The fanatics gunning for India’s Christians
Johnson Padiyara says that the persecution of Christians is not limited to the Muslim world
23 May 2008

While India has long history of inter-religious violence among Hindus and Muslims, violence against Christians is now also a serious concern.

Attacks on Christians range from violence against the leadership of the Church, including the killing of priests, to the physical destruction of schools, churches, colleges and cemeteries. Thousands of Christians have also been forced to convert to Hinduism. Attacks have been steadily on the increase for the past decade since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 1998. The BJP's sister organisations, RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and VHP (Viswa Hindu Parishad, or World Council for Hindus), are part of a concerted campaign by Right-wing Hindu organisations which promote and exploit communal violence against Muslims, Christians and Dalits ("untouchables").

The communities affected represent some of the poorest in the country and include members of local tribal communities, many of whom convert to Christianity to escape abuses under India's caste system. In many cases Christian institutions and individuals targeted are singled out for their role in promoting health, literacy and economic independence among Dalit and tribal community members. A vested interest by the Hindu fundamentalists in keeping these communities in a state of economic dependency is a motivating factor in anti-Christian violence and propaganda. Despite the existence of comprehensive legislation to address the problem of religious intolerance and communal violence, the government has failed to prosecute offending individuals and organisations; instead, it has in many cases offered tacit support and indirect justification for the attacks.

Christians comprise 2.34 per cent of India's population, but nonetheless constitute the third-largest group after Hindus and Muslims, and control over 40 per cent of educational institutions. Though characterised by Hindu nationalist leaders as an alien faith and the religion of India's colonial rulers, Christianity took root in India almost 2,000 years ago when St Thomas the Apostle evangelised in the south, home today to a majority of India's 23 million Christians. In recent years, missionaries have converted sizable majorities in three small north-eastern states, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Today, close to 70 per cent of India's Christians are Catholic.

Attracted by the Church's emphasis on social service, equality and human dignity, many Dalits have converted in an effort to escape their impoverished state and abusive treatment under India's caste system. Most of the attacks against Christians have taken place in the country's "tribal belt", home to 81 million indigenous people whose ancestors inhabited India before 2,000 BC. Animists or spirit worshipers by nature, many tribal groups are neither Hindus nor practise Hinduism. Much like Dalits, they fall outside the Hindu fold. Dalits, constituting nearly 167 million people, continue to suffer from social discrimination, segregation and violence because of their rank at the bottom of India's caste system.

Human rights activists in India contend that tribal conversions to Christianity must be placed in the social context. The Citizens' Commission report, which studied anti-Christian violence in Gujarat in 1999, concluded: "The question of conversion cannot be considered without taking into account the background of the people involved, particularly tribals who live in abject poverty, illiteracy, and with no facility for healthcare and comfort."

Until recently Christians enjoyed a relatively peaceful coexistence with their Hindu neighbours. In the past few years, however, Christians have become the target of a campaign of violence and propaganda orchestrated by Hindu fundamentalist groups attempting to stem the tide of defecting Dalits. In 1996 two Catholic priests were killed in Bihar, their skulls crushed. In October 1997 the decapitated body of a third priest was found in a forest. Eight years ago a Catholic nun was stabbed to death in full view of the public for apparently aiding Dalits and tribal people.

Hindu fundamentalist leaders continually propagate the notion that Christians, despite their small numbers, could one day outnumber India's 82 per cent Hindu majority. Several state governments have banned Christian conversions altogether, while Hindu nationalists have launched their own "reconversion programmes" and have called on the government to expel missionaries from the country and stop the flow of foreign funding to proselytising aid agencies.

The fundamentalists see the Christian missionaries as posing a threat to Hinduism because of the influence of Christian education on the Dalits, who are questioning the society which has denied them their rights for centuries. Who is the cause of their social awakening now? Obviously, it is the Christian missionaries.

The radicals criticise the Indian government's "secular" policy of allowing the Christian missionaries to continue after the British left in 1947. The RSS claims that the tribals have always been a part of Hindu culture but had been alienated from the national mainstream by the British. Even after independence, they argue, the government followed in the footsteps of the British and allowed missionaries to work in tribal regions. The RSS considers tribal people to be particularly vulnerable to exploitation and conversion by Christian missionaries as they are largely illiterate and come from the weaker sections of society.

Pamphlets and fliers distributed to Hindus during the anti-Christian violence in Gujarat eight years ago and in Kandhamal recently read: "Conversion by Christian priests is the most dangerous burning problem at present in India. Innocent and illiterate tribal people are converted through cheating, alluring by offering temptations and other deceiving activities, under the pretexts of services, these devils are taking advantage of tribal society and exploit them... Hindus awake, and struggle, continues with these robbers who snatch away your rights by telling lies to people and teach these people a lesson."

A social activist in Gujarat said: "Because of illiteracy the local peoples' consciousness is very low. They do what their leaders ask them to do. One leaflet distributed by the RSS claimed that in the Bible Jesus said he was born to kill those who are not Christians. The one who was distributing didn't even know what the Bible was, so obviously he did not write the leaflet."

In March the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi inaugurated the rally, urging the state and the central government to protect the rights of minorities and provide safety to the most neglected people of the society who are easy targets of fundamentalist groups. After a nationwide protest the Governor of Orissa, Muralidhar Chandrakant Bhandare, has promised that he would take action. But while poverty, illiteracy and ignorance remain so widespread, Christians will always be the target for those seeking easy solutions.