Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) has strongly criticized the notification issued by Nagaland University (NU) declaring Good Friday and Easter Sunday as working days in view of the financial year end. NU had on 28th March 2024 issued the notification but cancelled the same on the same day.

NBCC said that the though the order was revoked, the damage has been done and alleged that the declaration was a ploy from “higher authority” “to corner us slowly”. “They want to take away our Christmas celebration and now our Good Friday and our Resurrection Sunday to make it a working day on the pretext that it is the Financial Year,” the Council stated.

General Secretary Rev. Dr. Zelhou Keyho asserted that notification will never be allowed in a Christian majority society. “This time it was the university, a place of learning, next it could be any department forcing the majority Christian employees to work on Sundays, on our holy days and so forth,” he said.

The Council also highlighted that Christians in India are “at a crossroad and if we do not stand guard against the forces that are working against us we will soon find ourselves in a difficult situation.” Therefore, it called all not to allow “divisive elements in our backyard” whose only motive is “to run over us and subjugate us to change our color and the fabrics of our lives into something which we never was.”

Stating that no educational institution should be used to become a centre of religious propaganda, NBCC said that it is now “high time to do away with the so called “central” mentality.” Young minds cannot be shaped if the university leadership is insensitive and lack wisdom, it added and maintained that education institutions should stay away from disseminating communal politics.

Further, NBCC said that the Naga Christian society will never submit to communal politics and instead stated that it believes in creating a harmonious society by minimizing frictions through respect and sensitivity.