, for every church from the biggest cathedral to the smallest
Church. We denounce forcible and fraudulent conversions. They would by definition
be illegal, immoral, unethical and against the teachings of the church. Five decades of
church documents which are available to each one of you, if you were to google. The
work of conversion is not of a man, repeated exercises by the National Minorities
Commission and efforts by the aggressive Governments of many states which have
passed these laws have failed to provide proven cases of forcible or fraudulent
conversions and yet state guarantees on freedom of faith, including the propagation of
faith and human rights are smothered, there are calls for moratoriums and black laws
and people brutalized in police harrassment. Conversions are moratorium on the
conscience of Indian citizens. Is Indian religion a religion………….………………….
………………….… (NO RECORDING DUE TO MIKE FAILURE)………..……...
No, the mike is mechanical, it has no ideology but surely Indian constitution
guarantees this freedom of conscience of which freedom of faith is but a small
part. Do not do anything to take away a freedom of conscience of India that is
the mool mantra of five thousand years old civilization. The violence is of course
Sir must cease forthwith. Our people must be allowed to return home in peace in
Kandhamal and other districts of Orissa. We must be allowed to profess faith in
honour, without fear, without the sort of forcible conversions, and so called
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