Kerala bishop takes pot-shots at Modi over Manipur violence

The Bishop said that the church does not intend to see it as a political issue.

Joining the anti-BJP chorus over Manipur unrest, a senior bishop of the Syro Malabar Catholic church in Kerala came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's alleged inaction in restoring peace in the Northeast state.

Mar Joseph Pamplany, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Thalassery Archdiocese of the influential Syro-Malabar Church, said even as the Prime Minister said in the US that there is no discrimination in India, he was not able to convince the Christians about it in Manipur.

Read | CPI(M), Congress demonstrations over Manipur tension in Kerala to resist BJP's Christian outreach

"Can the Prime Minister who said in the US that there is no discrimination in India say the same before the Christians in Manipur? It is not the silence of the Prime Minister on Manipur violence that matters, but the lack of initiatives to restore peace. The government is bound to ensure that the right to life and the freedom to practice the religion of one's choice, guaranteed by the Constitution, are protected," he said.

Mar Pamplany also slammed the BJP-led Manipur government by saying that people could not be blamed if they thought the State covertly supported violence. Notably, he compared the violence in Manipur to the 2002 Gujarat riots. The archbishop added that the violence in Manipur targeted the Christian community.

Pamplany's statement is yet another setback for the BJP's Christian outreach efforts in Kerala as he had earlier offered electoral support to the BJP, provided the Centre hiked rubber’s market price to Rs 300 per kilogram. BJP senior leaders even held talks with the bishop in this regard thereafter.

Imam flays UCC

Meanwhile, a prominent imam in Kerala flayed the Centre’s move to implement the Union Civil Code (UCC) and urged the Centre to stall it.

Imam of Palayam in Thiruvananthapuram V P Suhaib Maulavi said in his address on the occasion of Bakrid that “UCC will be a challenge to the diversity of the country and curtail the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution and therefore it needs to be opposed”.