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December 18, 2014

Bharat Bhushan: The Grinch wants to steal Christmas, again (Business Standard, 16 Dec 2014)

Business Standard - December 16, 2014

It appears the Narendra Modi government is letting the Saffron Grinches go on a rampage so that mounting public anger allows it to come forward with legal provisions to prevent conversion

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!/Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason./It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right./It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight./But I think that the most likely reason of all,/May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
--How the Grinch stole Christmas
by Dr Suess

During the Lok Sabha election campaign, Narendra Modi, aspiring to be India’s Prime Minister, boasted that the job required a 56-inch chest. Considering that it put him in the league of incredible hulks like Arnold Schwarzenegger (58-inch chest), Hulk Hogan (58 inches), and the Great Khali (63 inches), perhaps he was vying for the wrong job. Being the Prime Minister of India also requires a large heart.

The Grinches who want to steal Christmas by organising a re-conversion of Christians to Hinduism on December 25, or to convert a religious holiday into "Good Governance Day", may have hearts too small for their boastful ribcages.

It would be erroneous to assume that under the Modi government, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has reoriented its goals. Each time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumes power, the Hindutva ideologues get emboldened. Thus, the attacks on Christians in Surat and in Dangs in Gujarat on Christmas in 1998 under Keshubhai Patel’s rule. And remember that the murder of Graham Staines and his sons (January 1999) and of a Catholic priest George Kuzhikandam in Mathura while he was asleep in his church (June 2000) took place when Atal Bihari Vajpayee ruled at the Centre. Although law and order is a state subject, the point is that the BJP rule at the Centre has coincided with Hindutva aggression against Christians. The process has begun once again with Modi at the helm. [. . .].

http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/bharat-bhushan-the-grinch-wants-to-steal-christmas-again-114121600969_1.html