John Dayal, a well-known New Delhi-based journalist and human rights activist, has often been subjected to hostile attention from Hindutva forces but there has been a sharp spurt in the attacks via Twitter with the #ShameOnJohnDayal hashtag trending wildly of late.

In a timely response, Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, and herself constantly targeted by Hindutva outfits whose members hurl racist and sexist abuse at her, has launched a petition addressed to the commissioner of police, Delhi, urging him to “provide adequate and prompt protection to Dayal, and take immediate measures to identify and arrest all those making threats or indulging in hate speech against him”.

Krishnan’s petition notes that, “Dayal, known for his committed struggle against communalism and bigotry and his defence of democracy and peace, is being subjected to an unrelenting hate campaign on social media. The trolls, all supporters of the Indian prime minister, the BJP and RSS, have even gone to the extent of making public his personal contact details – thereby creating a clear and present danger for him”.

Dayal is secretary-general of the All India Christian Council and is a former president of the All India Catholic Union. When I first learned of the latter role of his, perhaps while I was living and working in Hong Kong, my reaction was one of surprise that a person I knew to be a noted mainstream journalist had taken on a role representing a religious community. I’d have written him a note, saying, “Hey John, what’s with this activism on behalf of a religious denomination?” Or words to that effect: But I had lost touch with him.

The first I’d met John Dayal was in 1977 when he was chief reporter with the Patriot newspaper, one of numerous broadsheets edited and printed along the once glorious Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. Patriot was generally seen as pro-Soviet Union and pro-Communist Party of India (CPI). It was, however, a well-edited paper and John’s position was not to be sniffed at. He and a colleague of his, Ajoy Bose, had by the autumn of 1977 written a book entitled For Reasons of State: Delhi Under Emergency. It narrated the atrocities meted out to people living in many impoverished parts of Delhi during Indira Gandhi’s regime. I was interning at the Press Institute of India then and had been asked to interview Dayal and Bose and write for its quarterly publication, Vidura. There was a certain air of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about the duo’s book venture. The next I met John Dayal was in 1984 when we were contesting elections for the Delhi Union of Journalists, but on opposite sides, he with a centrist grouping and I with a broadly pro-left slate.

I reconnected with him via social media several years ago, while still living in Hong Kong and eventually came round to the view that his work defending the rights of Christians and other minorities in India was vital for two reasons: first, the rights of those of us born in the so-called majority community in India and who regard ourselves to be irreligious or, to use what I deem to be synonymous terms (in a non-academic sense), sceptics, unbelievers, agnostics, atheists, rationalists, humanists and so forth, can only be protected if the right of all believers is. Moreover, a predominant majority of those deemed “Hindus” wish to live in peace with their neighbours in their slums, villages and tribal communities. Incidentally, atheism has been an integral part of ancient systems of Indian philosophy and the word Hindu, as currently used in India, is of foreign conception.

Second, terms such as “sickular”, “pseudo-secular”, “libtards” – no doubt a response to “Hindutva retards” and “Moditards” – and “presstitutes” have begun to gain currency to describe those among the “majority” community protesting or writing against the increasing attacks on Muslims and Christians and against the rising “saffronisation” of the polity. And so the work of John Dayal and several other activists gains importance as they seek to defend and protect not only the rights of their own denominations but of other minorities and all of us who wish to see India remain secular, plural, inclusive and peaceful.

Happily, I was able to meet him again in person early last year when the Indian Social Institute in Bangalore (a research, publication and training body run by Catholics) had organised a-day-long interaction session with the United Nations special rapporteur on religious freedom or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt. Dayal presided over the session which featured not only Christians of various denominations but also Muslims and Hindus who spoke about the rising menace of Hindutva fascism, albeit in a state currently ruled by a non-BJP regime.

Karnataka’s current Congress party regime of chief minister Siddaramaiah has shown itself incapable of stemming the rising tide of attacks on Christians, Muslims and secular Hindus. A former vice-chancellor of Hampi University and rationalist scholar named MM Kalburgi was shot dead in his home in Dharwad, in northern Karnataka on August 30. Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare in Maharashtra had earlier met the same fates for the sin of being rationalists. A Mysore-based writer named KS Bhagwan has received a similar threat. In southern coastal Karnataka – a hotbed of Hindutva attacks – it is open season against Muslims and Christians with concocted allegations of “love jihad” being hurled at young couples.

And so, it behoves on me, and on all of us who want this land to be peaceful and tolerant, to speak up for those who are attacked by Hindutva fascist forces.

A 20th century German Protestant pastor named Martin Niemoeller is widely credited with having penned a poem which generally goes as follows, although there are myriad versions thereof:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
…”
Let it not be said that we did not speak up when they came for John Dayal, for Irom Sharmila, Soni Sori, Dayamani Barla, Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand, Perumal Murugan, Shabnam Hashmi, Kavita Krishnan, Priya Pillai and others too many to name.

(This appeared in dailyo.in on Sept. 14, 2015)