The Hindu : VHP pamphleteering worries Christians in Dangs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 25, 2002

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VHP pamphleteering worries Christians in Dangs

By Manas Dasgupta

AHWA (DANGS) OCT. 24. There is apprehension among Christians in the tribal-dominated Dangs district in south Gujarat over a "Ram katha" discourse organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-supported Shree Sabrimata Seva Samiti at Subir village, near the district headquarter of Ahwa.

The ostensible reason for holding the "Ram Katha" by the famous Gujarati "kathakar" (narrator), Morari Bapu, is to collect funds for constructing a Shabrimata temple at the site wherein the Ramayana age Shabri was believed to have met Lord Rama and fed Him fruits.

The pamphlets released by the Seva Samiti claim that Subir village is the spot where Shabri waited for Lord Rama as it believed that Dangs was the original "Dandakaranya" of the Ramayana age.

The holding of Ram katha by Morari Bapu is nothing new in Gujarat and every year the narrator is invited by various organisations in various parts of the State and even abroad attracting lakhs of people.

"There is nothing wrong in the Ram katha," admitted Fr. Cedric Prakash, director of the Ahmedabad-based voluntary organisation "Prashant," but what was worrying the minority Christians in the Dangs was the "accompanying pamphleteering by the VHP."

The Samiti and VHP activists, he claimed quoting some Dangs-based Christian leaders, had again raked up the "conversion" issue which had caused tension and Christian-bashing on Christmas Day in 1998 that earned the State and the country a bad name among the Christian nations in the world.

Justifying the apprehension among the Christians is the reported threat to the Christians by a Minister in the Narendra Modi Cabinet, Karsan Patel, who is in charge of the Dangs district and one of the chief organisers of the Ram katha.

Mr. Patel, Fr. Prakash claimed, had at a peace committee meeting in Ahwa on October 21 issued threats to the Christians for having "spoiled" the good name of Gujarat even though nothing had happened to the Christians in the Dangs like the Hindus faced in Godhra or the Muslims in the post-Godhra riots. Mr. Patel, however, denied having issued any threat to the Christians or that any of his supporters had threatened the children of the Navjyot Social Service Society as claimed by its president in a letter to the District Collector, Mamta Verma, seeking protection.

"There is no threat from our side nor is there any provocation. If the Christians are scared, we cannot help it, there is no cure for feeling scared," Mr. Patel said.

The Ram katha was going on peacefully from October 22 and would go on till October 30 and there was no reason for the Christians to feel apprehensive.

Both Ms. Verma and the District Superintendent of Police, Raju Bhargava, maintain that there is no tension.

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