The Hindu : 'Gujarat Govt's bill anti-minority'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 11, 2003

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National

'Gujarat Govt's bill anti-minority'

BANGALORE APRIL 10 . The Global Council of Indian Christians has demanded the scrapping of the National Commission for Minorities as governments pay "scant regard" for its recommendations to protect the minority community and the latest in this series was the Gujarat Government's decision to go ahead with the anti-minority, Freedom of Religion bill despite the apprehensions raised by the NCM about the provisions in the bill against letter and spirit of the freedom guaranteed in the Constitution.

The NCM's advice to delete the most offending Clause-5(1), stipulating the intending person for conversion, in the GFRB-2003 to a appear before a magistrate to submit him/herself for scrutiny was ignored by the Gujarat Government by passing the bill without the amendment as suggested by the NCM. Thus, the NCM should quit office to save the credibility of the last vestiges of constitutional edifice, the GCIC said.

"We are increasingly becoming apprehensive and cynical, as one by one our institutions are overrun by the sentinels of democracy in India. The way in which these bills are pushed, demonstrates that hate is being ingrained in the psyche of the fundamentalism propounded by the Sangh Parivar. The Indian brand of fascism is corroding the roots of secular democracy in India," it said.

The GCIC urged the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, to prevail upon the Governor to withdraw his assent the Gujarat bill.

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