Christians, Muslims look to Obama for help
The IAMC letter said that “forced conversions of Muslims and Christians” were being undertaken by “Hindu supremacist organizations, of which the ruling BJP is the political wing”.
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“The minorities are feeling threatened and insecure now more than ever before,” Father Dominic Emmanuel, director of New Delhi-based Sadbhavana- Institute for Communication and Inter-religious Dialogue.
“Obama must impress upon Indian Prime Minister that of late the rising aggression of the right wing Hindu groups are putting the lives of the minorities in serious jeopardy,” Emmanuel who also edits The Word Among Us (India), added.
Obama arrived in New Delhi on Sunday night on a 3-day visit to the country to showcase what many see as a deepening relationship between the US and India.
He is the first US leader to be selected as the Guest of Honour at India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26.
Before Obama landed in India, Christian and Muslim communities urged him to convey the communities’ concerns to Modi.
In the US, Indian American Christian activists created an online petition on the White House website, urging Obama to ask Modi intervene to help “preserve and promote the religious freedom” of the religious minorities who, the petition said, felt threatened with the rise of the Hindu extremism in India.
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), the largest advocacy group of Indian American Muslims, has also wrote a detailed letter warning that since Modi-led Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the national government, “militant Hindu nationalist” forces turned more aggressive and many “deeply disturbing developments” in India left a “profoundly negative impact on millions of religious minorities in India, including Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis.”
The IAMC letter said that “forced conversions of Muslims and Christians” were being undertaken by “Hindu supremacist organizations, of which the ruling BJP is the political wing”.
“In your discussions with Prime Minister Modi and other Indian officials, express concern over the rapidly deteriorating situation of Christians, Sikhs, Muslims and other minorities in India,” the letter urged Obama.
“A reference to their plight during your speech would go a long way in highlighting the international community's cognizance of the ground realities in India.”
Father Emmanuel says he supported the petition as well as the IAMC letter “to put it firmly on record during Obama’s meeting with Modi, that a democracy like India cannot allow the repression of religious minorities- particularly the Muslims and the Christians”.
“No country, be it the USA or India, can walk on the road to progress, if it cannot take its minorities along,” he said.
Source: onislam
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