[Political commentators
said Mr. Modi had been wary of alienating his support base by commenting on
recent attacks, but his party’s crushing defeat in state elections in Delhi last week
might have persuaded him to speak out.]
NEW DELHI — Prime
Minister Narendra
Modi of India said on Tuesday that his government
would not “accept violence against any religion, on any pretext” and that it
would take forceful steps to prevent and prosecute such crimes, in a speech
widely interpreted as a response to a series of attacks on Roman Catholic
churches in and around
New Delhi.
“My government will not allow any religious group, belonging to
the minority or the majority, to incite hatred against others, overtly or
covertly,” Mr. Modi said at a New Delhi ceremony to honor the recent
canonization of two Indians by the Vatican.
“I strongly condemn such violence. My government will act strongly in this
regard.”
For weeks, church officials and rights campaigners have urged
Mr. Modi to address a growing sense of insecurity among the country’s religious
minorities, including Muslims, Christians and Buddhists.
During a visit to India
in late January, President Obama also raised
the issue of tolerance, telling a crowd of students, “India will
succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.” He
reiterated that position after his return to the United States.
Mr. Modi made no reference in his remarks to specific episodes
of intolerance or to individual groups. Many commentators saw his comments as a
warning to right-wing Hindu organizations, which gave Mr. Modi his start in
politics and helped him rise to power.
Mr. Modi’s electoral base is largely made up of Hindus, who
constitute about 80 percent of India’s population, and his association with the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or R.S.S., a Hindu nationalist organization, dates
to his childhood.
Political commentators said Mr. Modi had been wary of alienating
his support base by commenting on recent attacks, but his party’s crushing defeat in state elections in Delhi last week
might have persuaded him to speak out.
“I think he’s been wanting to do it, but has not been able to
gather courage to do it,” said Shekhar Gupta, a journalist and television
commentator. “One, because he is deep down an R.S.S. man. He does deep down
share the same beliefs and concerns. And second, he was really shy about taking
on his spiritual and ideological establishment.”
But that calculus shifted, Mr. Gupta said, after Mr. Modi “got
rebuked by Obama not once, but twice.”
Another factor, he said, were the Delhi elections, in which
Muslim and Christian voters turned en masse to the Aam Aadmi, or Common Man,
party, rejecting the governing Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Delhi has given the message that in India there is no vote for
beating up on anybody,” he said. “People want peace.”
In recent weeks, at least five Catholic churches in and around
Delhi have reported attacks of various kinds, including arson, burglary, vandalism
and stone throwing. Another suspicious episode, what appeared to be a robbery
at a Catholic girls’ school in the capital, was reported on Friday. There were
no reports of injuries in any of the attacks.
Though the Delhi police have said they have no evidence that the
churches were targeted for religious reasons, some Christian leaders have
speculated that the episodes were an attempt by right-wing Hindu groups to
intimidate India’s Christian minority. They have also expressed alarm at
campaigns by right-wing Hindu groups to convert members of religious minorities
to Hinduism.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday condemned the church
vandalism, saying, “These attacks are unacceptable aberrations, and there is no
space in India for such incidents and people.”
Mr. Modi was more abstract in his remarks, arguing that the
world “is at a crossroads which, if not crossed properly, can throw us back to
the dark days of bigotry, fanaticism and bloodshed.” He said India had allowed
the coexistence of various religions “for thousands of years.”
At the end of the speech, which Mr. Modi delivered in English
rather than his usual Hindi, he returned to the language he had used during his
electoral campaign, which steered clear of religious ideology. “I have a vision
of a modern India,” he said. “I have embarked on a huge mission to convert that
vision into reality. My mantra is development.”
Rajiv Tuli, a spokesman for the Delhi branch of the R.S.S., said
he believed that Mr. Modi had issued a warning, but that it was not aimed at
Hindu groups but rather at Christian and Muslim proselytizers “who indulge in
conversion by force, by allurement.”
Mr. Tuli denied that right-wing campaigners had played a role in
the church vandalism, saying, “It has been proven by the investigative agencies
that it has nothing to do with the majority communities.”
But others said they hoped that the speech indicated that Mr.
Modi was willing to distance himself from right-wing activists.
“What can I say? Thank God, finally,” said Yogendra Yadav, a
senior strategist for the Aam Aadmi Party, which won 67 of Delhi’s 70 assembly
seats in last week’s elections. He said the magnitude of the loss must have
served as a signal to Mr. Modi.
“He is a consummate political player,” Mr. Yadav said. “He had
positioned himself as being an aggressive pro-Hindu person, and he did not want
to dilute his image. I guess he has now realized he needed to move closer to
the median.”
Nida
Najar contributed reporting.
