[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 136 (Friday, October 2, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1895-E1896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               RAPE OF NUNS IN INDIA MUST BE INVESTIGATED

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN T. DOOLITTLE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 2, 1998

  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I was very distressed to learn from Dr. 
Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, of the rape 
of four nuns in the Madhya Pradesh state of India. According to 
published reports, a gang of armed men forced their way into a Christy 
Jyoti Convent School, vandalized school property, and raped and 
terrorized the nuns.
  This terrible incident shows that it is not safe to be a member of a 
religious minority in Hindu India. Christian groups have reported a 
spate of attacks on members of the minority community since a Hindu 
nationalist-led coalition took office in New Delhi six months ago. The 
Indian government seems to have little interest in protecting the 
rights of religious minorities, whether Sikh, Christian, Muslim, or 
other. India's claims of secularism and democracy are suspect.
  The rapes were reported to India's National Commission on Minorities, 
which referred the incident to the National Human Rights Commission. 
America will be watching closely to see how the Indian Government 
handles it.
  All who love freedom must condemn this terrible incident. This offers 
one more reason for American taxpayers to be wary of supporting the 
questionable Indian government. We must maintain pressure on India 
until all the people of South Asia are free. We must support self-
determination for all states throughout the subcontinent, including a 
free and fair vote in Punjab, Kashmir.
  I am placing the Council of Khalistan's press release and articles on 
the rape into the Record.

            [From the Council of Khalistan, Sept. 28, 1998]

                        Four Nuns Raped in India

       Washington.--Four nuns were raped in the Indian state of 
     Madhya Pradesh on September 23. The case was sent to the 
     National Commission on Minorities, which referred it to the 
     National Human Rights Commission.
       ``This rape was designed to threaten religious minorities 
     and prevent anyone from objecting to the repression India 
     practices against its religious and ethnic minorities,'' said 
     Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of 
     Khalistan, the government pro tempore of Khalistan, the 
     independent Sikh homeland declared independent on October 7, 
     1987. The Council of Khalistan leads the Sikh Nation's 
     peaceful, democratic, nonviolent movement for independence.
       ``Such ghastly crimes are a disgrace for the nation and 
     make us hang our heads in shame,'' said Tahir Mahmood, 
     chairman of the National Commission on Minorities.
       ``On behalf of the Sikh Nation, I extend our deepest 
     sympathies to India's Christians and to the nuns who were 
     raped for the political

[[Page E1896]]

     advancement of Hindutva,'' said Dr. Aulakh. ``If swift action 
     is not taken, it will once again show India's religious 
     intolerance and its terrorism against the minorities under 
     its rule,'' he said.
       The Indian government has murdered more than 250,000 Sikhs 
     since 1984, over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, 
     almost 60,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, and tens of 
     thousands of Assamese, Tamils, Manipuris, Dalits, and others. 
     The U.S. State Department reported that the Indian government 
     paid over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing 
     Sikhs. More than 50,000 young Sikhs have been abducted by the 
     police, tortured, and killed, then their bodies were declared 
     unidentified and cremated.
       ``These rapes are of a piece with the repression in Punjab, 
     Khalistan, in Kashmir, and throughout the nations occupied by 
     India,'' Dr. Aulakh said. ``It is of a piece with the murders 
     of Catholic priests in Bihar last year. The real aims of 
     India's theocracy are now exposed to the world,'' he said. 
     ``It is clear that there is no place in Indian democracy for 
     Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, or any other minorities,'' Dr. 
     Aulakh added. ``As the Sikhs who recently demonstrated at the 
     United Nations noted, a religiously intolerant country cannot 
     be democratic.''
       Dr. Aulakh called on the United States to maintain its 
     sanctions against India. ``The repression of minorities and 
     the nuclearization of South Asia by the Indian government 
     both support India's dreams of empire and its drive for 
     hegemony over all South Asia,'' he said. He called on India 
     to hold an internationally-supervised plebiscite in Punjab, 
     Khalistan to let the Sikh Nation decide its future in a free 
     and fair vote. He said that the people of Kashmir should have 
     the plebiscite they are seeking as well. ``That is the 
     democratic way to do things,'' Dr. Aulakh said. ``If India 
     will not do this, how can it call itself a democracy?''
                                  ____


              [From the Burning Punjab News, Oct. 2, 1998]

               Nuns' Rape Case--Moopanar Hits Out at VHP

       Madras.--Tamil Maanila Congress president G K Moopanar has 
     demanded that those involved in the rape of four nuns in 
     Madhya Pradesh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad functionaries 
     who justified the incident, be detained under the National 
     Security Act. In a statement here, he termed as `politically 
     uncivilised,' the VHP describing the culprits as `patriotic 
     youth'. The BJP-led Government at the Centre should nip this 
     tendency in the bud before such criminal act spread to other 
     parts of the country, he added. Referring to the VHP's 
     reported description of the nuns as `betrayers of the 
     country, Mr. Moopanar said this was unpardonable and went 
     against the Constitution.
                                  ____


             [From the Burning Punjab News, Sept. 29, 1998]

              Minorities Commission Condemns Rape of Nuns

       New Delhi.--India's National Commission for Minorities has 
     strongly condemned the alleged rape of four nuns at Bhandaria 
     village in Jharva district of Madhya Pradesh on September 23. 
     ``Such ghastly crimes are a disgrace for the nation and make 
     us hang our heads in shame,'' said NCM chairman Tahir Mahmood 
     in a press statement. Professor Mahmood added that the NC did 
     receive a complaint by fax in this regard from a prominent 
     all- India Christian organization. ''Finding it to be a case 
     of wild abuse of basic human rights and militancy against 
     women's right to modesty, rather than violation of minority 
     rights, I forwarded it with a request for immediate action to 
     the National Human Rights Commission and the National 
     Commission for Women,'' Professor Mahmood said. The Madhya 
     Pradesh Government ''must move into swift action treating 
     this case as a test for its genuine commitment to protection 
     of humanitarian values and human rights,'' the NCM chairman 
     said.
                                  ____


                [From the Hindustan Times, Oct. 1, 1998]

                VHP Wants Foreign Missionaries to Leave

       New Delhi--The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) today demanded 
     that foreign missionaries should not be allowed to function 
     in the country since they were acting as insurgent groups in 
     some areas and forcibly converting Hindus in some other 
     parts.
       Although senior VHP leader Giriraj Klshore refused to speak 
     on it, he is understood to have raised this issue at a 
     meeting with a Canadian High Commission official today.
       But he was open in stating that the VHP would urge the 
     missionaries to go on their own while also creating social 
     awareness on the issue.
       Interestingly, Mr. Kishore's remarks came at a Press 
     conference called to disassociate the VHP from the views 
     expressed by another senior VHP leader B.L. Sharma Prem on 
     the Jhabna incident and the ``one-side'' projection given to 
     it by a prominent daily which, he claimed, sought to put the 
     entire blame for the incident on the VHP. Here, Mr. Kishore 
     pointed out, even the delegation which called on Home 
     Minister L. K. Advani did not blame the VHP.
       Mr. Prem had justified the attack on the nuns on the ground 
     that the missionaries represented ``antinational forces'' 
     working against Hindu interests and that the incident was 
     sparked by the anger of patriotic Hindu youth against them.
       Mr. Prem, who had demanded that the Centre throw out those 
     who sought to convert Hindus to Christianity, has reportedly 
     been asked to seek the VHP's sanction before speaking on its 
     behalf. Although Mr. Kishore disassociated the organization 
     from Mr. Prem's remarks, he tried to defend his colleague by 
     maintaining that Mr. Prem may have said what he did because 
     of the track record of the Christian missionaries in tribal 
     areas.
       Mr. Kishore's remarks today reflected the VHP's dilemma of 
     exploiting the Jhabua incident to put the Congress Government 
     in Madhya Pradesh on the mat and to use it for its own 
     campaign against the missionaries.
       Although Mr. Kishore condemned the Jhabua incident and 
     urged the Government to bring the culprits to book at the 
     earliest, he could not restrain himself from demanding that 
     the Christians also condemn any attack on Hindus in 
     Christian-majority areas.
       The VHP leader, who charged that a criminal issue involving 
     Christians was being projected as a communal problem in the 
     case of the Jhabua incident, however, virtually dubbed the 
     insurgency problem in the North-East as a Hindu-Christian 
     issue. He described the NSCN (National Socialist Council of 
     Nagaland) as a ``Christian and terrorist'' outfit and alleged 
     that several cases of attacks on Hindus were reported in 
     Nagaland. To a question whether insurgency in the North-East 
     was based on religion he maintained that members of a 
     particular community were behind it.
       While the VHP leader called for the ouster of the foreign 
     missionaries, he defended the activities of ISKCON 
     (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) and other 
     organizations operating abroad. According to Mr. Kishore, 
     these groups did not indulge in forceful conversions.
       Mr. Kishore also dismissed reports about attacks on 
     Christians in Gujarat as a ``one-sided newspaper propaganda'' 
     and went on to allege that the Muslims were also seeking to 
     marry Gujarai girls as part of a larger design.

     

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