Dimapur: An apex church organisation of Nagaland flayed Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for calling the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024, approved by the Assam cabinet, an “important legislation” as one of the most insensitive acts of religious bigotry.
“Unfortunately, such a statement is uttered by a respectable personality who is looked up to pull the region together on all fronts,” the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) in a statement, issued by its general secretary Rev. Dr. Zelhou Keyho, said on Thursday.
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Sarma told journalists recently that the Assam Cabinet passed a resolution endorsing a bill to ban magical healing practices with the explicit goal of curbing evangelism.
The NBCC said to ban healing to curb evangelism is a direct attack on the Christian community, “which is most unfortunate for a respectable leader in the region to utter it with pride and consider it very important legislation”.
The NBCC said any discriminatory statement referring to any community of faith or ethnic group in the region cannot be considered important. It stressed that any legislation must be logical and sensitive to the diverse socio-ethnic and religious-cultural spectrum of the region.
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It said the use of “highly professional terminology without proper definition” has caused suspicions in the minds of Christians in the region.
According to the NBCC, to accuse the healing ministry of the Christians of being a means of converting the tribals is discriminatory.
“If what is done to serve humanity is considered a threat to others, how do we coexist peacefully in our diversity,” it asked.
Saying that the healing ministry of the church from a professional standpoint has come a long way, the church organisation said it has been the calling of the Christians to provide care and compassion to every section of society.
It added this attestation can be seen in the Christian hospitals in the country and beyond, which provide affordable health care to every section of the population regardless of caste and religion. “Therefore, to come up with such legislation in any state is not only discriminatory but also vindictive,” it added.