Who has the millions?

India’s minority community of Christians are in a bit of a fix. They claim to be persecuted minority in the country. They form about 2.4% of the population. They have about 24 million followers. They employ most number of employees in their institution after the government. They own more land than anyone else in the country ( keeping aside farming lands ). Their budgets are larger than that allocated to defense forces.

Now voices from within the Catholic community are questioning the source and expenditure of this wealth. They are asking the secular government of India to take over the establishment from the bishops. Dr. John Dayal, one of the most prominent pro-congress face of the minority is suddenly against the idea as he claim it will be government interference. This should not be allowed as it is a secular government. There is no mention of why the government still controls Hindu temples.

The government is maintaining a well expected silence on the issue that was recently debated at a Catholic conference in Goa. A secular government needs to do what it does best, keep equal distance from all religious bodies and be more concentrated on working for the people of the nation on the whole rather than redistributing the population and dividing them on the basis of wealth, religion, caste or gender.

The government needs to bring in a Uniform Civil Code to govern the laws of a religious communities on the same line. As long as they fear to do this, we will see more of these debates go into the forgotten pages of history.

Responses