Does Vasundhara Raje need a poll debacle to withdraw the recently passed Freedom of Religion Bill 2006, as Jayalalithaa had to do after the drubbing she and her party received during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections? Well, since Rajasthan has less than 1 per cent Christians at whom — according to state home minister, Gulab Singh Kataria, the architect of this legislation — the bill is aimed, there is little chance that she will be persuaded by the Christian vote to take such a decision.

Gujarat, also BJP governed, is another state which passed such an unconstitutional law. That the Gujarat government has not yet framed rules for the said bill, or that so far no case, either in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa or Arunachal Pradesh of ‘forceful conversion’ or ‘conversion by allurement or fraudulent means’ has come to light, is not the concern of BJP governments. It is enough that such legislation is on the statute books so that minorities in general and Christian missionaries in particular, who are rendering selfless service to marginalised people in remote areas — are intimidated.

In Rajasthan, the Freedom of Religion Bill began to be talked about ever since the BJP government came to power in 2004. But the issue assumed prominence after the president of a certain Emmanuel Mission International (EMI), Bishop Samuel Thomas, was arrested last month, and an arrest warrant was issued against his father, Archbishop M.A. Thomas, the founder of EMI. Both of them were allegedly responsible for propagating a book called Haqueekat, allegedly containing material denigrating the Hindu religion, although neither of them has either written or published the book. Though we have not seen or read the book, we have — including me as the spokesperson of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese — condemned in public, any such material containing insulting references to other religions or their believers.

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