Indian, I am…

"The Church speaks out: We’ll leave no stone unturned to ensure that the culprits in the Bandra case will not go scot-free..."

…goes the headline of today’s Mumbai Mirror.

My immediate reaction was why church should be involved in this altogether. The boys causing the accident being Christian was just incidental to the case. Why should that be a pre-cursor to make church play safe & ‘secular’? I rather find it communal. For it necessarily pastes Christian identity on the accused, as against that of ‘reckless rich youngsters’. Why do we need to make accused wear mask of Christianity and make people say “oh boy, they are Christians”. And may be make people start putting colors to the community.

How different is this from political parties that seek votes basis caste, creed & religion. Those parties play communal card to project themselves as evangelists and the church, in this case, is donning similar role. As a matter of fact, I would expect the accused to be treated equally irrespective of what religion they belonged to, and am sure that’s how the matter would be dealt with.

This over defensive attitude of the church was absolutely uncalled for.

Similar is the case with class X exams that are conducted by the State Government. When the results are announced, we have 1st amongst scheduled castes and 1st amongst scheduled tribes, etc. Why do we need all these classifications? By making these distinctions, the students are actually made aware of their communal backgrounds and unnecessarily sensitized about them.

I believe that this hidden communalization of society is much more dangerous than anything else. When we are pledging that we all are equal Indians, the matter ends there. While it is perfectly valid to be religious and be proud about one's community, there is no need to create these artificial facades for ourselves. We are much better off without them.