Hyderabad: As part of Christmas celebrations, the Telangana government will organise dinners in all churches across the state on December 18, a release from the Chief Minister’s Office said today.

“On December 18, on behalf of the government, dinner will be organised in all the churches across the state. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would participate in the Christmas dinner organised by the government at the Nizam College Grounds here on December 22,” the release stated.

The release added that on December 14 clothes will be distributed to 2 lakh Christians (deserving Christian families) in the state.

This is in sharp contrast to efforts to ignore, downplay, and even intimidate the Christian communities in certain other pockets in India over the festival of Christmas.

On the one hand, the Vice President of India lauded the contributions of Christians to nation building in Delhi on December 12, on the other, in Jharkhand, tension has been fuelled, ostensibly with the encouragement of certain members of the State Government, of a protest against Christians on Christmas Day.

“In several states communal forces are trying to whip up sentiments against Christians whom they see as soft targets, and this is unfortunate,” says Devesh, who is a social worker. He was referring to a recent incident in Madhubani, Bihar, when on December 10, suspected RSS and Bajrang Dal rowdies attacked a Christmas gathering and roughed up the pastors, broke equipment and so on. The miscreants are yet to be arrested. Ever since the BJP has come to power in an alliance with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, this year, incidents against Christians and Muslims have cropped up, especially in the smaller towns and villages of Bihar.

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