The Shameful Politics Behind Jharkhand's Anti-Conversion Law

By Elizabeth Kendal

Approved by the cabinet of the Chief Minister Raghubar Das on 1 August, Jharkhand’s Religious Freedom Bill 2017 was both introduced to and passed by the Legislative Assembly on 12 August. The opposition had demanded that the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government send the bill to a select committee; but this was rejected and the Bill will now be sent to the BJP-aligned Governor Droupadi Murmu. If she approves the Bill it will then proceed to the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind for his approval before becoming law. Elected comfortably on 20 July, Kovind is India’s first president to have ties to the Hindu nationalist RSS.

Indian missionary (Gospel For Asia)

Under this law, anyone judged to have used “force, allurement, inducement or fraud” to coerce another person into changing their religion could face three years’ imprisonment and fines of Rs 50,000 (US $800); or four years’ imprisonment and a Rs 100,000 fine if the person converted is a minor, a woman or a member of the less educated classes, such as Dalits. While “force” is said to include the “threat of divine displeasure”, allurement, inducement or fraud are all undefined, meaning education and humanitarian aid could be viewed as allurement or inducement, while virtually any mainstream Christian teaching could be deemed fraud.  Further to this, any conversion will require permission from the Hindu nationalist-dominated state government.

While the Religious Freedom Bill 2017 does not actually ban conversion, it hands anti-Christian forces a weapon they can use to persecute and prosecute Christians and rein in conversions to Christianity. But there is more to this than meets the eye.

THE GREAT BJP LAND GRAB

Jharkhand’s BJP state government has been battling for two years to get access to tribal lands, which it wants to acquire for “development” purposes. However, the Chotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act (1908) and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy (SPT) Act (1859) contain elaborate rules which protect the land rights of the indigenous tribal peoples; including clauses that prevent non-tribals from purchasing land in these tribal regions.

Writing for The Wire (24 Aug), Santosh Kiro explains: “After coming to power in the state, chief minister Raghubar Das [sworn in on 28 December 2014] consolidated his position . . . then began talking about amendments to the CNT and SPT Acts, arguing that this exercise alone can usher in ‘development’ in the region.”

According to Kiro, the BJP state government’s proposed amendments “made provision for non-agricultural use of agricultural lands”, and “enabled the government to acquire tribal lands for mining and industrial purposes”.  Further to this, Chief Minister Das was allegedly under instruction from the Centre to amend the CNT and SPT Acts for the purpose of attracting national and international investors, most of whom are eyeing Jharkhand for business opportunities.

Despite massive opposition, “Das chose to go ahead, allegedly because he was under instruction from the Centre to do so” and because “The amendments to the CNT and SPT Acts would attract national and international investors, most of who are eyeing Jharkhand for business opportunities.” Consequently, “The CNT/SPT Bills were placed before the Jharkhand assembly on November 23, 2016, and were passed by the House within a record time of three minutes amidst an uproar by the opposition.”

The Bills then proceeded to the desk of Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu, who was quickly overwhelmed by extent of the opposition as some 200 different tribal and social organisations protested and pleaded for her to withhold her assent. Kiro reports, “Agitated, the tribals were quick to carry out rallies, and held meetings and staged dharnas [peaceful sit-ins] across Jharkhand, demanding that Das takes back the proposed Bill. The BJP, on the other hand, took to ‘explaining,’ telling the tribals that these amendments were ‘for their own good’. . .”

Ultimately the opposition was so intense and widespread that the Governor returned the Bills without her assent. Subsequently, Chief Minister Das shelved the Bills, for the BJP simply cannot afford to lose the support of the large tribal vote-bank.

CHURCH BLAMED AND TARGETED 

Shoaib Daniyal, an analyst with Scroll.in explains: “Christian missionaries entered the Chota Nagpur Plateau – the region that would later become modern-day Jharkhand – during the British Raj. Their impact in terms of numbers was modest. Only 4% of Jharkhand today is Christian. Within the state’s Adivasis, Christianity is only the third most followed religion, lagging both the indigenous Adivasi faith Sarnaism as well as Hinduism. Yet, the development work carried out by the missionaries means that Christian Adivasis are better educated than others of their community.”

The reality is that these literate, educated Christian tribals have been the ones raising awareness of the state government’s land-grab efforts; and have essentially led the resistance.

Having united in opposition against the BJP’s land policies, Jharkhand’s Christian and Sarna (animist) tribals now find themselves divided over the issue of religious conversion.

Opponents of the Religious Freedom Bill 2017, see it as a political move to destroy Adavasi/tribal solidarity which had developed and strengthened over the issue of land.

In another report for The Wire (13 Aug) Santosh Kiro writes: “Tribals in Jharkhand form about 27% of the total population and follow either Sarna (worship of the nature) or Christianity. While a majority of the tribal population follows the Sarna religion, 4.30% of the total population, according to the Jharkhand Religion Census 2011, is Christian. The politically motivated Bill threatens to further rip apart the tribal society in the state which had managed to forge unity among the Sarnas and the Christian groups through the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (CNT) and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy (SPT) Act amendment proposal by the state government.”

Kiro quotes Executive Counciller Prabhakar Tirkey who insists that “Das had committed to industrialists across the country that he would avail land in Jharkhand for them. It was to keep this promise that he brought in the CNT/SPT amendment Bill which met with stiff opposition, eventually snubbed by the governor herself. During the opposition against the land Bill, Sarna and Christian groups had come together as one, and had stood against the BJP. The church played a very vital role in uniting the tribals on the CNT/SPT amendment Bill. So the Religious Freedom Bill has been brought in to serve a twin purpose: to break the unity between the Sarna and the Christian groups and to teach a lesson to the church.”

BJP WANTS TRIBALS ILLITERATE AND IGNORANT 

It seems the true purpose of Jharkhand’s Religious Freedom Bill 2017 is to divide the Adivasis (tribals) and prevent them from gaining access to Christian missionaries who promote literacy and education.

As Praful Linda, a tribal leader with the CPI(M), explained to Kiro (13 Aug), “The Bill is an attempt to scuttle the process of scientific thought that has crept in the tribal society due to education. The BJP wants to take the tribal society in Jharkhand backwards.” In other words, the BJP wants its tribals illiterate, ignorant and exploitable.

On 11 Aug – the day before the Religious Freedom Bill 2017 was passed in the Assembly – Jharkhand’s BJP state government took out full page ads in the state’s newspapers.

Chief Minister Raghubar Das is also pictured alongside an image of Mahatma Gandhi; which is ironic considering the historic hatred Hindu nationalists have for Mahatma Gandhi. [Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a member of the Hindu nationalist and RSS.  Vinayak D. Savarkar – who is regarded as the Father of Hindutva – was accused of complicity, but acquitted on a technicality.]

The ad includes a quote which is attributed to Gandhi:

“If Christian missionaries feel that only conversion to Christianity is the path to salvation, why don’t you start with me or Mahadev Desai? Why do you stress on conversion of the simple, illiterate, poor and forest-dwellers? These people can’t differentiate between Jesus and Mohammad and are not likely to understand your preachings. They are mute and simple, like cows. These simple, poor, Dalit and forest-dwellers, whom you make Christians, do so not for Jesus but for rice and their stomach.”

Clearly, Jharkhand’s BJP state government hopes to convince the Dalit and Sarna tribals that their Chief Minister Raghubar Das agrees with their champion Mahatma Gandhi, that tribals are far too backward and stupid to be trusted with making their own decisions. Consequently, anti-conversion measures are necessary if the Sarna are to be protected from the exploitative practices of Christian missionaries.

Of course this is nothing but a disgraceful, paternalistic, boldfaced lie, being peddled for personal and political gain to come at the cost of justice and liberty.

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Recommended Reading:

Outlawing apostasy? Jharkhand’s anti-conversion bill is a body blow to freedom of religion in India, 
By Shoaib Daniyal, Scroll.in, 16 Aug 2017

Jharkhand Government Is Misusing Gandhi, Public Funds to Fuel Anti-Christian Hate
By Apoorvanand, The Wire, 12 Aug 2017

Religious Freedom Bill Cleared by Jharkhand Assembly; Tribal Leaders Call It ‘an Attempt to Break Our Unity’
By Santosh K. Kiro, The Wire, 13 Aug 2017

In Jharkhand, BJP Makes Thinly-Veiled Attempts to Shift Spotlight From Changes in Land Laws
By Santosh K. Kiro, The Wire, 24 Aug 2017

See also, India: Serious Threat of Hindutva
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLP) 418, 9 Aug 2017

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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

See www.ElizabethKendal.com

INDIA: Hindutva, Conversions and Violence

This post is an expanded version of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 334, India: Violence escalates as Hindutva takes hold, by Elizabeth Kendal, 4 Nov 2015.

ANTI-CONVERSION BILL LOOMS

The winter sitting of the Indian parliament is expected to commence on 20 November. Two MPs from India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are set to introduce private members bills proposing the banning conversions.  BJP MP Tarun Vijay will introduce the bill in the Upper House (the Rajya Sabha), and BJP MP Yogi Adityanath will introduce the bill in the Lower House (the Lok Sabha). The bill -- ironically called the "Religious Freedom Bill" -- will "prohibit conversion from one religion to another by the use of force or allurement or by fraudulent means." The bill will also propose that a person found to be engaged in conversions be subject to a non-bailable warrant and liable to a ten-year prison term. 

The beauty of Christian baptism
source

Like all anti-conversion activists the BJP MPs will insist that conversion is an abuse of freedom of religion and the right to free speech. They will argue that freedom of religion does not include freedom to convert another person. Of course this is totally contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which guarantees people the freedom to speak and hearers the freedom to accept or reject what they have heard.

A nation-wide ban on religious conversions has always been a central element of the Hindutva (Hindu Nationalist) agenda.

HINDUTVA

In 1899, with resistance to British colonial rule simmering, V.D. Savarkar dedicated his life to driving the British out of India. Though only 16-years-old at the time, Savarkar would come to be known as the Father of Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism).

In 1905, the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, unilaterally partitioned Bengal against the wishes of Hindus who had no desire to live under Muslim rule. The act fanned the flames of revolution, sparking a political crisis. Though Bengal was reunified with India in 1911, the fire had been lit: anti-British sentiment soared, as did sectarian tension and the Muslim aspiration for independence.

It was during those years that Indian independence activists Mahatma Gandhi and V.D. Savarkar -- both of whom were in London at the time -- became ideological enemies, with Ghandi preaching non-violence and Savarkar agitating for revolution and preparing for war.

In 1910, after one successful and one attempted assassination of English officials in India, Savarkar was jailed in London before being extradited to India and transported to the Andaman Islands where he spent 12 years, much of it in solitary confinement, before being transferred to a prison in India. To keep prisoners (most of whom were Hindus) in check, the authorities appointed Muslims as warders. Savarkar noticed that Hindus were converting to Islam in prison as the result of what he regarded as predatory missionary work. Subsequently he began to see all religious conversion as predatory, the ploy of hostile powers out to divide and rule Hindus. Henceforth Savarkar set about formulating an ideology to organise and unite Hindus as one organic whole so they might resist the divide and rule tactics of colonialists and Islamists. This would of necessity include a ban on conversions, while facilitating re-conversions to Hinduism.

Though Savarkar despised the Islam of the Kilafat (Caliphate) Movement – many member of which were imprisoned with him – it may have influenced his Hindutva. In his treatise on Hindutva (published 1923), Savarkar maintains that ‘Hindustan’ (Greater India) is both ‘the fatherland and holy land of the Hindus’ (by which he means the Hindu race), and that loyalty and devotion to India as both fatherland and holy land are critical to Indian security.  Hindutva thus defines all Indians as naturally born Hindus, while maintaining that the only reason some Indians are Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or animist is because at some point in history, their ancestors were tricked, lured or forcibly converted by hostile elements seeking to divide and weaken the Hindu nation. All non-Hindus are thus exhorted to ‘return’ to Hinduism for the sake of the nation. To refuse to do so is essentially an act of betrayal akin to treason. Though Hindutva rejects caste (racial apartheid – which is actually deeply ingrained in India) it enshrines religious apartheid, treating non-Hindus as second-class citizens while demonising them as disloyal, and as the ‘weak link’ -- a threat not only to social cohesion, but to national security. They must be repressed so as to prevent them causing strife. Anyone who has studied Islam will see the parallels.

Though India has been independent since 1947, and partition is now a done deal, ambitious politicians foster Hindutva for personal and political gain. No longer needed to unify Indians against colonial rule, Hindutva today is used to unify Indians behind high caste Hindu elites. Nearly a century after Hindutva activists began their long march through India's institutions, high caste Hindutva protagonists have come to dominate politics, academia, education, media and security. And despite the fact that multitudes of Indians are secular and peaceable, Hindu nationalism has captured the imagination.

VIOLENCE

Hindutva has turned India a tinderbox of sectarian tension. Violent persecution is on the rise. The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s (EFI’s) monthly reports make sobering reading, covering incidents raging from destruction of Christian property right through to mob violence (pogroms), serious assault and murder. What follows are just a few samples from EFI’s October report (all fully verified and acknowledged as the tip of the iceberg).

On 8 Sept, a mob of over 50 Hindu radicals attacked a church in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, beating the believers with clubs, sticks and fists after a village council banned all non-Hindu worship. Two Christian women were beaten unconscious. The Christians are being shunned and boycotted, making living in the village close to intolerable. On 22 Sept, Hindus in Kongud, Chhattisgarh, summonsed two Christian siblings to the local temple and demanded they renounce Christ. When they refused, the Hindus beat them, accused them of forceful conversions, vandalised their home and drove them from the village. The brothers complained to police, who refused to register a case. Despite this, the Hindus are threatening further violence if the brothers do not withdraw their compliant.

Pastor Arvinder Singh
(EFI)

During the first week of October, Hindu leaders in Chattarpur, Madhya Pradesh, ordered Hindus to boycott Chattarpur’s 26 Christian families, depriving them of water and other basic services. The Christians are also receiving death threats. On 8 Oct, Pastor Arvinder Singh and his family, were beaten almost to death in Phagwara city, Punjab, by a Hindu mob that included their own neighbours. Pastor Arvinder (pictured) was beaten unconscious with a metal bar; his pregnant wife was seriously bashed; and their 11-month-old baby boy was thrown at pile of bricks, causing him serious internal injuries. Nearly a month later, no police report has been registered. On 12 Oct, the mother of a pastor in Dahod, Gujarat, was stoned by a Hindu mob. Her injuries required hospitalisation.

Family of Pastor Chamu Hasda Purty
(EFI)

On 13 Oct, suspected Hindu nationalists broke into the home of Pastor Chamu Hasda Purty of the Pentecostal Church in Sandih, Jharkhand, and shot him dead. On 17 Oct, Hindu nationalist youths attacked a 50-strong prayer meeting in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, and beat up the pastor. Police arrived and detained the Christians, who were only released after local Christian leaders intervened. On 25 Oct, Pastor Thomas, his wife and two children, John and Kezia, were among ten Christians arrested in Junardeo, Madhya Pradesh, on false charges of forced conversions. The children were separated from their parents and from each other. While all the adults have since been bailed, the children remain in detention – John (14) in 174 km away in Narsinghpur, and Kezia (12) in 471 km away in Shahdol.

Aiming to terrorise

Responding to the news of the killing of Pastor Chamu Hasda Purty, Subhash Kongari, a lawyer and district president of Rashtriya Isai Mahasangh, the national Christian forum said that the killings and violence  “are all part of an agenda to terrorise people [so that they] disassociate with Christianity.”

Hindutva activists doubtless hope that the introduction of anti-conversion legislation into parliament will trigger debate, inflame sentiments and ultimately legitimise Christian persecution.

The situation in India could be about to get a whole lot worse.

Elizabeth Kendal

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks toChristians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012).

Hindutva!

Pursuant to the publication of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 270 (23 July 2014), "A Test For India in Chhattisgarh", the following article is being released to provided background on Hindutva. 

It will also appear in the Melbourne School of Theology Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths (CSIOF) Bulletin, issue 6 (2014)

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HINDUTVA!
By Elizabeth Kendal, June 2014
Words 2118

As evidenced by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) landslide win in the April-May 2014 polls, India is changing, in more ways than one. Not only did the BJP win 282 of 540 Lok Sabha seats, giving it a simple majority in its own right, but it managed to break out of the Hindu heartland and secure votes from all quarters - geographic and socio-economic.

When the BJP appointed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its presidential candidate in September 2013, many scoffed, doubting such a controversial, divisive and sectarian figure could lead the BJP to electoral victory. Most analysts believed the Indian electorate would never embrace Modi, especially not the minorities (who are fearful of him) or the educated middle classes (who should know better).

Modi gained notoriety in 2002, when, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, he failed to intervene in Hindu pogroms that left as many as 2000 Muslims dead. Then in 2003, Modi enacted the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act -- one of India's most draconian anti-conversion laws. In February 2006, Modi oversaw an enormous Hindutva campaign in Gujarat's Dang's district, home to the largest concentration of Christians in Gujarat. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus were bussed into Dangs for a non-traditional kumbh mela (Hindu pilgrimage) which was supposed to culminate in an anti-Christian pogrom. The vilification and incitement to violence was pervasive, blatant and shocking. Hindutva ideologues popularised the slogan – "Hindu Jago, Christio Bhagao" (Arise Hindus, throw out the Christians) – while their cadres ensured all Christian homes were physically identified. Christians believe that the only reason a massacre or purge did not ensue was because God intervened "in answer to the prayers of many". (See Religious Liberty Monitoring (RLM): 2006, Jan, Feb, March)

To shift attention away from his image as a sectarian figure, Modi exploited Gujarat's economic development to market himself as India's most successful pro-business administrator – an economic saviour who would raise living standards. Rather than blame the systematic racism of the Hindu caste system for the poverty endemic amongst the minorities, Modi blamed the Congress Party while holding out the "Gujarat model" of economic development as the means by which the BJP would raise living standards for all. Running with the slogan, "saab ke saath aur saab ka vikas" (with all, and for everyone's development), Modi was offering the minorities exactly what Congress had failed to deliver: opportunity, as distinct from welfare. [See: RLM post of 2 Oct 2013 – The Modi Operandi of Narendra Modi.]

At a BJP rally in Gujarat on Tuesday 17 Sept 2013, the hugely charismatic Modi managed to persuade some 40,000 Gujarati Muslims to join the party. At a rally in New Delhi on Sunday 29 Sept, the charismatic Modi addressed a crowd of more than 200,000 mostly middle class youths who responded to his lofty promises with "frenzied" excitement. It was, writes political analyst Sanjay Singh, "a public rally, the likes of which it had not seen in many decades". Anil Padmanabhan, another political analyst, remarked (29 Sept 2013) that Modi is connecting with youths and "rapidly becoming a national phenomenon. . . Modi has transcended his party and become a personality".

So what is Hindutva?

Narendra Modi is a self-confessed and proud hinduwadi (supporter of hindutva, i.e. militant Hindu nationalism).

Hindutva is an ideology which maintains that India -- indeed the entire subcontinent -- is the homeland of the Hindu race. Denying that there ever was an Aryan invasion, hindutva does not recognise the mostly animist, tribal adivasis (literally: first inhabitants) as the indigenous people of India. Rather, it labels them vanvasis (literally: forest dwellers) and counts them as Hindus, maintaining that the Hindu race is indigenous to India.

Further to this, Hindutva defines a true Hindu as one who acknowledges that India is both his Motherland and his Holy Land. Hindutva maintains that an Indian (a Hindu) who does not recognise India as his holy land cannot be a loyal citizen, for their loyalties are divided.

The missionaries of Hindutva work tirelessly to persuade the traditionally animist adivasis (tribals) that they and the Hindus really are "one people, one nation, one culture" -- i.e. one race. They work to convince the tribals that they are really Hindus whose religion has become corrupted over time. At the same time they Hinduise the adivasis' animistic practices so they don't need to change their practice, just see it as Hindu and self-identify as Hindu.

As for Christians, who belong mostly to scheduled tribes and scheduled castes (also known as Dalits or Untouchables), the Hindutva missionaries tell them that they too were originally Hindus, only their ancestors were either forcibly or fraudulently converted by foreign-invader Christian missionaries.

To motivate the scheduled tribes (8.6 percent) and scheduled castes (16.6 percent) to identify as Hindus, Hindutva holds out the prospect of elevated status; essentially replacing the racial apartheid of caste with religious apartheid -- paving the way for second-class tribals and dalits to become first-class Hindus, superior to any and every non-Hindu.

As a further motivation, and to dragnet the Hindu vote, Hindutva propagates fear, demonising Muslims and Christians as invaders, occupiers and separatists that threaten both social cohesion and national security. Muslims are stereotyped as prolific breeders and terrorists while Christians are accused of being complicit with foreigners in international conspiracies aimed at weakening India through religious conversions. [See: Preparing the Harvest, a report by V. K. Shashikumar, Tehelka (magazine), January 2004.]

As a pro-independence revolutionary, V.D. Savarkar (1883-1966) -- regarded as the "Father of Hindutva" -- spent many years in prison during British rule. It was in prison, that Savarkar formulated his Hindutva ideology and wrote what is essentially the handbook on Hindutva. Though he despised the Muslims of the Khilafat movement with whom he was imprisoned, I would suggest that Savarkar's Hindutva (first edition, 1923) has actually been deeply influenced by Islam.

To fully appreciate the Hindutva view of Christianity,
watch the Hindutva documentary: 

An Invasion through Conversion  

A video by the Dharma Raksha Samiti, Bangalore (2008) 

available on YouTube - Part 1 and Part 2

Hindutva has turned India into a tinderbox of communal tension such that today it takes very little to ignite a fire of sectarian hatred that quickly rages out of control.

The goal of Hindu nationalists has always been to secure power at the centre and establish India as a Hindu State where the power and privilege of the Hindu elite will be preserved and non-Hindus relegated as second-class citizens to be subjugated, contained and repressed.

The Hindutva family

The umbrella body dedicated to the advancement of Hindutva is known as the Sangh Parivar.

The Sangh Parivar comprises the following:

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Corps).
The RSS is a truly massive nation-wide paramilitary force. Founded in Nagpur in 1925 with the mission of creating a Hindu state, the RSS has propagated a militant form of Hinduism as the sole basis for Indian identity. The RSS has access to virtually unlimited funds, as well as a vast network of swayamsevaks (volunteers) and pracharaks (agitators) who can be mobilised in a moment. Great for politics and persecution.

The founder of the RSS, Madhav Golwalkar, wrote, "foreign races . . . must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture . . . or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment - not even citizen's rights."

Nathuram Godse, the assassin who shot and killed Mahatma Gandhi in January 1948, was a member of the RSS. In the dock alongside Godse's was his co-accused: V.D. Savarkar, the "Father of Hindutva". While the foot-soldier Godse was executed, the well-connected Savarkar -- believed to be brains behind the assassination -- was acquitted on a technicality.

In February 2003, when the Hindu nationalist BJP were in power, they hung a portrait of V.D. Savarkar in the Central Hall of Parliament House, directly opposite the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi.

On 28 May 2014, a day after his inauguration as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi paid tribute to V.D. Savarkar on the 131st anniversary of his birth.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council)

Formed in 1964 to advance Hindutva through cultural means -- i.e. through "safronised" education, media, conferences and festivals -- the VHP is regarded as the Sangh's "cultural wing". The VHP's work includes missionary endeavours, including the truly massive, high pressure and sometimes violent Ghar Vapsi (literally: homecoming) conversion / "reversion" campaign aimed at bringing Christians "back into the Hindu mainstream".

The Bajrang Dal

The Bajrang Dal is an ultra-violent youth militia. It was formed in 1984 specifically to mobilise Hindu youths for the Ayodhya campaign to seize control of the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on the spurious grounds that it was the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Ram. On 6 December 1992, rioting Hindus affiliated with the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal demolished the mosque. The police did not intervene and thousands were killed in the ensuing violence. The controversy is on-going.

The Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (VKP)
The VKP an offshoot of the RSS comprising militant hinduised tribals.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
The BJP is the political wing of the Sangh Parivar. Founded in December 1980, by 1991 it was India's main opposition party.

1998: In March 1998, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the Lok Sabha (federal parliamentary) elections. Running with the slogan, "One People, One Nation, One Culture", and campaigning on a platform that included obtaining nuclear weapons and advancing Hindutva.  Persecution escalated immediately, and between January 1998 and February 1999, police recorded 116 incidents of violent persecution against Christians -- more than in all the previous 50 years of independence combined. The increased persecution went unremarked (outside Christian media) until Feb 1999, when Bajrang Dal militants ambushed and murdered Australian missionary Dr Graham Staines and his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), burning them alive in their car in a tribal district of Orissa.

2004: The BJP-led NDA's first term in office was marked by significant economic development, so political analysts the world were bewildered in 2004 when the BJP was not returned to power. Described in the media as a "shock loss" and "unexplainable", analysts put the BJP's loss down to a widening of the gap between rich and poor that had left multitudes disillusioned. Others maintained that the BJP had diverged from its Hindutva path, losing many Hindutva supporters in the process (when in reality, the BJP's coalition partners had kept it hamstrung). It must be noted, that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won the May 2004 Lok Sabha elections by the slimmest of margins.

2009: By mid 2008, disillusionment with the Congress-led UPA government was widespread. In July 08 the UPA survived a no-confidence vote by the slimmest of margins. As 2009 approached, the BJP was favoured to regain power at the centre.

Then, in late November 2008, Islamic militants from Pakistan staged a daring terror attack in Mumbai that left more than 160 dead. While Prime Minister Singh responded with a cool, diplomatic head, negotiating with Pakistan to ensure the killers would be brought to justice, the BJP responded with rhetoric so belligerent that it scared off every swing voter and doubtless many supporters as well. The BJP's election loss in April-May 2009 was not a sign that support for Hindutva was waning; it was proof that Indians did not want to risk war with Pakistan.

All the while, the VHP's tireless cultural work has met little resistance from secular forces reluctant to tackle Hindutva for fear of losing Hindu support. As such, despite the BJP's election losses, despite a decade of Congress-led rule and despite the denials of numerous analysts, Hindutva has continued to gain ground. Today Hindutva's ascendency can no longer be disputed.

The 2014 election results will have grave consequences for India's more than 71 million Christians (5.8 percent; although many believe the number is closer to 9 percent) whose persecution will now be sanctioned at the highest levels.

photo: Gospel For Asia

It will have diabolical consequences for some 83,000 Indian missionaries who now face that prospect of draconian anti-conversion laws being enacted at the national level. I do not believe that this would require a change to the Constitution. It would only require a precedent to establish that the Constitution's religious freedom provisions are to be understood as freedom to hold belief, not freedom to change it; a position that already has wide acceptance, even at the UN.

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Elizabeth Kendal is a religious liberty analyst and author of Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Dec 2012). She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the CSIOF, and the Director of Advocacy at the Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom.

India, election 2014: The Modi Operandi of Narendra Modi

 By Elizabeth Kendal

In mid September, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) anointed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate. A sectarian figure and hardline Hindu nationalist, Modi gained notoriety in 2002, when, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, he failed to intervene in Hindu pogroms that left as many as 2000 Muslims dead. On top of this, the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, enacted by Modi in 2003, is one of India's most draconian anti-conversion laws. 

To shift attention away from his image as a sectarian figure and rabid Hindu nationalist, Modi is exploiting Gujarat's massive development and marketing himself as India's most successful pro-business administrator -- an economic 'saviour' who will raise the living standards of all Indians. As he is well aware, Indians are tired of hardship and poverty.

Aware too that the BJP must win the confidence of minorities if it is to win with a majority in the next general election, Modi is holding out the "Gujarat model" of economic development as the means by which he and the BJP will raise the living standards of minorities across the nation -- something Congress has consistently failed to achieve. Indeed Modi is blaming Congress for the hardship and backwardness suffered by minorities, when in reality the blame belongs squarely with the systematic racism and crippling discrimination perpetuated by the Hindu caste system. 

See: BJP eyes minorities to become majority party
Party to argue Congress rule is to blame for backwardness among minorities, dispel 'anti-minority' image
2 Oct 2013

Analysts have long regarded Modi as too sectarian, too controversial and too stained by events such as the 2002 pogroms to ever be accepted by the electorate -- especially by minorities (who are fearful of him) and by the educated middle classes (who should know better). It seems, however, that most Muslims would rather see economic development than the return of the Babri Masjid; more jobs and opportunities than more reservation (affirmative action).  By standing on the pedestal of Gujarat's record -- economic development -- and offering the people exactly what they want -- a better life -- it appears Modi may have found the winning formula.

At a BJP rally in Gujarat on Tuesday 17 Sept, Modi managed to persuade some 40,000 Muslims to join the party.

At a rally in New Delhi on Sunday 29 Sept, the charismatic Modi spoke to a crowd of more than 200,000 who responded to his lofty promises with 'frenzied' excitement. It was, writes political analyst Sanjay Singh, 'a public rally, the likes of which it had not seen in many decades.'

Another political analyst, Anil Padmanabhan, observes (29 Sept) that Modi is connecting with youths and 'rapidly becoming a national phenomenon. . . Modi has transcended his party and become a personality.'

". . . the BJP should sail into power".

In a piece published in The Australian (18 Sept), Amanda Hodge gives voice to the prevailing view:
"Under Mr Modi, Gujarat has earned an international reputation for its business-friendly administration, and an ability to keep the lights on in a country plagued by power shortages. . .

"After the Congress Party-led government's disastrous second term - five years marred by corruption on a grand scale, parliamentary paralysis and sharp economic decline - the BJP should sail into power.

"Seven months from a general election, the Congress Party is rudderless. The once-respected octogenarian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is widely derided as an ineffective puppet leader.

"Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent for whom Singh is said to be warming the chair, has shown scant enthusiasm for a job that has already claimed the lives of his grandmother Indira and father Rajiv.

"With the rupee at historic lows and GDP growth estimates for the year down to 5.3 per cent, India needs a leader who can re-set its growth path."

GENERAL ELECTION: April-May 2014

India, the world's largest democracy, will hold a general election for the 16th Lok Sabha -- the House of the People / the lower house of federal parliament -- by the end of May 2014. It will be intensely competitive and many parties will compete to put representatives in the 552-seat legislative assembly.   Each Member of Parliament will be directly elected by their constituents in a "first-past-the-post" system. Voting will be conducted in four phases.

STRATEGIC UTTAR PRADESH

Narendra Modi will spend all of October and up to mid November campaigning in Utter Pradesh -- India's strategic heartland and the home of Hinduism. Nine mega-rallies are being planned.

The northern state is 80.6 percent Hindu, 18.5 percent Muslim and around 0.1 percent Christian. It is India's most populous state, accounting a massive 80 parliamentary seats.

Analysts are expecting the BJP to do well in Uttar Pradesh (UP), regaining seats lost in 2009, and even picking up new seats. Most believe the recent Muslim-Hindu clashes in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts of UP -- clashes that left 44 dead and thousands of Muslims and Hindu Jats displaced -- will work in the BJP's favour.

[Jats are a non-elite, peasant people. Most Jat tribes are classified as OBCs (Other Backward Castes). Traditionally in Uttar Pradesh, Muslims and Hindu Jats have together voted for the democratic socialist Samajwadi Party (SP). In Western UP, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) (English: National People's Party) is supported mostly by Jats. There has long existed a Muslim-Jat alliance aimed at keeping the sectarian and elitist, Hindu-nationalist BJP out of power. ]

Rikhi Chakrabarty writes: "While SP, the ruling party in UP, is being blamed by Muslims for failing to protect them and, in some cases, for a collusive role in fomenting riots, the jats seem to be going with other Hindus and are looking up to BJP's Narendra Modi as their saviour from the state government's 'misrule'.

"Needless to say, these fresh pulls could have a deep impact in the coming Lok Sabha election. It is clear that the riots have benefited the BJP the most. It is also clear that the losers are Samajwadi Party and RLD."

According to political analyst Sanjay Singh, "The emerging social equations are such that BJP is back in the reckoning in UP, the state that sends 80 MPs to Lok Sabha, one-seventh of its total strength."  

Government rattled

The government is clearly rattled, as the Indian Express reports: "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday [1 Oct] called for all secular forces to 'combine' and take on the 'onslaught' of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, indicating that he emerged as a threat to the country's secular fabric. . ."

PM Singh told reporters that during the time that was left before the elections, the Congress-led UPA government would seek to "better manage" the economy in the hope that it might be able to deliver improved growth.

"On whether he felt that his government had performed well enough for the voters to decide in favour of the Congress, Singh struck an optimistic note, saying he hoped the voters will be 'generous' and 'tolerant', while conceding that there may have been areas where UPA could have fallen short."

The BJP immediately struck back, decrying the government's move to give "a blatant communal angle to everything".

"It is they who have created the real communal divide," BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said. 

STRATEGY VS REALITY
The modi operandi of Narendra Modi

It appears that BJP's election strategy will be to talk solely about economic development, holding out the prospect of raised living standards across the board. Then, when the government or anyone else warns of sectarianism / communalism, the BJP will feign offense and accuse them of sectarianism. Brilliant!

Narenrda Modi is a very clever wolf in sheep's clothing, inviting hungry lambs to come feed in his grassy field. So tempting! Feed they might; but not for long -- for Modi is a sheep-eating wolf through and through.

India's April-May 2014 general election may well prove pivotal.

Campaigning is already well underway and gathering momentum -- as must the prayers of Christians who should be praying that the Lord will intervene in grace and mercy to save India from such a fate.

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

PRAYER: India -- 2 million Hindus and tribals and social kumbh

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 095 | Wed 16 Feb 2011

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INDIA: TWO MILLION (EST.) HINDUS AND TRIBALS AT SOCIAL 'KUMBH'
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Christians described as blood-sucking bed bugs that must be killed.

By Elizabeth Kendal

The Sangh Parivar (combined Hindu nationalist forces) held their second 'Samajik Kumbh' (social gathering) on the banks of the Narmada River in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, on 10-12 February 2011. In the preceding two weeks some 28,000 volunteers from the RSS (a Hindu nationalist paramilitary) distributed literature to some 80,000 families across all 19 districts of
the neighbouring Mahakoshal region, home to Madhya Pradesh's largest city, Jabalpur. According to one priest, many Christians were forced to sign forms declaring their intention to accept Hinduism. Alarmed by the abundance of the virulent anti-Christian propaganda, Christian leaders in Mandla petitioned the High Court for protection and the weekend church services were held under police guard.

An estimated two million tribals and Hindu devotees drawn from all over Mahdya Pradesh and central India attended the event. According to Christian eye-witnesses, speeches delivered on the final day particularly vilified Christianity and Christian 'missionaries'. Using familiar language, one speaker raged: 'Christians are like bed bugs, who hide under the guise of so called missionary work, and drink the blood of the innocent vulnerable people and bed bugs should be killed or else they will continue drinking blood.' (AsiaNews, 14 February 2011)

The social Kumbh is a key element in the Sangh's strategy to advance Hindutva (fascist Hindu nationalism) through the tribal belt for political gain. According to the Sangh's propaganda, India's national security, territorial integrity and sovereignty are under threat from foreign forces seeking to divide and weaken India. The only solution, according to the Sangh, is national unity through Hindu solidarity. To this end the Sangh tells the indigenous, non-Aryan, non-Hindu, traditionally Congress Party-voting tribals that the only reason they do not know they are Hindus is because secular governments have neglected to educate them. Fortunately (so the propaganda goes) the Sangh is there to 'inform' and 'enlighten' the tribals so they can 'return' to their Hindu roots, join the Hindu mainstream and (literally) fight for mother India.

The first social Kumbh was held in February 2006 in the tribal district of Dangs, Gujarat, a long-time Congress stronghold known for its sizable Christian minority. According to the Sangh it was a great success because, they claim, the pace of 'reconversion' of Christians to Hinduism subsequently gathered momentum in the area. According to local RSS chief, Sharad Dhole, about15,000 Dangs Christians 'returned to the Hindu fold'. Also some 70 pastors are said to have embraced Hinduism and are now active in the service of the Sangh, holding reconversion ceremonies every 25th December (Indian Express 12 February 2011). Furthermore the BJP (Hindu nationalist) candidate Vijay Patel won the Dangs seat in the December 2007 Assembly elections by more than 11,000 votes, defeating Madhu Bhoya of the Congress. Then, in Gujarat's October 2010 municipal polls, the BJP fielded five Christian candidates on its Dangs ticket and swept the district. According to Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, Christians in Dangs support the BJP because of its 'development politics'. However, this is a Sangh deception. The equity, liberty and national salvation the Sangh holds out as sweet-smelling bait to the hungry, poor and marginalised will never materialise under Hindutva.

The next social Kumbh will be held in Chhattisgarh, drawing in tribals and Hindu devotees from across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. According to the Sangh's website this social Kumbh 'will accelerate the work of Sri Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati', who, it falsely claims, 'was brutaly (sic) murdered in 2008 by Christian missionaries.' (The Sangh used the August 2008 Maoist assassination of Swami Laxmanananda as an excuse to launch a massive communal pogrom against Christians. Hundreds died and some 500,000 were displaced, many of whom still languish in camps. The Sangh lumps Christians and Maoists together because they both seek an end to the inequities of the Hindu caste system.)

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD WILL --

• work powerfully in all Christians who are being pressured, threatened or seduced by the Sangh Parivar, enabling them to discern between truth and lies and to remember the awesome greatness and faithfulness of their Lord, looking to him and trusting him with steadfast hearts.
  
  
• defuse the communal reaction potentially ignited by the Sangh through the recent Mahdya Pradesh social Kumbh; may tribals and Hindus reject all provocation to hatred, intolerance and violence, and may they too be given discernment.
  
  
• use the Kumbh's focus on Christianity to achieve the exact opposite of what the Sangh intended: may the Kumbh ignite mass curiosity for the gospel along with an appreciation of the ministry and witness of believers in Mahdya Pradesh.

Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11 ESV)

Social kumbhs, Hindutva, and the politics of perpetuating caste privilege

On 20 May 2010, Compass Direct News issued an immensely important News Flash entitled: "Hindu Nationalists Plan 'Religious Cleansing' in Madhya Pradesh District".

As Compass Direct News (CDN) reports, the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh will host a social kumbh (pilgrimage / festival) on 10-12 February 2011. It will be held in the predominantly tribal Mandla district, in Mandla city which is situated on the banks of the Narmada River. Some "20 lakh" (i.e. 20,00,000 or 2 million) Hindu devotees are expected to attend this Maa Narmada Samajik Kumbh (Mother Narmada Social Kumbh).
See also:
Mahakumbha to be held from Feb. 10 to 12 in Mandla
Maha Media, 19 April 2010

Vanvasi Mahakumbh at Mandla from February 10 to 12 next year
15 April 2010 press release, Dept of Public Relations, Madhya Pradesh

The Social Kumbh

A "social kumbh" is not a traditional Kumbh Mela, but the recent invention of Hindutva (Hindu Nationalist) forces. It is a new tradition, built upon new mythologies.

The Hindu nationalists instigate social kumbhs for the purpose of:

• bringing the traditionally animist Adivasis (lit. first inhabitants) -- whom the Hindutva forces call Vanavasis (lit. forest dwellers) -- into the "mainstream": Hinduising them (effecting religious conversions that translate into political conversions) and communalising them so they can be recruited into sectarian militias;
  
• stirring up hatred against Christians whose welfare and education ministries threaten the Hindu elites' ability to enslave the tribals into the future; and
  
• shattering Adivasi minority solidarity by polarising the indigenous tribal communities along religious lines and setting them against each other.

Integral to the Hindutva strategy is the demonisation of Christians as evil and of Christianity as a foreign conspiracy and existential threat to Indian national security and sovereignty. Indian unity, under the banner of militant Hindu nationalism, is then presented as the only solution.

Shabari kumbh - Feb 2006

In February 2006, the Shabari Kumbh Mela -- a social kumbh organised around newly invented, purpose-built mythology -- seriously threatened the lives of some 8,000 tribal Christians living in Dangs, Gujarat.

For full background see:
India: The dictators of Hindutva aim for 'death blow' in Dangs
By Elizabeth Kendal, for WEA RLC, 26 January 2006

www.shabarikumbh.org 2006 (this site contains a number of articles that exemplify Hindutva rhetoric against Christianity and freedom of religion)

God intervened in Dangs in February 2006 in answer to the prayers of many (2 Corinthians 1:11) and despite unprecedented incitement, the planned "cleansing" -- the Hindu "kranti" (revolution) -- did not materialise. Regardless, after the event the Sangh Parivar (body of Hindu nationalist organisations) boasted of "great gains" in Dangs -- i.e. many tribals allegedly made the religious-political conversion to Hindutva.

Abhishek Kapoor reported for Ahmedabad Newsline (13 February 2006): "End of the three-day Shabari Kumbh here marked the beginning of a new experiment on mobilising Hindu forces. Led by the RSS, organisations have planned to use this new tool — more such kumbhs across the country in a semi-religious setting — to gather Hindus to counter Christian missionaries and conversions.

"According to plans, these congregations would be different from the regular Kumbh Melas held at Prayag, Hardwar, Ujjain and Nashik and focus on reform and social engineering within Hinduism to consolidate its followers as a single block."
See:
RSS wants more such kumbhs
Abhishek Kapoor, Express India, 13 Feb 2006

India: Hindutva advances while communal violence bill flounders.
By Elizabeth Kendal, for WEA RLC, 3 March 2006

India: Gujarat and Orissa prefigure Indian crisis
By Elizabeth Kendal, for WEA RLC, 1 Sept 2008

The Shabari Kumbh Mela held in Dangs, Gujarat, in February 2006, will doubtless be the prototype for the Maa Narmada Samajik Kumbh to be held in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, in February 2011.

As with the February 2006 kumbh in Dangs, the Mandla social kumbh will likewise be built on a foundation of lies and incitement. Sectarianism and violence against Christians is destined to escalate. According to the report by CDN, this is indeed the stated intent of the Sangh Parivar.

Mandla kumbh -- Feb 2011

On 22 April 2010, Hindu nationalists held a ceremony at the proposed site of the Mandla kumbh to break ground for the event.

Compass Direct News (CDN) reports: "More than 100 Hindu devotees from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra attended the ground-breaking ceremony in Mandla, reported Patrika newspaper. A source present disclosed that leaders announced a list of objectives to be achieved before the festival, with one prominent agenda item being to drive away Christian pastors, evangelists and foreign aid workers from the district.

"The newspaper quoted four Hindu leaders who have spoken out against foreign Christians and renewed their oath to obtain 'reconversions' from supposed Hindus who had become Christians. The leaders pledged to 'cleanse Mandla of Christians' and cleanse the Narmada River by means of the kumbh."

On Sunday 2 May 2010, only 10 days after the ground breaking ceremony, local pastor Bhag Chand Rujhiya (36), his family and his fellowship were attacked by a mob of around 40 armed, abusive and belligerent Hindu militants. Eventually Pastor Rujhiya was taken away by police to be interrogated, intimidated and harassed. He was released from detention after being forced to sign papers promising that he would cease evangelisation in the area, and would no longer lead worship or prayers.

Forced into hiding for a time, Pastor Rujhiya returned to his village on 7 May, though he said he was still fearful as threats from Hindu nationalists continued. "My wife and children say that we are ready to face whatever comes our way", he told CDN. "We will not renounce our faith."

Hindutva: the politics of perpetuating caste privilege

Because Hindutva forces target their activity to the religious sphere, it slips under the radar of most political analysts. But while the Hindutva forces target the religious sphere, it is all for political gain.

Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) is all about politics -- about securing Hindu power in a Hindu State for the sole purpose of perpetuating racist caste privilege. The social kumbhs merely provide Hindu elites with a religious platform upon which they can lie and deceive, whipping up fear and hatred for the sole purpose of dragnetting the tribal masses for exploitation as vote cattle.

What the tribals do not seem to realise, is that by believing the lies and being drawn into religious-political conversion, they are voting to perpetuate their own enslavement.

By Elizabeth Kendal

MORE BACKGROUND
an old but excellent and extremely helpful report:
Human Rights Watch
INDIA: POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS:
Attacks Against Christians in India
October 1999 Vol. 11, No. 6 (C)

India: Gujarat and Orissa prefigure Indian crisis.

Date: Tuesday 2 September 2008
Subj: India: Gujarat and Orissa prefigure Indian crisis.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal


A violent anti-Christian Hindu pogrom erupted in Orissa (northeast India) on 23 August 08 that has claimed dozens of lives, including that of a 20-year-old nun burned to death in an orphanage. Numerous others have been injured, many seriously, including another young nun who was pack raped. Casualties are mounting daily in the wake of ethnic-religious cleansing.

Compass Direct (CD) reports (1 Sept): "While many parts of Orissa remained under curfew today, over 13,000 people were reportedly living in relief centers set up by the state government in seven places in Kandhamal." Dr. Abraham Mathai, vice chairman of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission told reporters, "More than 50,000 Christians are living as refugees following the violence in Orissa. All the political parties are sitting as mute spectators." In Kandhamal district alone, around 1,000 Christian houses, hundreds of churches and numerous Christian institutions and businesses have been demolished by rampaging Hindus. (Link 1)

While this anti-Christian violence is shocking, it is not surprising. Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) elements acting with legal impunity and state government support have for decades been stoking the flames of hatred, cultivating an incendiary environment in Orissa. Now Orissa, like Gujarat, is primed for genocide. And hot on the heels of Gujarat and Orissa are numerous other
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states.

It was a brilliant strategy of the Sangh Parivar -- a collection of Hindu nationalist organisations co-operating towards making India a Hindu State -- to weave religion and politics strategically together in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enabling the Sangh to exploit religion for political gain. Indeed, the present persecution is not primarily about religion. India's Christians are pawns in a deadly struggle between modernity and the beneficiaries of traditional Hindu culture who are desperate to secure the political power that would guarantee their privileged status into the future by perpetuating the racist, fatalist, immoral Hindu caste system.

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GUJARAT AND ORISSA PREFIGURE INDIAN CRISIS
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The strategic brilliance and alarming effectiveness of the Sangh Parivar's campaign for a Hindu Rastra (Hindu State) has never been sufficiently appreciated.

Even after the 2002 anti-Muslim Hindu pogrom in Gujarat that left some 2000 Muslims dead, India and the world failed to fully appreciate what was happening. Then an anti-Christian Hindu pogrom in Orissa over Christmas 2007 left a swath of destruction and turned hundreds of thousands of Christian into traumatised IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples). Yet again India and the world did not understand what was happening.

The ringleaders and inciters of the Gujarat 2002 and Orissa 2007 pogroms -- Narendra Modi and Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati respectively -- not only remained free, but were elevated and to many they became national heroes! In Gujarat, Narendra Modi was even rewarded by being re-elected as Chief Minister -- twice! The "kranti" (revolution) in Gujarat, through which the majority, caste-perpetuating Hindu community terrorised the minority Muslim community into submission, is now held up by Hindutva protagonists as the model.

In January 2006 it became clear that the Modi government was planning to set the Dangs (in Gujarat) alight with an anti-Christian pogrom following the Shabri Kumbh Mela that February. (See link 2).

However, alarm bells rang out, opposition mounted and the Church prayed (see link 3).

And God answered the prayers of many. While the Shabri Kumbh Mela may have effected mass religious-political conversions (converting tribal Congress-voting animists into BJP-voting Hindus), the Sangh's strategy to ignite another Hindu kranti -- this time a genocidal massacre of Christians -- failed.

The Christmas 2007 anti-Christian pogrom in Orissa however was not heralded. Hindutva forces kept secret their plans for a pogrom for Christmas Day 2007 under the guise of a bandh (strike) in protest of the Pana (Dalit/Scheduled Caste) Christians request for Schedule Tribe status -- something they need in order to benefit from affirmative action programs in a caste driven society that denies benefits to Dalits/Scheduled Castes that convert to Christianity. (Under the rules, Scheduled Tribes who convert to Christianity continue to enjoy reservations/affirmative action, but Dalits/Scheduled Castes who convert do not.)

While police were withdrawing from the districts to take up their positions at the Biju Janata Dal's (BJD) 10-year anniversary celebrations in the capital, Hindus were felling trees and blockading roads around Kandhamal district in preparation for the anti-Christian pogrom that Hindu communalists vowed would "teach them a lesson!". (Link 4)

Thousands of Hindus then rioted crying, "Stop Christianity. Kill Christians!" Across Kandhamal district alone, more than 700 Christian homes and around 100 churches and 95 Christian institutions were vandalised, looted, destroyed and torched. Leading the incitement was the state's principal Hindutva ideologue and proselytiser, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. After falsely claiming to have been wounded in a violent attack by a vicious Christian mob, he told his followers via a mobile phone message (in the presence of police and journalists) to burn Christian homes and churches and repeat the kranti (revolution) that brought "shanti" (peace) to Gujarat (i.e. the 2002 Hindu pogrom in which some 2000 Muslims were brutally massacred). (Links 4 and 5)

(For a comprehensive account of the Orissa Christmas 2007 anti-Christian Hindu pogrom, see:
Dr Angana Chatterji's sworn affidavit.
To The Commission of Inquiry of Honourable Justice Panigrahi
Re. Kandhamal, Orissa. Submitted 30 May 2008.

Dr Chatterji is an Indian citizen resident in the USA. She is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Californian Institute of Integral Studies. She has been conducting extensive research on the communalisation of Orissa since June 2002.)

ORISSA: A TINDERBOX

In 1960 the RSS launched Goraksha Andolan, a Hinduisation program focused initially on banning cow slaughter. In 1965 the Hindu paramilitary organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS: National Volunteer Corps) deployed a Hindutva proselytiser named Lakan to oversee the implementation of the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act in Orissa. Orissa subsequently passed a Freedom of Religion Act in 1967 which prohibited conversions to Christianity by force or fraudulent means. (This Act was subsequently strengthened in 1999.) In 1969 Lakan establish an Ashram (Hindu religious centre) in Kandhamal, changed his name to Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, and committed himself to countering the work of Christian missionaries in Orissa.

While Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati never succeeded in stopping conversions to Christianity, he did succeed in creating a tinderbox, hot with Hindutva, anti-Christian hatred, majoritarianism and communalism. Appalling crimes have been perpetrated against Christians in Orissa, with numerous forced conversions into Hinduism, assaults and killings, including the martyrdom of Graham Staines, burned alive with his two young sons Phillip and Timothy in January 1999.

The advance of Hindutvaisation over recent years has given rise to some alarming developments. Today it is not just individual Christian evangelists at risk of assault and assassination, whole Christian communities are now at risk of genocide. No longer are the murderers "loose cannon" Hindus and militants from the Bajrang Dal (the Sangh's militant Hindutva youth militia), they are simply local Hindus raping, beating, looting and killing their
Christian neighbours with impunity. Reporting on the Christmas 2007 pogrom, Tehelka Magazine (an Indian magazine) noted in January 2008 that when a 1,000-strong mob of rampaging Hindus attacked Balliguda's Mt Carmel Convent, the Carmelite sisters were shocked that local Hindu beneficiaries of Mt Carmel's vocational courses were among the rioters. (Link 5)

According to Dr Chatterji, it is this violence with impunity along with a complete breakdown in trust that has led to the "ghettoisation" of the Christian community over recent years.

So at the behest of the Sangh Parivar and with the support and encouragement of the BJP-BJD Orissa state government, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati turned Orissa into a tinderbox of communal tension, and on 24 December 2007 he lit the fuse in Kandhamal.

23 AUGUST 2008: ORISSA BURNS AGAIN

Unlike the anti-Christian Hindu pogrom of Christmas 2007, the anti-Christian violence that exploded in Kandhamal on 23 August 2008 was not premeditated. It was however incited by VHP (World Hindu Council) activists. Immediately after Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati (85) was ambushed and shot dead in a girls' orphanage in Kandhamal district, VHP leaders were publicly charging that the Christians were responsible. VHP state general secretary Gouri Prasad Rath demanded a high-level probe and ban on churches in Kandhamal, and told the media: "Christians have killed Swamiji. We will give a befitting reply." (Link 6)

This charge was levelled against the entire Christian community despite evidence that it was a targeted assassination carried out by a group of some 40 well-armed Naxalite/Maoist militiamen. (Egalitarian left-wing Naxalite/Maoists are natural enemies of caste-perpetuating right-wing Hindu nationalists.) Many analysts believe the Maoists are intervening to take sides in the communal tensions in Orissa in the hope of winning Christian support. (See link 7)

However the VHP subsequently claimed to have received a letter from the Maoists denying any involvement but offering that some wayward cadres may have been paid by "communal Christian miscreants" to murder of the VHP leader. The alleged letter stated that Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati was murdered because of his opposition to religious conversion. (Link 8)

According to a CD report entitled, "Maoists in India Say They Killed Hindu Leader" (1 Sept): "The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India-Maoist, an extreme Marxist group banned by the Indian government, released a statement today saying that Sangh Parivar . . . have deliberately misled people about Saraswati's death.

"The Maoist statement warned the VHP of 'more such punishments if it continued violence against religious minorities in the country' and called for a ban on groups linked to the Sangh Parivar, such as the VHP, its youth wing Bajrang Dal, right-wing Hindu political party Shiv Sena and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)." (Link 9)

STRATEGY OF SANGH PARAVAR

WEA RLC has stated numerous times over several years that the strategy of the Sangh Parivar is brilliantly strategic and hugely successful.

As noted in the WEA RLC News & Analysis annual Religious Liberty Trends posting of 2006-07 entitled Hindutva's Advance: "Because the Hindutva forces are active primarily in the religious sphere -- Hinduising the animist tribals and creating new exploitable Hindu mythology -- their activity is slipping under the radar of most political analysts. But while the Hindutva forces are
focusing on the religious sphere it is all for political gain. This strategy of effecting political conversion by means of religious conversion is hugely successful." (Link 10)

In her sworn affidavit, Dr Angana Chatterji comments likewise on the strategy and methodology of the Sangh Parivar, noting that instead of pursuing its earlier strategy of conversions by means of forced re-conversion ceremonies, "The Sangh Parivar has instead increased its emphasis on the Hinduisation of Adivasis [indigenous tribals, traditionally animists] by making them a part of Hindu rituals and ceremonies (as during the Sammelan), which, in effect, 'converts' Adivasis into Hinduism by assuming that they are Hindu. Such 'conversion' tactics are diffused and no longer have to negotiate certain legalities, which public and stated conversion ceremonies did. On converting/'reconverting' to Hinduism, Adivasis are expected to join Hindu caste society as Sudras, a 'higher' placement than Dalits in the caste hierarchy, Sangh activists say.

"Dalit Christians are doubly discriminated against, as Dalits and as Christians. Post-Hinduisation, Adivasis are being mobilised against Christian groups. Adivasis are incited into targeting Dalit Christians, both fomenting Adivasi-Dalit divides and vitiating the historical solidarities between them. This is crucial to Hinduisation. It also acts to warn non-Christian Dalits against conversion to Christianity.

"The Hindutvaisation of the Hindu community, and Hinduisation of the secular, allows the Sangh's escalation. This process unfolded in Brahmanigaon, for example, where the growth of the business community has supported the rise of the Sangh Parivar. Hindutva conversions served to terrorise the Adivasi and Dalit community, via which the Sangh Parivar achieves its preliminary expansionist goals. While ceremonial conversions continue sporadically, a more protracted and dispersed strategy of Hinduisation through incorporation and assimilation is aggressively pursued as effective methodology."

This Hinduisation by means of "incorporation and assimilation" was described in the WEA RLC News & Analysis posting of January 2006 (link 2): "One of the main strategies used by the Sangh Parivar to win the allegiance of the tribals is the campaign to convince them that they are actually Hindus who are just practising local and maybe corrupted expressions of mainstream Hindu traditions. Slowly the animist practices are redefined as Hindu, given Hindu names, and gently refined to suit Brahmin sensitivities.

"Part of this campaign is the renaming of the Adivasis (first inhabitants) as Vanvasis (forest dwellers). Upon this foundation the proponents of Hindutva then claim that the tribals and the Indo-Aryans are all one people (there is no indigenous population and no Indo-Aryan invasion) and the "Vanvasis" are really historically Hindu. They use this lie as a basis to 're-convert', absorb, communalise and exploit the Adivasis."

It must be noted that the BJP unexpectedly lost power in the May 2004 elections by only the slimmest of margins and on 22 July 2008 the Congress-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh only survived a confidence vote by the slimmest of margins, having lost the support of its left-wing allies. Meanwhile, the Sangh has been busy Hinduising the masses with a strategy so brilliant and so successful that it is quite likely that the 2009 federal elections could restore the BJP to power in the centre. And this at a time when increasing numbers of radicalised individuals -- indeed whole Hindutvaised communities -- are ready to kill, terrorise and ethnically-religiously cleanse Muslims and Christians on command, ostensibly in defence of the motherland.

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Has the future of India been prefigured in the Hindu pogroms in Gujarat and Orissa? Let India and the world be warned: if the violent, fascist Hindutva fire that the power- and privilege-hungry Sangh Parivar is presently spreading across the nation is not successfully challenged and countered soon, then a holocaust surely awaits.

By Elizabeth Kendal

Links

1) Orissa: Hindu extremists burn one nun alive, rape another
25 August 2008, by Nirmala Carvalho
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13056&size=A
ALSO
Thousands homeless after Hindu-Christian violence in India
By Hari Kumar, 29 August 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/29/asia/29india.php
FOR UPDATES follow the news and Compass Direct http://www.compassdirect.org

2) India: The dictators of Hindutva aim for 'death blow' in Dangs
WEA RLC News & Analysis, 26 January 2006
By WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.

3) India Shabri Kumbh Mela Threatens 8000 Christians in Dangs
WEA RL Prayer 364, 8 February 2006

4) Dr. Angana Chatterji's sworn affidavit
To The Commission of Inquiry of Honourable Justice Panigrahi
Re. Kandhamal, Orissa. Submitted 30 May 2008.
http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/angana_may2008.html

5) Next Stop Orissa
Tehlka Magazine. Vol 5, Issue 2, Dated 19 January 2008
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne190108next_stop.asp#
NOTE: Tehelka is an independent Indian magazine committed to investigative
journalism. Whilst it can be commended for its investigations into high level
government corruption and destructive communalism, its hugely controversial
and provocative claims against the CIA, NGOs, missionaries and Christians in
its January 2004 feature entitled "Preparing the Harvest" reveal just how
widely the Sangh's anti-Christian conspiracies are accepted.
See "India: Liberty, persecution, and conspiracy theories."
WEA RLC News & Analysis 20 February 2004
By WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
http://www.ea.org.au/default.aspx?id=bf0c29b8-1f75-4408-8e4b-c504f91a6221
This must be noted as the article linked to above -- Next Stop Orissa --
whilst detailing and condemning the Hindutva violence, also perpetuates the
conspiracy theory that Christian NGOs are actively supporting the Maoist
insurgency.

6) Leader's death: VHP calls for Orissa bandh
25 Aug 2008, By Sandeep Mishra, TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/VHP_calls_for_Orissa_bandh/articleshow/3400754.cms

7) Indian Maoists kill Hindus over Christian conversions
DAILY TIMES (Pakistan) 25 August 2008
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\08\25\story_25-8-2008_pg4_10

8) Maoists deny role in VHP leader's murder. 29 August 2008
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/29/stories/2008082952080300.htm

9) See Compass Direct News
ALSO
Orissa: Maoists warn of more attacks. 1 Sep 2008.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Orissa_Maoists_warn_of_more_attacks_/rssarticleshow/3429413.cms

10) Religious Liberty Trend (2) - India: Hindutva's advance
WEA RLC News & Analysis, 5 February 2007
By WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal

ANOTHER REPORT ON THE DEC 2007 ORISSA POGROM
Continuing Orissa Riots: First Report By A Fact-Finding Team
BY Professor Prabhu Guptara. Published 14 January 2008
http://www.southasianconnection.com/blogs/561/Continuing-Orissa-Riots-First-Report-By-A-Fact-Finding-Team.html

Human Rights Watch report on the 2002 Gujarat pogrom.
"We Have No Orders To Save You"
State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/

Nepal: Militant Hindutva raises its ugly head.

Date: Tuesday 8 April 2008
Subj: Nepal: Militant Hindutva raises its ugly head.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal


NEPAL: MILITANT HINDUTVA RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD
- as historic elections approach.


HISTORIC ELECTIONS: THURSDAY 10 APRIL

On 10 April 08, Nepalis will vote in historic constituent assembly elections. And this is no routine election -- it is the culmination of three years of upheaval and peace process. The constituent assembly elected on 10 April will draft the new secular constitution which will replace the 1990 Constitution which describes Nepal as a Hindu Kingdom.

BACKGROUND

On 1 February 2005 Nepal's King Gyanendra, backed by the Nepalese Army, dismissed the Prime Minister and his government and seized absolute power in a bloodless coup. Anti-monarchy sentiment subsequently soared and in November 2005 the previously disparate opposition parties joined forces to form the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) in opposition to direct, totalitarian royal rule.

In April 2006, crippling mass demonstrations in Kathmandu ultimately forced King Gyanendra to step down and hand power to SPA. The Maoists then declared a ceasefire. On 18 May 2006 Nepal's new parliament publicly declared that Nepal would no longer be a Hindu Kingdom but would now be a secular state. An interim government was formed that included the Maoists.

On 21 November 2006 the Maoists and the SPA signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement committed to advancing human rights and equity, bringing to an end the decade-long civil conflict. Constituent assembly elections were slated for June 2007, after which a new Constitution would be drafted. (See LINK 1)

Various setbacks, including insecurity and political fractures with the Maoist, forced the postponement of the elections in June 2007 and then again in November 2007.

Over recent months various anti-democratic, anti-secular and marginalised ethnic groups have been escalating their protests, militancy, and violent intimidation of voters in the run-up to the historic elections, forcing Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to appeal to all political parties to put an end to the violence.

Security has been bolstered and some 135,000 police are being deployed to polling booths in Nepal's 240 constituencies. There is also considerable concern that after the elections, powerful, armed, not-so-democratic losers might undo Nepal's tentative peace.

MILITANT HINDUTVA RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD

Needless to say, not everyone was excited by the 18 May 2006 declaration of secularism. Nepal's Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) elements, with backing from Hindutva forces in India, immediately increased their intolerant rhetoric and exploited the confusion of the Hindu masses.

On 22 May 2006 some 5000 Hindus rallied in Birgunj, a southern town in the "Hindutva belt" on the border with India, protesting the parliament's resolution to turn Nepal into a secular state. The rallies were organised by activists from the World Hindu Federation (WHF) and Shiv Sena Nepal. The protestors blocked the Tribhuvan highway on the Bara-Parsa industrial belt near the Indian border. Shouting "Jay Shree Ram!" (Lord Ram is great!), they burnt tyres, logs and newspapers that supported the resolution. (See LINK 2)

A group calling itself the Nepal Defense Army (NDA) committed several minor acts of terrorism during 2007, primarily targeting Maoist institutions. It claims it is fighting for Nepal's reinstatement as a Hindu state.

On the evening of Wednesday 12 March 2008 a bomb exploded in the regional office of Kantipur Publications in Biratnagar, a city some 240 km south-east of Kathmandu in the Hindutva belt on the Indian border. Kantipur, a Nepali news service, reported that the explosion caused no harm to the staff or the office property. "Though it was not immediately clear who carried out the attack, the pamphlets found at the explosion site suggested that 'Nepal Defense Army' was responsible. The pamphlets read 'Nepal Defense Army for Hindu Kingdom'." (LINK 3)

MOSQUE BOMBING

On the evening of Saturday 29 March 2008, three powerful bombs ripped through the Sarouchiya Mosque in Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's hometown of Biratnagar. A fourth bomb failed to explode and was later defused. Two locals were killed in the blasts, while two others were hospitalised with critical injuries.

According to Kantipur, "Two unidentified persons, who came on motorcycles, had lobbed four bombs while over 60 persons were busy reciting evening prayers inside the mosque.

"An eyewitness, Malik Alam Kuresi, said the unidentified men hurled the four bombs from the gate and fled the scene. 'However, only three of them (bombs) went off immediately.'

"Meanwhile, an underground group -- Nepal Defense Army -- took responsibility for the blasts. One R P Mainali aka Paribartan, who identified himself as 'supreme commander' of the group, owned up the group's involvement in the blast, in a press statement." (LINK 4)

In a statement sent to media outlets, the Nepal Defense Army vowed it "would continue such attacks until Nepal is reinstated as a Hindu nation."

The Times of India reported: "Soon after the attacks, Muslims began demonstrations on streets. Fearing a riot, the district administration clamped curfew from Saturday night. When the curfew was lifted in the morning, Muslims called a strike in Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari districts, ignoring [PM] Koirala's appeal to show restraint." (LINK 5)

An October 2007 article by Prashant Jha in the Himal SouthAsian entitled "Royal Hindutva -- The Hindu right in Nepal is currently down, but not out" provides insight to the relationship between Hindutva forces in Nepal and India. [In fact, Jha's article makes one wonder: what would it mean for Nepal if India's BJP won power in India's 2009 federal elections?]

Concern Nepal, Jha writes: "India's Hindu right does not like what it sees taking place in Nepal. Angry that the country is headed towards becoming a secular, democratic republic, it can see its traditional influence in Nepali politics waning. A terminal blow has now been dealt to the two pillars central to what the Hindutva-wallahs have cherished about Nepal: a Hindu rashtra [state] with a Hindu monarchy.

"But Hindutva leaders from both India and Nepal have not given up. They have been brainstorming -- at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Nagpur, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in New Delhi, the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur, and at the residence of royalist politicians in Kathmandu -- as well as with King Gyanendra at the Narayanhiti Palace. However, the Indian and Nepali Hindu right recognises the limits of its capacity, and does not have a clear rescue plan as yet [Oct 07]. ." (LINK 6)

Maybe the recent mosque bombing in Biratnagar signals a shift in Hindutva strategy. Perhaps the Hindutva agenda will be advanced, not through riots or minor acts of terrorism against Maoists and journalists, but, as in India, through the fomenting of sectarian strife.

Elizabeth Kendal

LINKS

1) Nepal: Peace, equity and religious liberty.
WEA RLC News & Analysis. By Elizabeth Kendal. 29 Nov 2006.
ALSO
Chronology of Nepal's peace process
http://thepost.com.pk/IntNews.aspx?dtlid=154137&catid=1

2) Nepal: Hindutva forces rally against Nepal's reforms.
WEA RLC News & Analysis. By Elizabeth Kendal. 26 May 2006
http://www.ea.org.au/ReligiousLiberty/NewsAnalysis/NEPALHINDUTVAFORCESRALLYAGAINSTNEPALSREFORMS.aspx

3) Blast at Kantipur office
Kantipur Report. BIRATNAGAR, 13 March 2008
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=140608

4) 2 dead in Biratnagar mosque bomb blasts, 2 others critically injured
Kantipur Report. BIRATNAGAR, 30 March 2008
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=142440

5) Muslims call strike after Nepal blasts. 31 March 2008
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Nepal_Muslims_call_strike_after_blasts/articleshow/2912369.cms

6) Royal Hindutva
The Hindu right in Nepal is currently down, but not out.
By Prashant Jha, October 2007
http://www.himalmag.com/2007/october_november/royal_hindutva.html

India: How far is Jaipur from Malatya?

Date: Friday 4 May 2007
Subj: India: How far is Jaipur from Malatya?
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal

INDIA: HOW FAR IS JAIPUR FROM MALATYA?

In modern, progressive, secular Turkey, anti-Christian hatred has been whipped up by Islamist and nationalist forces and cultivated and perpetuated in the media, often by men and women of influence seeking political mileage. Unfortunately the hate insurgency has not been neutralised by a truth counterinsurgency, and so hate - a highly destructive force - has been permitted to advance. And we have seen the consequences.

In Turkey expatriate Catholic, Turkish-Armenian Orthodox, and expatriate and Turkish Protestants have been victims of fatal hate crimes over the past 15 months. Christians and Christianity have been so thoroughly demonised that zealous, patriotic religious youths have been deluded into believing that if they do their country a favour and slay a Christian then they will be able to literally get away with murder.

The brutality of the 18 April torture and murder of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey (link 1) has left many Turks shocked and ashamed. Finally there is now some will for a decisive (albeit difficult and possibly costly) truth, tolerance, secularism and religious liberty counterinsurgency.

Modern, progressive, secular India, which is treading virtually the exact same path, is only a step away from having its own "Malatya" experience (that is: an act of hate-fueled anti-Christian violence so disgusting and horrific it sends shockwaves through the nation).

ANTI-CHRISTIAN HATE CAMPAIGN PERSISTS UNCHALLENGED
and JAIPUR PASTOR BASHED FOR THE TV CAMERAS

On 24 April, Compass Direct published a report by Vishal Arora, entitled "Hate Campaign Adds Fuel to Persecution in India". (Link 2)

This report details some of the anti-Christian hate that India is being submerged in as Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) forces continue to spew forth anti-Christian propaganda, lies, disinformation, incitement and hatred, all for political gain.

Arora mentions the CD produced by the organisers of the Shabri Kumbh Mela, held in Dangs, Gujarat, in February 2006. The CD titled "Shri Shabri Kumbh 2006: Spirituality along with the Wave of Patriotism" has been widely circulated, distributed and openly sold in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra and in the north-eastern states.

Anhad (link 3), a non-profit organisation that has admitted a petition to the Supreme Court of India seeking action against the Hindutva forces that distributed the CDs, claims: "In the CD, the narrator, while talking about Hindu tradition and culture, makes constant references to the evil forces and foreign powers that are out to destroy the Hindu religion whilst simultaneously flashing pictures of churches and Cross on the screen as if to insinuate that the Christian community is the evil force and the foreign power that the Hindu community has to reckon with."

Arora notes that on the CD cover there is a caricature of a headless Christian priest wearing a cassock and holding a cross. Anhad comments, "In place of the head is a question mark symbol. The caption on the top of this picture literally translates into 'Church: in the name of service.'" As Arora notes, the Hindutva slogan, 'Hindu Jago, Christi Bhagao' (Arise Hindus, throw out the Christians) represents the overall sentiment of the Hindutva anti-Christian hate campaign.

According to Arora, Hindutva hate material typically brands Christianity and Islam as alien religions and a threat to India. "It alleges that Indian Christians use foreign funds to convert Hindus by force and fraudulent means.

"The hate material casts doubts on the patriotism and loyalty of Christians to the country, questions the roots of Christianity, attacks the tenets of the faith and targets priests, nuns and Christian institutions and social work.

"Hindu extremists use many means to spread hate against Christians on a regular basis. Media used include hate speeches at rallies, distribution of pamphlets and CDs, publication of reports in local newspapers in vernacular languages, publication of books, e-mail campaigns using e-groups, uploading of videos on the Web, and websites.

"The RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] is said to spew hatred through its wide network of 'shakhas' or daily gatherings. According to the RSS, there were about 50,000 'shakhas' in 34,732 locations across the country as of March 2005.

"Additionally, the RSS has more than 17,500 'one-teacher schools' known as 'Ekal Vidyalayas', in 20 states. These schools allegedly teach hate against Christians in the guise of providing education and preventing 'conversion' of tribal people to Christianity. The children of these schools are exposed to Hindu symbols and deities, saints and patriots apart from the regular syllabus.

"The Hindu extremist 'Dharma Raksha Samiti' (Association for Protection of Religion) has posted an anti-conversion documentary in English on the Web.
An Invasion through Conversion Part 1
An Invasion through Conversion Part 2

"Another extremist group, the Kashmiri Hindu Liberation Army, says on its website http://www.hindurashtra.org that Hindus should 'militarize' and 'industrialize' themselves to 'survive'. 'Hinduize the politics and militarize the Hindus. . . Change of religion means change of nation,' the website states, advocating establishment of a single-party, militarized government based on the divine laws of Hindu Dharma(Religion), and Hindutva nationalist ideology." (Compass Direct, India archives: link 2)

JAIPUR PASTOR BASHED FOR TV CAMERAS

Violent persecution of Christians in India has been escalating in both frequency and intensity as the Hindutva forces claw back their lost political territory, as a read through the Compass Direct's India Archives will demonstrate.

On Sunday 29 April, a mob of some twenty militant Hindu youths (Bajrang dal activists) attacked Pastor Walter Masih (or Massey) in his home in Jaipur, Rajasthan, where he leads a small home fellowship. The attack took place in front of Pastor Masih's wife and child and what appears to be an invited television crew.

According to The Hindu, Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot described the incident as a "very serious matter" and demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits. "Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers have once again taken law into their own hands in the name of stopping religious conversions in the State and this is condemnable," he said. (Link 4)

The following news report from CNN-IBN contains a video of the IBN news broadcast which features excerpts of the filmed attack:
"Pastor attack: Media under scanner"
CNN-IBN, 30 April 2007

As noted in the above report, Indian authorities are looking into the role the media played in the attack. Christians in Rajasthan are calling for a full CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) investigation into the incident.

Another CNN-IBN report poses the question, "Indian media intolerant?" This news broadcast contains two videos from the CNN-IBN program, "India 360".
"Indian media intolerant?" 1 May 2007

Surely the question at the heart of this issue is: What is it that makes youths not only so hateful and violent, but so convinced that their violence is acceptable, justifiable and even heroic, that they would proudly and confidently commit their criminal assault upon a peaceful family before a TV crew for national broadcast?

How far is Jaipur from Malatya?

Not far at all.

Elizabeth Kendal

Links

1) Turkey: German Seminary investigates Malatya murders
by Elizabeth Kendal WEA RLC, 1 May 2007.

2) Compass Direct India archives

3) Anhad (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy)
http://www.anhadindia.org/

4) Christian preacher attacked in Jaipur
The Hindu. Monday 30 May 2007
http://www.hindu.com/2007/04/30/stories/2007043005341200.htm
See also: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9129&size=A