TUESDAYAugust 29, 2000 volume 11, no. 154
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NEWS for Tuesday, August 29, 2000 NEW DELHI, Aug. 28 (CWNews.com)
The chief minister of
Delhi, the Indian capital, has proposed setting up of a
special park "to publicize the message of Jesus" to mark
the Great Jubilee Year by the government.
Chief minister Shiela Dikshit made the proposal at the end
of a meeting convened on Thursday to discuss ideas and
suggestions from the 60-member committee set up by the
Delhi government ruled by the Congress party to celebrate
the year of Christ. Apart from putting forward the Jesus
memorial park proposal, Dikshit announced a government
grant of 10 million rupees (US$225,000) for observing the
year of Christ in the Indian capital.
The Jesus memorial park proposal has been hailed by church
leaders. Father Dominic Emmanuel, Catholic Bishops
Conference of India (CBCI) public relations secretary, said
on Monday that the "positive gesture" from the Delhi
government comes after the "disappointing response" of the
federal government to celebrating the Jubilee year as "year
of Christ" in India.
The federal government had initially approved the proposal
to observe the year 2000 as the Year of Christ. However,
the Hindu nationalist lobby in the coalition government led
by the pro-Hindu BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) later scuttled
the proposal saying that Christianity is not "an Indian
religion." The coalition government had granted one billion
rupees (US$23 million) for the tercentenary celebrations of
the founding of Sikhism apart from sponsoring celebrations
of 2,500 years of Buddhism and the major centenary of
Jainism recently.
After the BJP-led federal government backtracked on the
Year of Christ, Christian groups appealed to state
governments to initiate their own celebrations of the Year
of Christ. Several other states apart from Delhi have
responded positively to the Christian demand.
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