Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday holiday in India has its roots in the British colonial period and is associated with the Christian community. He was speaking about a Jharkhand district’s attempt to change the weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday while addressing a poll rally in Dumka.
“In our country, there is a holiday on Sunday. When the British used to rule here, the Christian community used to celebrate the holiday (on Sunday), this tradition started from that time. Sunday is not associated with Hindus; it is associated with the Christian community. This has been going on for the last 200-300 years. Now, they have put a lock on Sunday holiday in one district and said that the holiday will be on Friday. Now, there is a fight with Christians too. What is this?" said the PM.
The PM also accused the JMM alliance of indulging in “communal and appeasement politics”, claiming that the term “love jihad” originated from Jharkhand.
When were holidays in Jharkhand changed?
In 2022, the Jharkhand government dissolved the management committees of schools and reinstated Sunday as the official holiday. “The weekly holiday on Friday instead of Sunday in government schools in some Muslim-dominated areas in Jamtara has been a legacy issue, which had been in practice for many years, including 2014-19 during the BJP regime. When a controversy erupted over it in April 2022, when 43 government schools in Jamtara were found to be giving their weekly offs on Friday,” a government official was quoted as saying by Indian Express.
The then state education minister Jagarnath Mahato then ordered a probe into it.
Why did PM Modi accuse the rival of “political appeasement”?
After PM Modi assumed office in 2014, the national capital witnessed a series of attacks on churches.
In February 2015, PM Modi addressed a gathering of Christians at Vigyan Bhawan to celebrate the sainthood of Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Mother Euphrasia. “My government will not allow any religious group, belonging to the majority or the minority, to incite hatred against others, overtly or covertly. Mine will be a government that gives equal respect to all religions,” the PM was quoted as saying by Indian Express.
Last year, the PM during an event at his residence on Lok Kalyan Marg said he had a longstanding relationship with the community. He also praised its work in the education and healthcare sectors. However, according to Indian Express, licences of many NGOs that carry out Christian missionary activity have been scrapped under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) in the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, the Sangh Parivar has traditionally railed against the Christian missionaries and accused them of carrying out religious conversions. The RSS’s tribal wing, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, has been working in tribal belts of the country for decades. It works to bring tribals into the larger Hindu fold against alleged conversion by Christian missionaries.
According to Indian Express, the PM raking up the Friday weekly off row underlines the approach the BJP under his leadership is trying to take amid the Sangh Parivar’s traditional stand against the Christian missionaries.
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