Mobocracy Dangerous for Marginalised and Minority Communities
- All India Christian Council -

New Delhi, August 29, 2011

All India Christian Council
Sector 6, Dwarka,
New Delhi 110075
Email – [email protected],
Tel 011-25084561

Christian Council Responds to Anna Hazare's Movement against Corruption
Mobocracy Dangerous for Marginalised and Minority Communities

[The Statement of Dr. John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council, and Member, National Integration Council]

We are happy Anna Hazare has called off his fast. We are even more happy that after a seeming capitulation to mobocracy, Parliament finally asserted its dignity and its sovereign rights. After many hours of debate, Parliament did not concede the hidden demand that it allow the anti corruption law to be passed in the streets and the Ram Lila ground rather than in the hallowed chambers of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The government was inept, specially in arresting Hazare, and the opposition, specially the BJP, opportunistic in trying to be both with Hazare’s populist campaign and also with parliamentary privileges. We commend the interventions of Rahul Gandhi who gives a formula that should be looked at, and Sharad Yadav whose rustic speech spelled out the imperatives of a parliamentary democracy.

Hazare’s aides -- specially Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi -- have repeatedly shown they have no faith in a parliamentary democracy. Both push for a Unitarian, even dictatorial, regime where decisions, good or bad, are taken instantly. Hazare patently has been used by these people who do not have any interest in the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. The Sangh Parivar, not surprisingly, has come out to claim credit for the movement.

Corruption is both a crime and a sin, and needs both a moral and legal response. There must be a series of laws to curtail it in various sectors, not just one monolithic and super-ombudsman who can easily become threat to democracy and national security and unity. The interests of all sections have to be taken into account.

For the religious minorities and the Christians in particular, it is a dangerous precedent where mobs brought by whatever means to paralyse the national capital and dethrone the elected government of the day can dictate policy and laws. Tomorrow Hindutva mobs will demand the disenfranchisement of Muslims and Christians as alien religions.

The Dalit Christian movement perhaps has some lessons in the Hazare-Kejriwal-Bedi strategy of mobilising the masses using contemporary social mobilisation technology.

The All India Christian Council (www.christiancouncil.in), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.

Released by
Madhu Chandra
PRO – aicc, New Delhi