Rayyan Baig
THE extremist Hindutva ideology of RSS has not only affected Muslims of India, rather every minority living in India, including lower caste Hindus, are the sufferers. The Indian media coalesces with extremist RSS, at times under duress, to hide the predicament of minorities in India. The minorities in India have been suffering since 1947, which has surged under Modi-led BJP government. Mr Modi, when CM of Gujarat, can be called as the pioneer of anti-Muslim and anti-Christian movement. The plight of minorities in India has been highlighted from time to time, however, today the plight of Christians in India would be discussed exclusively. The Christianity in India was first introduced in 16th century by Portuguese, Irish and Italians and later British, American, German and Scottish missionaries. They established Christian schools and hospitals in various parts and attracted more and more people to Christianity. A number of downtrodden Dalits also preferred to convert to Christianity, now around 24 million Christians, constituting 2.3 % of Indian population, reside in India. The Christian population is in majority in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, whereas a significant Christian population also lives in coastal Andhara Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Kanara. The Christians, like Muslims, have always been looked down upon in India, however, RSS has shown open hostility against them and call them as foreigners. The RSS intends making India a Hindu State by weaving religion and politics together to exploit religion for political gains.? The violent sectarian movement of RSS “Hindutva” is seeking to create a “Pure Hindu Nation” in India, akin to Nazi’s “Pure Aryan Germany”. It is working to eliminate religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians from India. Recently, a RSS leader Rajeshwar Singh said that they will finish Christianity and Islam from India by 2021, and that they don’t have the right to stay here.
To discourage people converting to Christianity, the new converts are deprived of a minority status privilege, boycotted and tortured by extremist Hindus. The Christian missionaries are harassed, deported, killed or even burnt alive. The burning alive of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines along with his two sons and gang rape of a 74 years old nun are just a few examples to quote. Secret surveys of Christian population is held to ascertain their population, which is a prelude to subsequent focused violence against them. Incidents of violence keep happening against Christians in nearly all parts of India. However, majority of incidents occur in the northern, central and western India in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the capital New Delhi. The muffled hatred of Hindus against Christians resulted into the genocide of Christians in the north-eastern state of Orissa, in 2008, where around 500 Christians, including some nuns, were burnt alive. Numerous churches, houses, shops and orphanages were gutted by Hindu fundamentalists. Thousands of Christians who shifted to refugee camps were further punished with lack of rations and drugs; even the pregnant women were left without any medical care.
The acts of violence against Christians include arson of Churches, forced conversions, threats of physical violence, sexual assaults, murder of priests, destruction of Christian schools and cemeteries. Dozens of churches have been bombed/burnt/destroyed/ransacked in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana, Mumbai, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and many other places. In April 2015 St Mary’s Church in Agra was vandalized and statute of Mother Mary and Infant Jesus were damaged. In September 2014, a Church was destroyed and copies of the Bible were burnt in Mandla District and in 2015 a Bible convention was attacked in Jabalpur. The freedom of religion in India was guaranteed by Article 25-28 of the Constitution of India. The humiliation faced by many Dalits from high caste Hindus compel them to convert to Christianity and other religions. To stop this conversion, the BJP passed anti-conversion law in the State of Gujarat in 2003, which was followed by certain other states as well. Under this law the forced conversion has been made a cognizable offence. This cognoscibility has given a free hand to police and extremist Hindus to harass the new converts/missionaries by fabricating a “free will” conversion into a “forced-conversion”. The extremist Hindus are, however, forcefully converting the Christians and others into Hindus under the banner of “Ghar Wapsi. There are reports of extremist Hindus forcefully reconverting Christians even under the threat of the loss of the right to use the local wells and destruction of their homes.
After Mr Modi coming in prominence as CM and now PM the BJP/RSS has accentuated its propaganda to create seditious situation against minorities. The decades of hatred stoked up by Hindutva and legal impunity to the fundamentalist Hindus under BJP government has made the life of Christians and other minorities more agonizing. According to Human Rights Watch extremist Hindus and media promote anti-Christian propaganda. From 1964 to 1996 around 38 incidents of violence were reported against Christians. As per “Evangelical Fellowship of India” report, such incidents went up to 177 in 2015 and escalated to 300 in 2016, and “All India Christian Council” states that an attack on Christian is reported every 40 hours. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) ranked India’s persecution severity at “Tier 2” along with Iraq and Afghanistan. For long time India has been claiming to be a secular country, however, with the BJP coming into power this false claim has been badly exposed.
—The writer is freelance columnist.
