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Christians staged a protest dharna (sit-in) in Amritsar—the holiest city for Sikhs—near the border with Pakistan on 19 May. The protesters demanded that the state government arrest the author, Satnam Singh, within 15 days and confiscate all copies of the book, Guru Nanak Dev Ji Jeevan Ate Mukti Marg (Life and Liberation Path of Guru Nanak).

Guru Nanak was the founder of Sikhism, the majority religion in Punjab. Less than one percent of the state's 23 million residents are Christian.

Vidya Sagar, a Church of North India pastor based in Ludhiana in Punjab, said "Christians in Punjab consider this book to be an attempt not only to hurt the sentiments of the Christian community but also to disturb the centuries-old harmonious coexistence of the Sikhs and the Christians."

"We want the government to initiate a high-level inquiry to find out the instigating forces behind this scandal before it is too late."

Following the Christian protests, the book's author, a lawyer about 70 years old, was arrested on May 19 and released on bail on May 22 after being charged on three criminal counts, including use of "derogatory language" against a religious community and "disturbing communal harmony." The case will come before the court later this month.

But this has not satisfied Christian leaders.

Though the book's front cover shows a portrait of Guru Nanak, and the book itself deals mainly with Sikh religious beliefs, it also contains what a Church of North India bishop described as "highly objectionable and derogatory language about Jesus Christ and the whole Christian community."

Bishop Pradeep Kumar Samantaroy, of Amritsar, said the book depicted Jesus as "an illegitimate child thrown into an open stable by his mother Mary who wanted the child to die of the cold weather to hide her shame. He survived because of the warmth given by the sheep."

Samantaroy has officially complained to India's National Commission for Minorities, to the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and to other church organizations.

Pointing out that the book also describes the crucifixion of Christ as a punishment for his "immoral" relations with Mary Magdalene, Samantaroy said the author "sees Christians as satanic people without morals who drink and dance nude in clubs and convert masses through allurement."

"The writer's blatant, insulting and defamatory language and interpretation used for Jesus Christ whom the Christians consider their Lord and Savior has sent shock waves throughout the whole Christian community," the bishop said in an appeal for Christian solidarity to suppress the book.

Samantaroy said that arresting the author "is not enough. We want the book to be banned and the copies available on the market to be seized. We are waiting for the 15-day ultimatum to be over [before taking further action]."

The bishop said that Christians in Punjab, including his own church members as well as Catholics, Methodists and Salvation Army members, would fight "against the attempt to defame Christ and us."

Daniel B. Das, an official of the CNI's Amritsar diocese, said there were two versions of the controversial book, the first dated November 1999 and the other April 2001. The 1999 edition contained the "defamatory" passages, but the 2001 version did not.

"We have reasons to believe that both the editions were printed and distributed simultaneously and different dates have been used to confuse the public and to avoid accountability," Das said.

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June (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45