The UCF press statement also noted that commission chairman Lalpura, a former leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), assured the delegation that the commission will work to address cases of persecution of Christians and proposed that a “joint team to tour some of the areas where such communal issues are regularly occurring.”
Dayal told CNA Sunday that it is not clear that the government is serious about pursuing cases of violence against Christians.
“The chair wants the Christians to do the work and then police will investigate. He did not explain how communal violence data will be collected if government agencies do not,” said Dayal of the meeting that was organized in response to a UCF letter to Prime Minister Modi shortly after Easter.
Dayal further lamented that “the commission has no Christian member. Christians are now [under] the charge of the Buddhist member, a lady from Ladakh” in the northern Himalayas bordering China.
Under the provisions of the NCM Act of 1992, each of the six religious minorities of India (Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians) are to be represented in the autonomous commission for three years.
The NCM chairman, Dayal noted, “also confessed that Prime Minister [Modi] himself had removed the 15-point program” for the welfare of religious minorities saying, “all development is for everyone without bias. So why special reservations?”