Feb 8, 1999
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STAINES' KILLING Burning Shame Continued... GLOBAL FALLOUT The Australian papers were the most vociferous: "Missionary, sons burnt to death by Hindu mob", said The Australian. "Forgive them, they know not what they have done", was the Sydney Morning Herald report the day after the Staines' burial. It wrote: "The BJP has encouraged this climate for its political advantage." The reports came at the end of more than a month of media reports in the West on the violence against Christians in Gujarat. On January 23 the New York Times front-paged the story on the attacks. The Chicago Tribune used the incident to describe what it said was "the growing audacity of Hindu zealots... under a nationalist Hindu party coalition Government."
In Washington DC, Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, condemned the killing: "This is the latest tragic death caused by religious intolerance and fanaticism, not only in India but worldwide." He, however, added: "We applaud President K.R. Narayanan of India who condemned 'the barbarous' killing." Official reaction in the US has been more muted. On January 26 Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Karl Inderfurth praised the Indian Government for its strong statements condemning the attacks on Christians. "Their condemnations are what we expected," he said. Earlier at Stanford University, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said that inflammatory rhetoric from religious leaders would jeopardise "what Indians rightly and proudly regard as their 'civilisational' experience". The right-wing religious lobby in the US Congress may push for hearings on the subject, something that would greatly embarrass Delhi. A 1993 Religious Freedom Act enjoins US embassies abroad from reporting annually on instances of religious intolerance. But the Americans are also aware that any move to single out India would also stoke anti-Christian sentiments here. Overseas Indians are predictably anguished by the development. One of them agonised in a letter to Home Minister L.K. Advani that the incidents have "caused enormous harm to the reputation of India, the present Government and to legitimate Hindu political activism". He was Gautam Sen, lecturer at the London School of Economics and spokesman for Overseas Friends of the BJP. --Manoj Joshi Staines'
Killing: Burning Shame |
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Besides Australia and the US such strong
commentary came from the UK. The Times, London, noted that in India "Christians are
vulnerable precisely because they are so few; having discovered that attacking Muslims
loses the BJP votes, Hindu activists have picked an easier target for their broader
message of religious intolerance". 
