Christians living in Delhi sought protection after one of their most important churches was gutted last week in what appeared to be an arson attack. Anil Couto, the Archbishop of Delhi has joined other clergy in appealing to Indian Prime Ministr Narendra Modi for protection.
Couto said Christians had felt more insecure since the elections. “With a certain political ideology that is prevailing today, we are made to feel that as a Christian we are not Indian enough,” he said.
Although not accusing Modi, he added: “Certain political forces have said . . . on so many occasions that everyone who is Indian has to follow a particular religion, a national religion. And those who don’t do that are not true Indians.”
The archbishop was speaking after St Sebastian’s Church, in a northeastern suburb of Delhi was badly damaged by a fire last week that had apparently been started deliberately. Delhi police responded by issuing a safety alert for churches in the run-up to Christmas. There are about 20 million Christians among India’s population of 1.26 billion.
The Indian parliament was paralysed last week after opposition MPs demanded the resignation of Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, a minister in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party. Jyoti had claimed that non-Hindus were “illegitimate” rulers of the country. Jyoti was speaking hours before the fire at St Sebastian’s - although no link has been made between the incidents.
Couto said incidents such as the fire, which he believes was a deliberate provocation, made Christians more fearful. “If an attack has taken place somewhere then it could take place anywhere else; we are so vulnerable and open to any assault,” he said.
The clergy’s appeals followed a series of assaults on Christians and churches across central and northern India in the past few months. Thousands of Christian protesters, including old people, children and nuns, blocked traffic in the roads around Delhi’s main police station later.
For Father Stanley Kozhichira, one of the three parish priests at St Sebastian’s, there was no doubt that the blaze was arson. “There were traces of kerosene floating in the water that the fire brigade used to put out the flames. And we could smell it,” he said, adding that certain elements of society wanted to “eliminate Christianity”.