Anti-Christian Propaganda Campaigns Rampant in India

9/25/07 India (International Christian Concern) – Hindu extremist groups have actively been campaigning against Christians for close to a decade, yet there is little the government has done to check what continues to fuel India’s worst incidents of religious persecution.

Often, reporting on Christian persecution in India tends to focus on the incidents, and not the causes, of persecution. Rarely do we see the big picture – that Hindu ultra-nationalists who believe that to be Indian means to be Hindu are taking advantage of the uneducated and waging a hate-filled propaganda campaign against Christians.

Most recently, Hindu extremist groups Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagruti Samiti distributed thousands of anti-Christian leaflets in Chitradurga district in the southern state of Karnataka last month.

The leaflets said, “Christians must immediately abandon India or return to the mother religion, which is Hinduism.” If they do not, it warned, “They will be killed by all good Indians, who by doing so will show their virility and love for the country.”

Written in the Kannada language, the text carried a list of “crimes” Christians commit to deserve this treatment. The list includes helping the poor and educating the orphans to convert them, and promoting inter-caste marriages and organizing free medical care while ignoring the caste system in Hinduism.

That such a campaign is creating religious tensions in the district is evident in the fact that on August 5, at least 50 extremists attacked more than 10 workers of the Seventh Day Adventist church during the dedication of a new church in Sira area between Tumkur and Chitradurga districts, reported the Salem Voice Ministries. On August 16, the Christian workers were arrested on charges of “forcible conversion.”

Karnataka is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political arm of the chief Hindu extremist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The BJP joined the Janata Dal-Secular party to form the state’s ruling coalition in February 2006, and since then the number of violent incidents against the Christian community increased greatly.

According to Karnataka-based Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), which is closely monitoring violent incidents in the state, at least 28 anti-Christian attacks took place in 2006 alone. And the number is set to rise drastically this year.

GCIC’s Dr. Sajan George attributes the high incidence of persecution to an ongoing hate campaign in various parts of the state.

Rampant Since 1998

The trend of launching venomous propaganda campaigns that incite physical attacks against the Christian minority came to fore in 1998 when the BJP graduated from a party on the margins to a mainstream and ruling party in India.

At least 116 incidents of attacks on Christians were reported between January 1998 and February 1999. Ninety four of these incidents took place in the western state of Gujarat alone, with the epicenter being the Dangs district.

The attacks on Christians between December 25, 1998, and January 3, 1999, in the Dangs district ranged from violence against the leadership of the church, including the killing of priests and the raping of nuns, to the physical destruction of Christian institutions, including schools, churches, colleges, and cemeteries. Hundreds of Christians were also forced to “reconvert” to Hinduism.

The outbreak of violence in Dangs is typical of how anti-Christian violence is organized in various parts of the country.

According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, “Politics by Other Means: Attacks against Christians in India,” the extremist group Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) obtained permission to hold a rally on December 25, 1998 in Ahwa town in the Dangs district. Over 4,000 people participated in the rally, shouting anti-Christian slogans while the police stood by and watched.

Christian leaders had approached the district head to inform him of the possibility of violence, but the official, despite of being aware of the distribution of anti-Christian literature, trishuls (tridents) and other weapons in the area, merely said that he had already given permission for the rally, and that “appropriate arrangements” for police protection would be made.

After the rally, the attacks began on Christian places of worship, schools run by missionaries, and shops owned by Christians.

Rally Leads to Rape of Christian Women

In another incident, Hindu villagers, with the encouragement of a village chief, gang-raped two Christian women after their families refused to denounce Christianity on  May 28, 2006 in Nadia village in Bhagwanpura block in Madhya Pradesh state’s Khargone district. A fact-finding report noted, “There have been several attacks against the Christian community since 2003, but the intensity of persecutions increased since May 21, 2006, followed by a rally organized by the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (organization for welfare of tribal people).”

These meetings were organized especially for village heads. Hindu priests told the crowds, “You must prevent conversions and not hesitate to use any means to do so.”

“From the very next day, the attacks started in the area,” added the report.

The fact-finding team consisted of Father Anand Muttungal of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Madhya Pradesh, attorney Bharati Joshi, attorney Mohsin Ali Khan and Sushil George of the Human Rights Law Network, and Rohini D. Warne from the United Christian Forum for Human Rights.

Even the Wadhwa Commission report looking into the burning alive of Australian Christian worker, Graham Staines, and his two underage children, on January 22, 1999 in Keonjhar district of Orissa state noted that “allegations of Christians converting locals motivated the attack against the Staines, even though Graham Staines was not personally involved in conversions,” clearly indicating that false accusations created the backdrop against which the crime took place.

Politics of Hate

Given that hate campaigns and consequent attacks polarize people along religious lines, the BJP, which portrays itself as the “protector” of Hindus, benefits politically.

Through the use of the media in vernacular languages, distribution of hateful propaganda-filled pamphlets, delivery of venomous speeches, and rallies, the BJP and supporting groups seek to create tensions between the majority and minority communities. The party portrays minorities as a threat to the security and religious identity of the Hindu community. Muslims, according to it, support “Islamic terrorism,” and Christians are said to be invading Hindu culture by the means of conversion.

The Human Rights Watch report quoted an article in The Hindu newspaper as saying, “The disturbances [in Dangs] broke out only in [those] tribal-dominated areas where the BJP failed to make inroads in the last few elections, despite setting up a special tribal cell in the party. The division on religious grounds could ensure support to the BJP of the majority community voters among the tribals.”

Added the report, “Local officials, including police officers, gave outright support to rallies organized by groups that fomented the violence. State and local officials have also attempted to downplay the destruction of Christian property, dismissing the burning of churches as attacks on mere temporary structures. Though authorities have characterized the violence as spontaneous eruptions or communal clashes between local groups, there is much evidence to suggest that they have been carefully organized by the leadership of extremist Hindu groups.”

Despite the fact that none of the fact-finding missions found any evidence to support the accusation that Christians were converting tribals by force or trickery, the state suggested that the attacks were due to a clash between the Hindu and Christian community over “forced conversions.”

Christians account for 2.3 percent of the more than one billion people in India. Close to 82 percent of India‘s population is Hindu, though a vast majority of the community is against Hindu extremism.

ICC research noted that hate campaigns attract several local laws, and yet the media – both local and international, the state and federal governments in India as well as international organizations have a tendency to take note only of “violent incidents” while failing to address the backdrop against which such incidents takes place.

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