The Christian community at large has welcomed Prime Minister Modi’s warning of intolerance to anyone, whether majority or minority, who tries to spread hatred against any religious community in India. Many, including those from other religious communities, now expect him to walk the talk.

In my opinion the prime minister could have been more direct and forth coming as he was in the case of killing of two Japanese by ISIS. The very next day of the incident, he strongly condemned it and gave call for a concerted global response to the persisting menace of terrorism.

India reports an attack on minorities every second day, that too openly. Most of these cases are by the members of Sangh Parivar of which he was once a leader. In fact it is as the leader of the Sangh Parivar he has been chosen to be the prime minister. After all BJP is the political wing of the Sangh Parivar.

Now that he has declared no tolerance toward such forces we would like to see him asking concerned authorities to initiate legal proceedings against all those spew venom against minorities.

In specific to incidents in Delhi we would like him to direct the Delhi Police to apply correct penal codes in First Information Reports (FIR) instead dismissing them as cases of theft, house burglary or short circuit. He should also tell the Delhi Police to stop misleading religious communities by releasing statistics of theft cases in religious places in Delhi.

In fact on February 5, when a Christian delegation called on Home Minister Rajnath Singh he telephoned the Police Commissioner of Delhi in their presence and asked him immediately to apply the penal codes of 153, 295 and 295A that deal with instigation of communal violence.

Sadly, the police have not done it yet until now. Instead, the ACP (Assistant Commissioner of Police), who was dealing with vandalism in the Vasanth Kunj church, was promoted to the DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police) rank for handling the case aptly. I do not know if this is what our prime minister was referring to when he addressed the large gathering of Christians in Delhi.

A C Michael

Towards the end of his carefully and well crafted speech Modi hastens to add that he sees such things happening world over. I would like to take this as an opportunity to suggest to our prime minister to play the role of a world leader. As a matter of fact he is considered the most popular leader at international level by many heads of state, including Barack Obama, the most powerful president with whom he shares ‘first name’ relationship.

It may be recalled that in early years of our independence, our first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, projected India’s constitutional vision of international order, which reflects in the doctrine of Panchsheel, or five principles of peace.

Taking a leaf from the history it would be to the benefit of our PM if he initiates a similar kind of action, or something better as he is known to do differently from past leaders, at the world level to address the issue of intolerance among all religious communities.

(A C Michael is the former Member of Delhi Minorities Commission.)