India 2008

Compass Direct News (01.07.2008) / HRWF (02.07.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - NEW DELHI, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – At least 36 Christian families whose houses were burned during Christmas season violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district have been evicted from their damaged homes.

The tribal (aboriginal) Christian families were still living in the houses, which were being repaired after Hindu extremists torched them during a weeklong spate of violence that began on December 24. They had been living in the houses for four decades, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC).

The Kandhamal district administration demolished the 26 houses in which 36 Christian families were living in Barakhama village in Kandhamal’s Balliguda block on June 24, said Dr. Sajan K. George, GCIC national president.

The Christmas season violence killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches. The 36 families relocated to a relief camp set up by the state government in Barakhama, but the camp was closed down on March 31. They returned to their damaged homes, draping plastic sheets for protection against sun and rain.

R. Vineel Krishna, sub-collector (deputy head of district administration) of the Balliguda block, told Compass the decision to demolish the houses was made after consultations with the Christian families through a local “peace committee.” The Orissa government had formed peace committees in several parts of the state as a measure to restore religious harmony after the brutal killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, ages 9 and 7, by a mob of Hindu extremists in Mayurbhanj district in 1999.

Krishna said the government gave 50,000 rupees (US$1,160) to each homeowner as compensation, and that the Christians have been relocated to other land in the neighborhood.

“There was no resistance by the Christian families during the demolition,” Krishna said.

Tribal tensions

Krishna said that the land on which the Christians had lived belonged to a Dalit Hindu, and that there were ongoing tensions between Hindu and Christian tribal peoples following last year’s violence. Members of both the Hindu and Christian tribes are Dalits, formerly known as “Untouchables.”

“We had asked the Christian families to leave the land before the violence in 2007,” he said. “Then we asked them to vacate the houses on June 5, and then again on June 21.”

The head of the Balliguda peace committee, Tijeshwar Nayak, told Compass a leader of the tribal Kui Samaj Coordination Committee, Namboodar Kohor, pressured the Kui owner of the land, Dishika Mallick, to ask the tribal Christians to move off the land.

The Kui are mostly Hindu. Christians make up an estimated 16 percent of the 650,000 people in Kandhamal district, with more than 60 percent of them belonging to the Pana community and classified as “Scheduled Castes,” better known as Dalits. The Pana community has been demanding recognition as a tribal community, as Dalits lose their right to government’s affirmative action after they convert to Christianity.

The largely Hindu Kui people oppose the demand, as it would increase the number of candidates eligible for government-reserved jobs.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) allegedly exploited the tensions between the Kui and Pana communities to launch the Christmas season attacks. Kui leader Kohor is a known disciple of Laxmananda Saraswati, a Hindu nationalist leader close to the VHP who is widely believed to have incited the Christmas attacks.

Most of the Christian families agreed to move out of their houses because the Kui people had threatened more attacks if they did not comply with their demand, said Nayak, a Catholic.

A representative of the Christian Legal Association told Compass that “technically speaking,” the administration appeared within its right to evict the Christian families but that clearly justice was not a concern.

“How can you ask 36 families who were living there for more than 40 years to move out at a time when they are trying not only to rebuild their homes, but also their lives?” the representative said.

The GCIC’s George said some of the families were regularly paying land revenue to the administration for many years.

“If they did not have the ownership rights, how was the government collecting revenue from them every year?” he asked.

Muslims demonstrate in Indian Kashmir over land transfer to Hindu shrine

By Shahnawaz Khan

VOA News (28.06.2008) / HRWF (30.06.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Muslim protests over the transfer of land to expand a Hindu shrine in Indian administered Kashmir are continuing for a sixth straight day. On Friday a sea of people hit the streets in the summer capital Srinagar demanding the revocation of the land transfer. Street protests and clashes with police were also reported from many areas on Saturday. Officials say at least three people have been killed. Shahnawaz Khan reports from Srinigar.

Tens of thousands of people in Indian administered Kashmir took to the streets on Friday in one of the biggest demonstrations in recent years.

The demonstrations came after four days of street protests and clashes over a controversial transfer of forestland to a Hindu Shrine Board by the state government. Formed in 2001 the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board manages the annual Hindu pilgrimage to Amarnath cave shrine in Indian administered Kashmir. The new land would allow facilities for pilgrims to be built around the shrine

Kashmiri separatists allege the land transfer is a conspiracy to change the demography of the mainly Muslim Kashmir Valley. They fear the land would be used to settle Indian Hindus in largely Muslim Kashmir.

The issue has brought two estranged factions of the Kashmiri separatist alliance "All Parties Hurriyat Conference" together five years after they split.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani heads the hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference.

"As far as the yatra (pilgrimage) itself is concerned we are not against any religion or rituals or religious functions. No not at all," he said. "But when the religious rituals will become [politicized], the basic rights of the people snatched, their land, their basic rights, their civilization attacked, then it should be [fought].

Local laws forbid sale of land in Indian administered Kashmir to outsiders, which means Indian citizens cannot own land in Kashmir. Any violations are strongly protested.

In addition to the deaths caused by the demonstrations, hundreds have been injured in police action against protestors this week. Life has come to a virtual halt with roads shutdown and businesses and offices closed.

Protestors shouted anti-India and pro-freedom slogans and hoisted green flags over a historical clock tower in the main city square of Srinigar, where authorities hoist Indian flags on its independence and republic days.

Drowned in the sea of people, Indian paramilitary troops which have a post at the base of the tower, remained mute spectators.

Large-scale processions were common in Indian administered Kashmir in the early 1990s soon after the outbreak of an anti-India armed insurgency in the region. A strong police presence later made such processions almost impossible.

On Friday as people came out of mosques after noon prayers, they met lesser resistance from police than the previous four days. The region's police chief said police and paramilitary units were asked to exhibit restraint.

Majority Muslim parties in the state's legislature want the land transfer revoked.

However, the rightwing Hindu nationalist party, the Bhartiya Janata Party, is opposing revocation moves and has stirred protests in the Hindu dominated Jammu province making the government's decision difficult.

Indian officials dismiss the allegations about the land transfer saying India has never tried to encourage Hindu migration to the Kashmir region.

Recent incidents of persecution

By Mahruaii Sailo and Nirmala Carvalho

Compass Direct News (27.06.2008) / HRWF (30.06.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on June 22 attacked a Christian prayer meeting, beating participants and the pastor in Krishnagar, Dehra Dun city, reported the daily Tribune. The extremists stormed pastor Jonathan Singh’s Sunday prayer meeting and beat him and other participants. As the women and children in the assembly ran off, the extremists caught hold of Singh, dragged him to his rented home some distance away and ordered the landlord to throw out his belongings. The extremists ordered Singh to leave Dehra Dun, the report stated. A delegation of Christian leaders went to Garhi Cantonment police station, where the officer in-charge declined to register a First Information Report (FIR), instead advising them to contact local BJP legislator Harbans Kapoor, who is also Speaker of the state assembly. Dehra Dun Senior Superintendent of Police Amit Sinha said he would look into the matter.

In Rangadam Palli, Medak district, Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on June 22 attacked a pastor, his wife and another Christian woman and poured alcohol on them. The All India Christian Council of India (AICC) reported that at about 8 p.m. pastor Kinnere Kanankaiah, his wife and Manne Laxmi were on their way home from a birthday celebration when the drunken extremists began harassing them. They beat the pastor, knocking him to the ground and stomping on him. They hit Laxmi on the head with the edge of a broken bottle and afterwards poured alcohol on all three. Moses Vattipalli of AICC told Compass that the pastor was admitted to a hospital with internal injuries, and the two women also received treatment. The pastor registered a police complaint. At press time, no arrests had been made.

About 100 Hindu extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal accompanied by police disrupted a pastors seminar and seized their property on June 17 in Varna village, Mysore. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that the extremists stormed the Well Water Garden Institute’s seminar, where 70 pastors were in training, and accused them of forcible conversions. Some of the pastors went to the district superintendent of police asking for protection. Instead, at about 7 p.m., police led by Circle Inspector Venketa Ramanappa barged into the chapel and threatened the pastors with dire consequences if they continued meeting. Police officers took Bibles, books and vehicles belonging to the pastors. With the intervention of the GCIC, the seized materials were returned to the pastors

Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal attacked Christians on June 16 in Rewadahi village, Rajnandgaon district. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said that just before midnight, a mob of around 55 Hindu extremists went to the house of two converts, Karthik Sahu and one identified only as Ramesh. Sahu was scheduled to marry a Christian convert on June 18, and the intolerant Hindus derided him in foul language for marrying by Christian rites in a church and not according to Hindu rites in a temple. The extremists beat and kicked both men for nearly 15 minutes, then went to the neighboring house of Sagni Sahu, where weekly prayer meetings take place, and began berating him and others in coarse language and falsely accusing them of forcibly converting villagers to Christianity. The extremists then left with 30,000 rupees (US$703), which the couple had in their home as they had just sold their rice crop. “The extremists accused the couple of having the money to lure villagers to convert to Christianity,” GCIC regional coordinator Sam Mathew told Compass. “At around 1 a.m. on June 17, the couple went to the Lal Bagh police station to register a complaint, and the police detained the couple till morning and released them at 11 a.m.” Police refused to register a case of robbery against the extremists, he added.

Unknown assailants set a church building on fire on June 15 in Amberpet, Hyderabad. The church was burned down at about midnight along with five huts in the area. A pulpit, tables, sound system, fans, light and other furniture were reduced to ashes, with damages estimated to be around 50,000 rupees (US$1,171). Pastor Majji Yeshurathnam had established the small prayer chapel used as church building in the slum area nine years ago with permission from local authorities, and the All India Christian Council (AICC) reported that related ministries had led to many positive changes in the community. The pastor has filed a police complaint. At press time, no arrests had been made. An AICC representative told Compass that intolerance of Christians is on the rise in different areas of Andhra Pradesh.

Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal on June 15 beat and filed a false complaint of forcible conversion against a pastor in Chungi Naka, Gurh Tehsil, Rewa district, according to Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). As pastor Rampal Masih of Believers Church was preaching to a congregation of 70 believers at about 11 a.m., nearly 25 intolerant Hindus surrounded the rented church hall shouting Hindu chants. Five of the Hindu extremists entered the church, walked up to the pulpit and dragged Masih outside, punching and kicking him and accusing him of forcible conversions. Sam Mathew, regional coordinator, GCIC told Compass, “The extremists brought along two policemen from the local Gurh police station to the church, after registering a false complaint of conversion against Masih. They continued beating the pastor in front of the police. The police warned the pastor against conducting Christian worship in the village and threatened to arrest him if he did so again.”

Hindu extremists belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Bharatiya Yuva Jana Morcha (Indian People’s Youth Front ) along with members of an auto union on June 12 attacked a pastor and a non-Christian brake inspector, falsely accusing them of forcible conversions in L.B. Nagar, Hyderabad. Brake inspector Ramesh Babu was known for his strict application of traffic rules, causing many drivers to turn against him, and pastor Peter Mohan had received many threats not to preach Christ in the area; the two men are friends. The All India Christian Council reported that Hindu extremists eager to implicate them in a false case joined forces with the auto union members to concoct the accusations and launch the attack. On June 13 the extremists and the auto union members staged a protest, demanding suspension of the brake inspector and an end to all Christian activities in the area.

Police on June 12 arrested about 40 pastors on charges of fraudulent conversion and for conducting prayer services in a Hindu temple area of Bhadrachalam, Khamman district. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), the pastors led by Bishop John Peter had gathered in Bhadracham for the United Pastors Fellowship Meeting, renting six rooms in Shuban Functional Hall cottages belonging to the temple. At around 6 p. m., the extremists accompanied by police barged into the hall, accusing the pastors of fraudulent conversion and ordering them in abusive language to stop meeting. The pastors were arrested under Section 3 of a law called the “Andhra Pradesh Propagation of Other Religions in Places of Worship or Prayer (Prohibition) Act 2007.” The pastors were released on bail with the aid of pressure from politicians, according to the GCIC.

Chief Minister Mayawati urged to put grant full constitutional rights to Dalit Muslims, Christians (*)

HRWF (12.06.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians, who constitute more than half of their respective community's populations in the country, have been among the most marginalized and deprived sections of society. Victims, together with their brethren in the majority community, of the age-old stigma and exclusion of caste, they figure at the bottom of the development scale. And yet, they were ruthlessly and arbitrarily deprived of their Constitutional rights by the Presidential Order of 1950. This order, in violation of the secular promise of the Constitution of the new-born Republic of India, made religion the basis of affirmative action, and robbed Dalit Muslims and Christians of affirmative action such as the reservations in government jobs given to Dalits professing the Hindu faith. Subsequently, this was put in the Constitution as Article 341.

Dalit Christians and Muslims have consistently struggled against this Act, which communalizes an otherwise Secular Constitution, and deprives them of representation in political processes from panchayat to Parliament.

The Congress government headed by Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao had in fact moved a Bill in Parliament granting such rights. However, it seems the UPA Government had succumbed to the pressure of upper caste vested interests and right wing political groups of the Sangh Parivar and has reneged on its own promises for such basic Human rights.

While the Supreme Court has admitted Public Interest writ petitions on the issue, the Government of India has been adopting dilatory tactics before the Court, repeatedly referring the matter to one National Commission after another.

The Government admits that every single Constitutional authority in the country has upheld the legal and moral validity of the demand of the Dalit Christians. But after the Supreme Court was moved, the Government first sent the issue to the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, headed by former Chief Justice of India Mr. Rangnath Misra, to suggest if Dalit and Backward Christians and Muslims could be treated at par with other with Scheduled Castes for reservations in Government jobs and admission in educational institutions. Justice Misra said the Dalit Christians had a legitimate case for being treated at par with other scheduled castes. The Government then sent the issue the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, headed by former Union Home Minister Dr Buta Singh, who also ruled the commission had no objection to extending reservation to Dalit Christians and Muslims but the 15 per cent quota for Scheduled Castes should not be disturbed. The issue was then referred to the National Commission for Backward Classes.

We have ample reason to suspect the Government's intentions. It did not undertake this lengthy process while extending the reservations and other privileges to Sikhs and Buddhist Dalits some years ago. It is only in the case of the Dalit Christian and Dalit Muslim demand that these new regulations have been suddenly discovered.

The Centre for Public Interest Litigation and several others in their Civil writ petitions in the Supreme Court have requested it to declare clause (3) of the Constitution (scheduled castes) order, 1950 as unconstitutional and void as it denied benefits to Dalit Christians and Muslims.

Most political parties, in the United Progressive Alliance which rules at the Centre, as well as in the Opposition ranks, have supported the cause of the Dalit Christians. These include three major parties – the Communist Party Marxist-led Left Front which rules in West Bengal and Kerala, the Bahujan Samaj Party in power in Uttar Pradesh, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam which has a Government in Tamil Nadu. The Hindutva Bharatiya Janata Party is the solitary one to continue to oppose. But even its allies, including Bihar chief Minister Nitish Kumar, have extended full support to the Dalit Muslims and Christians.

The long delay in removing the religious bigotry in the law is both illegal and against the proclaimed secular policies of the United Progressive Alliance. The Government need not wait for the Supreme Court to decide the matter, but can announce its own decision in Parliament through appropriate legislation. The sooner it does so, the better will it be for its own credibility, and for the cause of freedom of faith and justice in India.

We also call upon the Bahujan Samaj Party government of Ms Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh to use their tremendous political capital to put pressure on the Union Government to grant full Constitutional rights to Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians in keeping with its own `Sarvjan Sukhai Sarjan Hitai' political ideology.

Christians in Orissa, India still targeted after attacks

Victims of Christmas season violence in Kandhamal face threats and ostracism

By Vishal Arora

Compass Direct News (11.06.2008) / HRWF (30.06.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - NEW DELHI, June 11 (Compass Direct News) – Still struggling to rebuild their homes and lives after suffering large-scale attacks last Christmas season, Christians in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district continue to face ostracism and threats from Hindu nationalists.

Returning from Orissa on Friday (June 6), the secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC) said life is far from normal more than five months after violence in Kandhamal last Christmas season that killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches.

“Christians who had started making a life for themselves through running shops and self-employment were particular targets – they are still being socially boycotted,” Dr. John Dayal told Compass. “Even now, many [Christian] girls cannot go to school for fear of molestation after threats have been issued to Christians.”

According to an AICC report, intolerant Hindu leaders in three villages near Barakhama – Salagud, Madagudami, and Perbapanga – have ostracized Christian families. The Christians are barred from collecting firewood or food from the surrounding jungles and buying from and selling anything in local stores.

“This means they must travel long distances to buy construction materials” to rebuild their homes destroyed in the attacks, the report states. “Not only do they have to spend more money for travel but also for bricks and other supplies.”

Followers of Laxmananda Saraswati, a Hindu nationalist leader widely believed to have incited the Christmas attacks, forcibly took 26 Christians to a police station near Kurder village on May 21, according to the report. Police detained the Christians, releasing them only after friends enlisted the aid of the district sub-collector, or deputy administrative head.

The followers of Saraswati also stole two cows belonging to the Christians. The Christians had just bought cattle and were passing by a rally organized by Saraswati when the Hindu nationalists apprehended them.

Disappointed in Government Response

Dayal said he was “deeply disappointed and saddened” by the “lethargic and insensitive, almost inhuman, response” of the federal and the state governments in the Kandhamal crisis.

“The monsoons are setting in, and up to 400 families are without a roof over their heads,” he said. “The Orissa government has been doling out money in driblets.”

Grants for destroyed houses are 50,000 rupees (US$1,165), and no more than half of that total for partially damaged homes.

“But half-burnt houses cannot be rebuilt,” he added. “They have to be razed to the ground and built from scratch, and the government does not recognize this.”

The cost of rebuilding a house is at least 85,000 rupees (about US$2,000), he estimated. “This means unless the dole is raised, the victims will have half-built houses when the rains come,” Dayal said. “There is no option but to move the courts to get the government to give the money.”

Dayal added that apart from the cost of construction of houses, the victims of the violence have lost a half a year of income. “Half a year of labor has been lost, there is no livelihood,” he said.

Dire Camp Conditions

Many victims are still in the jungles fearing further physical attack, while hundreds of displaced Christians in Kandhamal remain in various relief camps set up by the state government.

Relief camp conditions are dire, with malaria running rampant. Dayal said that after contracting malaria, a 16-year-old Christian girl who was apparently 16 weeks pregnant had a miscarriage in Barakhama refugee camp. Rashmi, daughter of Suniya Digal of Tikarbari village, had come to the camp with her parents after her house was burned in the Christmas week violence and her husband had fled.

The disease along with the strong anti-malarial drug she was prescribed led to complications and the miscarriage, Dayal said.

“When [human rights activist] Teesta Setalvad was visiting the Barakhama camp and saw Rashmi, she knew the girl was not well,” said Dayal, who was in Kandhamal with Setalvad for an independent tribunal that heard testimony of victims on May 13 and 15. “She called and asked me to rush her [Rashmi] to a hospital, saying she was on the brink of septicemia, or blood poisoning, unless a gynecologist examined her immediately and evacuated the remains of her pregnancy.”

The four-member tribunal consisted of former High Court Justice Hospet Suresh and Justice Kolse Patil, former Gujarat director general of police R.B. Sreekumar, and Setalvad. The tribunal has yet to release its report.

A government panel to investigate the Christmas season violence, the Justice Panigrahi Enquiry commission, will begin a probe on Saturday (June 14).

The National Commission for Minorities, which sent two researchers to Kandhamal district, reported on January 17 that the violence was “organized and pre-planned.” The team attributed the large-scale violence to the inaction of the administration. Dayal also led a fact-finding team in January that also concluded the violence was carried out in a planned manner.

Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) groups, mainly the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), carried out the attacks under the pretext of avenging an alleged assault on Saraswati after the first anti-Christian incident was reported from Brahmanigaon village.

Christians brace as Hindu nationalists win Karnataka

Assembly election results usher in BJP, new chief minister from extremist RSS

By Vishal Arora

Compass Direct News (29.05.2008) / HRWF (30.05.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - A well-known Hindu nationalist leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be sworn in tomorrow as the chief minister of Karnataka state, where anti-Christian attacks have been rising since 2006.

News of the first-ever victory of the BJP in a south Indian state sent a chill down the spines of the minority Christian community in Karnataka when assembly election results were announced on Sunday (May 25). The BJP is the parent organization of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a major force behind attacks on Christians, and newly elected Chief Minister Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yediyurappa is an RSS worker.

“It is going to be a testing time for Christians,” said Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), a Christian advocacy group based in the state capital, Bangalore.

The BJP won 110 of 224 seats and secured the support of five independents to reach the absolute majority required for a single party to form government on its own. The party had never ruled any south Indian state.

A day before the election results were announced, Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists vandalized a Bible school and beat at least 17 Christians in Karnataka’s Bellary district.

About 20 intolerant Hindus allegedly from the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) broke the windowpanes and furniture of the Timothy Theological School in the Sathanarayapettai area of Bellary, attacked teachers and students and accused the institute of indulging in forced conversions, George said.

At least two teachers, identified only as the Rev. Jayaprakash and the Rev. Dr. Isaac Namadevu, and 15 students were injured in the attack. The attackers also tore Bibles as they shouted anti-Christian slogans.

The Gandhinagar police station arrested and registered a complaint against the attackers, two of whom were identified as Anil Naidu and Siddesh, George added.

Earlier, on May 4, about 15 extremists from the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the VHP, had stormed the Sharon Assembly of God Church at Manjunatha Nagara in Karnataka’s Hubli district, cursed at the believers, ripped up their hymn books and Bibles and dragged pastor Peniel Thankappan Johnson to the local police station, hitting him along the way. The police arrested Johnson and later released him on bail.

Ideology of hate

George said new Karnataka Chief Minister Yediyurappa would “spell doom for Christian work” in the state.

“Yediyurappa is a staunch RSS worker and is therefore rooted in an ideology that spews hate against Christians,” George he said. “He hails from Shimoga district, which is the epicenter of attacks against Christians.”

The RSS believes in and promotes Hindutva ideology, which claims that India is essentially a land of Hindus where religious minorities should live in subordination to the majority community.

George also pointed out that around 20 Hindu extremists from Bajrang Dal stormed and disrupted a prayer meeting at the End Time Full Gospel Harvest Church in Basavanahalli area in Shimoga district’s Sagar area on May 20. They also filed a police complaint accusing the church of forcibly converting Hindus, he added.

In an interview on private news channel CNN-IBN yesterday, however, Yediyurappa sought to ally fears of religious minorities, claiming he won with the support of minority communities and would look after them well.

Politics behind persecution

Yediyurappa became the BJP’s first chief minister in Karnataka last year, but as part of a coalition and for only a short while. He was sworn in last November 12 and had to resign a week later due to troubled relations with the coalition partner, the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).

As a result the coalition split, the state assembly was dissolved and “President’s rule” was imposed in the state on November 28. Tensions between the two parties arose after the JD-S became reluctant to allow the BJP to appoint a chief minister from its party, as promised earlier as a condition for forming the alliance.

Since 2006, the BJP and groups associated with the RSS have reportedly been making inroads into various parts of the state, dividing voters along religious lines by raising sectarian issues, including objections to Christian conversions.

A front-page editorial in the March 12, 2007 issue of People’s Democracy, a fortnightly of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, noted that incidents of religious violence in certain states, including Karnataka, are part of an “RSS-BJP design to revive its political base through a sharpened political polarization.”

Karnataka previously had been in the news for a high incidence of Christian persecution, but Christians say the attacks suddenly increased – after relative calm in 2004 and 2005 – after the JD-S party, in coalition with the BJP, took power from the Congress Party in 2006.

Karnataka had long been a stronghold of the Congress Party, which ruled the state from October 1947 to January 1983. The party came back to power in October 1999, ruling the state until it lost to the JD-S coalition with the BJP in 2006.

After its historic victory in Karnataka, the BJP now claims to be India’s biggest party. The BJP has direct rule in seven states: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. The party also is part of ruling coalitions in five states: Punjab, Bihar, Orissa, Nagaland, and Meghalaya.

Elections are due later this year in the BJP-ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.

There are a little more than 1 million Christians in Karnataka, which is home to over 52.8 million people, mainly Hindu.

Recent incidents of persecution

By Shireen Bhatia and Nirmala Carvalho

The Christian Science Monitor (21.05.2008) / HRWF (22.05.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Police on May 4 arrested a pastor on charges of luring Hindu villagers to convert to Christianity in Karnataka state’s Hubli district. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said that at around 10:30 a.m. about 15 Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal stormed the Sharon Assembly of God Church at Manjunatha Nagara. They cursed at the Christians, ripped up their hymn books and Bibles and dragged pastor Peniel Thankappan Johnson to the local police station, hitting him along the way. At the station, the intolerant Hindus falsely accused him of forcible conversion. Veeranna Gowda, inspector in-charge of the station, verbally abused Johnson, said George. Johnson was charged with injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult another religion. With the GCIC’s legal assistance, the pastor was released on bail on May 5.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Legislative Assembly Ganesh Joshi and other BJP activists on May 3 ransacked Grace Academy School in Dehradun, capital of Uttarakhand, and manhandled the principal. BJP cadres claimed the reason for the attack was that the school was not cooperating with a shutdown called by the BJP to protest inflation, but Grace Academy employee Rohit Dilawar told Compass the school was in fact cooperating with the mandated shutdown. Grace Academy is a residential school, he said, and since residential teachers had the day off, they were informally answering questions form a group of students who reside at the campus hostel. Suddenly a mob of around 40 BJP workers entered the school, demanding to inspect it. They came well prepared with bamboo rods and hockey sticks, eyewitness Dilawar said, and they made their way straight to principal Benjamin Newton’s office and began beating him. They also broke windows. Subsequently Hindu organizations denounced the school in local media, accusing it of fraudulent conversions and poisoning young minds. Ironically, Dilawar indicated one reason for the desire to damage the Christian school was that the principal had refused admission to children of some prominent BJP members despite tremendous political pressure. A Christian missionary school with students from throughout India, Grace Academy has filed a police report.

Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bajrang Dal on April 25 stormed a rented house church, beat a pastor and three evangelists and threatened children in the Raggiguda slum in JP Nagar, on the outskirts of Bangalore. Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), said that at around 11:30 a.m. nearly 35 Hindu extremists stormed Raggiguda Baptist Church, where pastor Guruvaiah Lingala’s children’s Bible study class was underway. The intolerant Hindus cursed Christianity with filthy language, kicked and struck Lingala and slapped and punched evangelist Babu Mohan and two others. Laxmi Narayan Gowda, GCIC regional coordinator, told Compass that the extremists snatched Bible story books from the children, tore the literature up, and forced them to chant “Jai Sri Ram [Hail Lord Ram]” for 15 minutes. “The extremists bolted the door from outside, leaving four adults chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’ continuously for nearly 45 minutes, after which they were released but with stern warning not to conduct any Christian meetings again,” Gowda told Compass. The Christians have not filed a police complaint for fear of reprisals. On April 27, their landlord made them vacate the premises of Raggiguda Baptist Church, George said.

Hindu extremists on April 24 beat two pastors in Kammanapalli village, Nizamabad district, Andhra Pradesh. The attack came in retaliation for a high-caste woman converting to Christianity, reported the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). A woman suffering with kidney stones for many years, suffering from a condition that did not allow doctors to treat her, had contacted the two pastors, identified only as 24-year-old Pastor Anand and 26-year-old Pastor Raju. From an influential community known as Padamsali, the woman identified only as Vijaya had approached the pastors and was cured when they prayed for her, according to the GCIC. She soon freely embraced Christianity, to the dismay of relatives and neighbors. Villagers subscribing to right-wing Hindu nationalist ideology attacked pastors Anand and Raju as they were visiting her on April 24, severely beating them and burning their Bibles to ashes. The Hindus warned them not to visit her again and have threatened other local Christians. The pastors were treated for internal injuries and sprains at a private hospital.

Hindu extremist group Dharma Sean last month threatened to set a Christian woman’s house on fire in Jabalpur and burn the body of her deceased husband. Soon after Praveen Balotya, a Christian convert from a high-caste Hindu background, died of tuberculosis on April 18, Dharma Sena members led by Yogesh Agrawal arrived at his house and started threatening his wife, Benjlive Minj Balotya, demanding his body so that they could burn it according to Hindu rites. When his wife objected and asked them to leave her and her 2-year-old daughter alone, the extremists verbally abused her, threatened to set her house ablaze and accused her of having fraudulently converted her husband. Only after police arrived and forcefully restored order was she able to bury her husband that evening, and an officer who took strict action against Agrawal, slightly injuring him, has been suspended temporarily on orders that local Christians believe came from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Jabalpur has witnessed growing violence against the Christian community since 2006. Madhya Pradesh has only about 170,000 Christians amid a population of 60 million, 91 percent of whom are Hindus.

Indian bombings fit pattern of efforts to foment interreligious strife

By Mian Ridge

The Christian Science Monitor (15.05.2008) / HRWF (16.05.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Seven synchronized bombs exploded in the picturesque city of Jaipur Tuesday evening, killing more than 80 people and wounding more than 200. The bombs, the deadliest such attacks in India in nearly two years, appear to fit into an emerging pattern in India, in which bomb explosions occur every few months and are attributed to Islamic terrorists.

The government issued a national security alert and imposed a curfew in Jaipur, capital of the western desert state of Rajasthan.

Hours after the explosions, observers and officials speculated that those responsible wanted to undermine a peace process between India and Pakistan and to foment communal tensions.

There were, however, no claims of responsibility. India, though largely peaceful, is home to a number of militant groups, from Maoist rebels to secessionists in its northeast.

But most analysts say Islamic terrorists were behind the bombs. Some point out that India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, is due to visit Islamabad shortly to review the peace process between Pakistan and India, his first visit since a civilian government took over in Pakistan earlier this year.

They also note that the blasts occurred just days after gun battles erupted between the Indian Army and Islamic militants in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Several analysts said intelligence surrounding earlier blasts made the Harkat-ul-Jehadi-Islami, a Bangladeshi group known as the Huji, a strong suspect.

Last August, three bomb blasts, which killed 38 people in Hyderabad, were widely blamed on the Huji.

"They want Islamic extremism to take root in India," says Ashok Behuria, a fellow at Delhi's Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, referring to Islamic terrorist groups from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. "These people are slowly but surely beginning to penetrate India."

Jaipur, called the "pink city" after its salmon-colored buildings, is predominantly Hindu, but has a strong Muslim minority. Recent years have seen a rise in tensions between the communities in some parts of India, most notably in Gujarat, where more than 2,000 Muslims were massacred by Hindu mobs in 2002.

Jaipur has no history of violence between Muslims and Hindus. But the state is ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Ajay Sahni, a terrorism expert at the Institute for Conflict Management in Delhi says the attacks were designed to provoke inter-religious tensions.

Indeed, two of Tuesday's bombs were planted near Hindu temples, where large crowds gather on Tuesdays.

In hospitals, however, and in the city's morgue, both Hindus and Muslims were among the casualties.

Jaipur was also likely an attractive target because it has less security than big metropolises like Delhi and Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and because it is a popular tourist destination. In the sweltering month of May, however, tourist numbers are low and none are thought to have been killed in Tuesday's blasts.

Mr. Sahni says that because Indian police in most states do not have enough resources, it is impossible for them to efficiently monitor terrorist groups.

"As long as these groups have a safe haven outside and you don't have a ban on freedom of movement, these things will go on happening," he says. He adds that, since an attack on India's parliament in 2001, Islamic terrorists had failed to hit a "strategic target."

It is not yet known if those responsible came from India, though there were reports Wednesday that the police suspected involvement of Indian Muslims.

Sahni cautions that while Muslims and Hindus have a long history of peaceful coexistence in India, Islamic militants' efforts to exploit Muslim grievances – from communal violence to the casual discrimination against Muslims that is common in India – pose an ever-greater risk to the country's security.

Hindu fanatics beat a Maharashtra Village Ministry Worker, police fail to take action

New Delhi (15.05.2008) / HRWF (16.05.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - A group of Hindu fanatics has beaten a Maharashtra Village Ministry worker at Joadmoha of Yavatmal District, Maharashtra on May 13. The police failed to take action against the culprits till the filing of this report.

Rev. D. B. Kulothungan, General Secretary of Maharashtra Village Ministries (MVS) reports to All India Christian Council that the incident happened when a group of villagers numbering from 15 to 30 came and forced a prayer meeting held at Mr. Shrikant Chandekar's resident on May 13 to stop. When Shrikant refused to stop the prayer meeting, he was beaten badly by the mob.

Mr. Shrikant, on the same day, went to Joadmoha police station to lodge a complaint against the culprits and the police did not take any action to protect Mr. Shrikant and his church members.

While speaking to Mr. Desh Pande, Head Constable of Rural Police Station, Yavatmal, Maharashtra, he reports to All India Christian Council (aicc) that a FIR No 238/2008 with a non-cognizable case has been filed against the culprits under the 504 and 505 sections of the India Penal Code.

Speaking to the Delhi aicc Legal Secretary, Ms. Lanshinglu Rongmei, she said that beating up a pastor and disturbing a religious gathering is a cognizable crime, in which police suppose to pick up the offenders immediately and take action without the warrant from court.

Making the cognizable crime non-cognizable is the game that the Joadmoha police station plays against the Christian community. This kind of game will only encourage the Hindu fanatics to attack the Christian minority further.

Rev. Prakash Tode, Field Coordinator of MVH, has appealed to Maharashtra State Minority Commission through its Vice Chairman, Dr. Abraham Mathai to look into this matter.

The Christian community in the state of Maharashtra has faced discrimination from Sangh Parivar in recent times. In May 2007, two pastors belonging to Friends Missionary Prayer Band were beaten by a Hindu fanatic mob in the presence of TV cameras, dragging them out into the public while police on duty watched as silent spectators.

The All India Christian Council (www.aiccindia.org), created in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.

Reported by

Madhu Chandra

Regional Secretary

All India Christian Council, New Delhi

9868184949

Recent incidents of persecution

By Nirmala Carvalho and Shireen Bhatia

Compass Direct News (30.04.2008) / HRWF (01.05.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - About 50 Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on April 15 beat two independent pastors in Devarakonda village, Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh. Attacked for distributing Christian literature, one pastor received hospital treatment for stomach injuries and the other for a bone fracture, according to Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians. Pastors John Kumar and Nathan Mark of Anumala village, Nalgonda district were on their way to Anjiah colony in Devarakonda village for a prayer meeting at the house of pastor Surabaram Stephen, distributing Christian tracts to a few village children, George said. As they were returning home at about 6:30 p.m., the Hindu extremists at their bus stop angrily questioned them about the tracts and their reason for visiting the village. “They abused the pastors in filthy language and repeatedly punched and kicked them on their stomachs and backs,” George said. “The extremists also stoned them and encouraged village children to do the same.” Pastor Arun Babu, a member of the Independent Pastors’ Fellowship, told Compass that the pastors were admitted at District Headquarters Government Hospital Nalagonda. “Kumar’s left arm was fractured, and Mark sustained internal stomach injuries,” Pastor Babu said. On April 16, the pastors filed a First Information Report at a local police station and the next day police arrested two Hindu extremists, Vidya Sagar and Vijay Yadhav, who were charged with criminal intimidation and causing hurt with dangerous weapons. They were released on bail the same day.

Hindu extremists surrounded and harassed pastor Thumula Johnson of Manna Ministry and 12 members of a Gospel Mission team in village Kishtapuram, Warangal district on April 2. Pastor Johnson led the Gospel Mission team to Rayaparthi mandal (a community hub with administrative oversight of 30 to 40 villages in Andhra Pradesh), where they distributed tracts and New Testaments in surrounding villages throughout the day, pastor Ravi Kumar, district elder of Manna Ministries from Warangal, told Compass. As the team was distributing literature and preaching in Kishtapuram, the last village they had scheduled for the day, the village head caught hold of them and started to question them. “He expressed his distress over the distribution of Christian tracts and assaulted the Christians verbally,” Pastor Kumar said. The missionaries started to leave peacefully, but the village head gathered around 50 others and ordered them to surround the vehicle and keep them from going. The mob harassed the Christians for three hours, ordering them without success to shout slogans such as, “Christ be brought down, hail Hindu gods,” Pastor Kumar said, adding that one missionary was slapped. “The mob quizzed the missionaries as to why they did not apply tilak [Hindu ritual mark on the forehead] even when they are Indians,” Pastor Kumar said. “They then burned all the New Testaments and other Christian literature and forcibly applied tilak on the foreheads of the missionaries.” Local media arrived and contributed only to the anti-Christian propaganda, he said.

Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Medak district, Andhra Pradesh on April 6 attacked 30 Christians at Sunday worship, accusing an independent pastor of forcible conversion, demanding that his house church cease meeting and ordering him to leave Mulugu village. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said that at about 11:30 a.m. around 100 intolerant Hindus gathered outside the Yesu Christi Prathna Mandiram (Jesus Christ Prayer House) shouting anti-Christian slogans and Hindu devotional chants. Pastor Yesu Raju told Compass that the mob, led by local RSS chief Ghanda Narasaiahand Naresh, “even produced a false witness named Ghanda Narasaiah, who accused me of alluring Hindu villagers to convert to Christianity.” Pastor Raju denied the allegation. The extremists then slapped and hit the believers, damaged a cross, chairs and musical instruments in the church and left after 90 minutes. The pastor, who moved to a neighboring village, refused to file a police complaint, saying by doing so he would put at risk the lives of believers in the village. No worship was held on April 13 and April 20, according to George.

Serious charges omitted in attack on pastor in India

Hindu nationalist-ruled Rajasthan closes investigation on Walter Masih case

By Vishal Arora

Compass Direct News (29.04.2008) / HRWF (30.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - The Hindu nationalist government in Rajasthan state has closed a police investigation into a televised attack on pastor Walter Masih a year ago today after withdrawing the more serious charges against the accused.

The state government ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has refused to sanction prosecution under the more serious charges of the 14 Hindu extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), who were accused of attacking Pastor Masih with sticks and rods, leaving him bleeding profusely in the Nandpuri area of the state capital, Jaipur.

Police had arrested 14 of the 20 alleged attackers in the April 29, 2007 assault and filed a case against them for rioting, causing hurt, trespassing and causing damage – but without including any charges related to religion-related offenses, which provide for stricter penal action.

The prosecution filed a charge sheet against the accused in a trial court in August 2007 but also acknowledged that some other charges were still pending. Later police added charges of hate speech, insulting a religion or religious beliefs and offensive statements made in a place of worship.

As required by law, police sought the state government’s sanction for prosecution of these charges, which would bring harsher sentences. At the same time, all of the accused were released on bail by the Rajasthan High Court.

Now the government has refused to give sanction for prosecution of the more serious charges, instead ordering closure of the investigation under the original charges.

Frustrated, Masih told CNN-IBN news channel that the government’s move amounted to protection of the attackers. “We want justice, please help us,” he said.

Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told the channel, “It’s sad that just because he’s a Christian, so much undue importance is being given to this case.”

Attack a ‘Petty Crime’

A representative of the Christian Legal Association (CLA) told Compass that by declining to add charges related to religious crimes, the state had weakened the case against the accused.

“The case, which highlighted the false confidence of extremists to launch attacks on Christians with impunity,” said the CLA representative, “will now be treated as involving petty offenses.”

The Hindu quoted the state president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Prem Krishna Sharma, as saying that the BJP had closed the probe in view of state assembly elections due later this year.

“With the elections coming nearer, there are clear indications that the BJP will openly threaten the minorities and give a free hand to its rank and file to attack them,” he said.

The PUCL led a rally against the government’s move on Friday (April 25).

Government-Extremist Nexus

Dr. John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council of the Government of India, told Compass that a deep nexus existed in Rajasthan between the BJP and Hindu extremist organizations such as the VHP and its youth wing, Bajrang Dal.

“Whenever the BJP is in power, it goes all out to help Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] organizations,” he said. “The BJP governments have in the past encouraged employees, including senior government officers, to join the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] in several states, thereby making deep and long-term linkages between these militant cadres and the government apparatus. This helps the RSS even when the BJP is not in power.”

Dayal added that the BJP also defends Hindu extremists whenever they are caught committing crimes.

He said that by declining to give permission to prosecute the accused, the government was interfering with the criminal justice process. Dayal added that the BJP was sending out a signal to militant groups that they would be protected when they attack religious minorities.

“It is also signaling to the minorities,” he said, “that they cannot expect help from the government or the justice system.”

BJP, Political Wing of RSS

The BJP is widely regarded as the political wing of the RSS, India’s chief Hindutva organization, though party leaders deny it.

According to media reports, BJP President Rajnath Singh recently led a drive to pass four amendments to give overwhelming powers to RSS leaders working as BJP state officials known as “organizing secretaries.” According to one amendment, only the national party president – not even state heads – can overrule the decision of a state organizing secretary.

Thanks to the amendments, according to the reports, the RSS presence will nearly double in the BJP. The RSS, also referred to as BJP’s ideological mentor, helps the party in its election campaigns.

Rajinder Puri, a veteran political analyst, has noted: “The BJP is a party of leaders without workers. The workers belong to the RSS. That is why the RSS controls BJP. That is why BJP leaders do not emerge through a healthy political process but are appointed by the RSS … The RSS functions like a bunch of oligarchs squabbling behind the curtain.”

The BJP declares on its website that it “is today the most prominent member of the family of organizations known as the ‘Sangh Parivar,’ [organizations in the family of the RSS].”

Historical Bias Against Christians

Soon after coming into power, the BJP in August 2004 lifted a ban on the distribution, acquisition and carrying of trishuls – sharp, three-pronged knives or tridents – often used in attacks against Christians. The VHP openly distributes these tridents to its supporters.

On July 7, 2004 the government withdrew 122 cases related to religion-related violence, including five cases registered against Hindu extremists for damaging houses belonging to the Muslim community in Banswara district in September 2002. A case directed against seven Muslims in the same area was not withdrawn.

In May 2006, Christians uncovered the preparation of a “databank of churches and missionary organizations” by police in Udaipur district. (See Compass Direct News, “State Secretly Surveys Churches, Missions,” May 31, 2006)

A questionnaire used to gather information for the database asked for the “ideology of the priest of the church or the head of the organization.” It also sought a detailed description of the activities of Christian institutions, their sources of income and financial aid, legal status, fixed assets, and information on residents of any hostel facilities they may run.

Anti-conversion’ law takes effect in fifth state in India

Gujarat implements legislation passed in 2003

By Vishal Arora

Compass Direct News (28.04.2008) / HRWF (30.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat state has implemented an “anti-conversion” law passed in 2003, increasing Christians’ fears that it will open the door to false accusations by Hindu extremists.

India’s Freedom of Religion Acts, referred to as anti-conversion laws, are supposed to curb religious conversions made by “force,” “fraud” or “allurement.” But Christians and rights groups say that in reality the laws obstruct conversion generally, as Hindu nationalists invoke them to harass Christian workers with spurious arrests and incarcerations.

Rules of implementation under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act of 2003 were framed on April 1, The Times of India reported, adding that those convicted of “forced” conversion could receive up to three years in jail.

“From now on, anyone wishing to convert will have to tell the government why they were doing it and for how long they had been following the religion which they were renouncing, failing which, they will be declared offenders and prosecuted under criminal laws,” the daily reported on Saturday (April 26).

Social Impact

“There is absolutely no truth in the allegation that Christians use unfair means to convert the poor and Dalits to Christianity,” the Rev. Dr. Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, told Compass.

Besides numerous false complaints by Hindu nationalist groups against Christian workers under other states’ anti-conversion laws, the legislation has a negative social impact.

“These [anti-conversion] laws have a negative social impact on Christians, as people try to ostracize the Christian community whose only purpose to them seems to be to convert, thereby belittling all the social work the community does for the masses,” Emmanuel said. “Christian workers are prevented from reaching out to the needy, who too will continue to suffer.”

Emmanuel added that the legislation also had a bearing on the status of those who are “prevented to embrace Christianity, joining which they would break away from the caste hierarchy [in Hinduism] and be treated on equal status with other believers.”

He noted that such legislation seems to leave many citizens with a false impression that conversion itself is illegal in the country; frequently intolerant Hindus accuse Christians merely of “conversion,” rather than “forced” or “fraudulent” conversion.

Emmanuel added that the only purpose of anti-conversion rhetoric, which later gets translated into anti-conversion laws, is to “demonize the miniscule, peace-loving Christian community with an eye on consolidating the Hindu votes.”

The BJP in Gujarat is infamous for persecuting religious minorities of Muslims and Christians.

In 2002, Hindu nationalist groups killed more than 2,000 Muslims, as the BJP government reportedly looked on. In 1998, Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists launched a series of attacks for more than 10 days in Gujarat’s Dangs district.

According to the 2001 census, there are only 284,092 Christians in Gujarat, which has a total population of more than 50 million.

Conversion Made Difficult

The rules under the Gujarat law make it obligatory for clergy seeking to convert someone from one religion to another to obtain prior permission of the district magistrate in order to avoid police action.

Clergy will be required to sign a detailed form providing personal information on the person whom she/he wishes to convert, whether the one to be converted is a minor, a member of Scheduled Caste (Dalit) or Tribe (aboriginal), her/his marital status, occupation and monthly income.

“Anyone willing to convert will have to apply to the district magistrate a month before the rituals involved in conversion and give details on the place of conversion, time and reason,” noted The Times of India. “After getting converted, the person will have to obligatorily provide information within 10 days on the rites to the district magistrate, reason for conversion, the name of the priest who has carried out the ritual and full details of the persons who took part in the ceremony.”

The district magistrate will have to send a quarterly report to the government listing the number of applications for prior permission, comparative statistics of the earlier quarter, reasons for granting or not granting permission, number of conversions and number of actions against offenders.

Although Christians are now more apprehensive about their safety in Gujarat, the BJP’s move was not unexpected.

The Gujarat government had taken up the legislation a month after revoking an amendment bill, the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill of 2006, which sought to make the law more stringent.

The BJP revoked the amendment bill on March 10 in an apparent attempt to implement the 2003 version of the legislation that had remained dormant. (See Compass Direct News, “State Revokes ‘Anti-Conversion’ Amendment Bill,” March 11.)

The Gujarat government repealed the amendment bill as Gujarat Gov. Nawal Kishore Sharma had refused to give his assent to it in July of last year, saying it “violated the right to religious freedom.” Following the governor’s move, the government on August 1 officially declared that it would reactivate the 2003 anti-conversion law, reported The Indian Express.

The repealed amendment bill stipulated that people from the Jain and Buddhist faiths would be construed as denominations of Hindu religion – a provision that was opposed by leaders from the Jain and Buddhist communities, as even the government census distinguishes between Hinduism and the other two faiths. It also sought to exclude from the definition of “conversion” the renouncing of one denomination for another.

Hurdle in Rajasthan State

Anti-conversion laws are now in force in five states – Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh, and they have been passed but are yet to be implemented in Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states.

In Rajasthan, the BJP government is facing a hurdle in implementing the new law it passed earlier this year – Gov. S.K. Singh refused to give his assent, so the party seeks to replace the Rajasthan Religious Freedom Bill 2006 with a newer version, reported The Statesman on April 20.

“The Rajasthan Religious Freedom Bill 2008 was re-introduced and passed in the budget session with some amendments since its earlier draft was widely slammed as a draconian attempt by the BJP government to curb religious freedom in the state,” said the daily.

The dormant law of Arunachal Pradesh is not likely to be implemented in near future, given that no attempts have been made in that direction since it was passed in 1978.

The head of the National Commission for Minorities, Mohammad Shafi Qureshi, has said the panel will set up a committee to examine if anti-conversion laws in India throttle people’s freedom to practice any faith, reported Indo-Asian News Service on March 28.

Pending Legislation

The BJP also has introduced amendment bills to make existing anti-conversion laws more stringent in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. But both bills are facing objections by their respective governors.

Chhattisgarh Gov. Ekkadu Srinivasan Lakshmi Narsimhan raised objections to two provisions of the state amendment bill – obtaining permission from the district collector (administrative head) before any conversion, “and allowing people to return to Hinduism and not treating this as conversion,” reported news agency Press Trust of India on August 22, 2007. Gov. Narsimhan reportedly referred the bill to the state law department for assessment.

Earlier, in June 2007, Attorney General of India Milon Banerji criticized the Madhya Pradesh state anti-conversion amendment bill passed by the BJP on July 21, 2006. Madhya Pradesh Gov. Balram Jakhar had sought Banerji’s opinion on the proposed amendment.

The proposed amendment in Madhya Pradesh requires clergy and “prospective converts” to notify authorities of the intent to change religion one month before a “conversion ceremony.” In its current form, the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act of 1968 requires that notice be sent to the district magistrate within seven days of conversion.

Maharashtra Law

A local Hindutva leader in Borivali area of the state capital of Maharashtra state, Mumbai, has demanded an anti-conversion law in the state – apparently under the same, increasingly mistaken notion that such legislation is designed to prevent conversion altogether.

Swami Narendracharya, popularly known as Narendra Maharaj, was quoted yesterday (April 27) on the website of a private news channel, Zee News, as saying. “An anti-conversion law is needed ... Nobody should be converted, whatsoever be his religion.”

“Re-conversion,” for Maharaj, is apparently a different matter. He claimed that he recently re-converted around 1,800 tribal Christians back to Hinduism, and that in total he has re-converted to Hinduism 42,220 people, mostly from tribal areas of Maharashtra and neighboring Gujarat state.

Recent incidents of persecution

By Shireen Bhatia and Nirmala Carvalho

Compass Direct News (14.04.2008) / HRWF (16.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on April 8 stormed into a Bible study in a house in Shimoga district, Karnataka and accused a church pastor and the homeowner of forcible conversion. In Gondikoppa village, Theerthahalli taluk, the 15 extremists led by Raju Shetty and Basappa Shetty shouted curses as they barged into the home, grabbed Bibles from Christians and threatened harm if they continued meeting, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). Pastor Dondari Nameraj was away for a pastors’ meeting, but the extremists grabbed homeowner Raghuram Shetty by the collar and angrily questioned him about the whereabouts of Nameraj, said Dr. Sajan K. George of the GCIC. The intolerant Hindus accused Shetty and the pastor of forcibly converting villagers to Christianity and later filed a false complaint of forcible conversion against them at the Theerthahalli police station, George told Compass. Laxmi Narayan Gowda, GCIC’s regional coordinator, told Compass that around 20 police officers arrived and took Raghuram for questioning to the police station. “They angrily questioned Raghuram and released him at 2 a.m. the next morning,” Gowda said. “Nameraj, who returned from Bangalore at 7:30 a.m. on April 12, went immediately to the police station, was questioned for the whole day and was released at 5:30 p.m. without being charged, but with a warning not to conduct any prayer meetings.” No Sunday worship was held yesterday (April 13), as police were patrolling the village, he said.

Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal stormed St. Joseph’s Convent School in Raigad, Maharashtra on April 7 demanding that photographs of Hindu deities be put up inside the school. Abraham Mathai, vice-chairperson of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, told Compass that at about 10:30 a.m. nearly 50 extremists, both men and women, barged into the school and ordered an administrator identified only as Sister Consolata to put up pictures of Hindu deities and Indian leaders. School staff members had phoned local police as soon as they saw the mob entering the premises, but officers arrived an hour later, with the Hindus harassing the nun until then, Mathai said. “They even tried to force the nun to sign a statement written in the vernacular Marathi language, but she refused to do,” Mathai said. “They even slapped a student’s parent who tried to speak up in favor of the nun.” Hindu radicals are increasingly targeting Christian missionaries in the Raigad area, he said. “This takes place despite assurances from the state authorities of security to the Christian community,” Mathai added. At press time no Hindu extremists had been arrested.

Hindu extremists from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad desecrated a Catholic church and ransacked a convent school in Harsodan village in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh on April 5, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. The extremists, allegedly led by Om Patidar of Tajpur village, rushed into the school office of Jai Amala Convent School and threw down a statue of the Virgin Mary, barged into classrooms and broke windows, benches, desks and chairs, according to the bishops conference. Father Anand Muttungal, spokesperson of the Madhya Pradesh Catholic Bishops’ Conference, told Compass, “After destroying the Marian statue in the school, the extremists rushed into St. Amla Church, which is in the same compound, and broke another statue of Mother Mary and also tore up a Bible and prayer books.” Later, when the school principal and a few teachers went to Chimangang Mandi police station to file a complaint, the extremists were waiting outside the police station shouting anti-Christian slogans, he said. Police arrested and released the extremists the same day. “Unless these fundamentalists elements are charged with stiffer sections of the Indian Penal Code, such harassment of the Christian community will continue,” Fr. Muttungal said.

Hindu extremists on April 5 surrounded, harassed and verbally abused two nuns in Rajwada, a crowded market area in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Sisters Kusum and Marina, along with 18 Hindu women and two men from Rehali village, Sagar district, had come to Indore to attend a one-day training program organized by the Indore Diocese Social Service Society. “A few [Hindu extremist] Bajrang Dal members surrounded the group and started to question the nuns, using abusive language, and charged them with forcible conversion,” a priest identified only as Father Prasad from the Diocese of Indore told Compass. “The Hindu ladies told the extremists that they were still Hindus and were here just for a workshop.” Disregarding their statements, the Bajrang Dal members reportedly made phone calls and quickly gathered a mob of 150 people. They pushed the nuns and dragged them to the M.G. Road police station, demanding that a First Information Report be registered against them. Police found the allegations had no substance and refused to file charges against the nuns, but the mob surrounded the police station, manhandling some officers and demanding that the nuns be arrested. The Hindu women, some with their infants, were forced to wait in the police station for five hours as the mob carried on. Finally police somehow managed to put the group in a secured vehicle and drove to the railway station through the mob.

Hindu extremists on March 29 burned two houses to ashes after repeatedly warning a Christian family in Vavadi village, Jhabua district to stop worshiping at the home. The house belonged to Ratan Bhai Bhuria, a farmer and an elder of the house church. About 15 families gathered regularly for worship in Bhuria’s courtyard and in the adjoining house of his son, Mal Singh Bhuria. “At around noon, when both the families were out in the fields, the Hindu fundamentalists burned both the houses,” said Kemta Chauhan, an evangelist from Jobat village. “All their belongings and the food grain that they had stored were burnt.” Around 200 villagers came forward to extinguish the fire as it was spreading to surrounding houses. A First Information Report has been filed, but Chauhan said that “out of fear the eyewitnesses do not want to give statements against the miscreants, and Ratan Bhai himself has not mentioned their names in the FIR.” Pastor Rasia Damore said that no worship service has been held in the village since the incident.

Four of five pastors and Gospel for Asia (GFA) workers were arrested for watching the “Jesus” film and “Dayasagar,” a Hindi film on Jesus in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh on March 28. Four pastors of the Believers Church of India were watching the film in the home of pastor Dinesh Damor when policemen arrived and took all except Damor, who managed to hide, to the Rawti police station on charges of fraudulent conversions. Hindu extremists from the local Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh group filed the charges. Police also confiscated the two films. Babu Lal Damore of the GFA informed Compass that they were taken to the district Superintendent of Police’s office at Ratlam city and the films were screened in his presence. The superintendent found nothing objectionable in the films and instructed police to press no charges against the pastors. But then, Damore told Compass, “the police sub-inspector received a phone call from Bhopal in the police station in their presence, and then they were taken to the nearby Sailana police station, where they were beaten mercilessly.” A false case of fraudulent conversion has been filed against the pastors under the state’s anti-conversion law, and they were released on bail of 5,000 rupees (US$125) on April 1.

Hindu radicals led by the local extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader forced their way into a house and assaulted three Christians in the village of Gundikoppa, Shimoga district, Karnataka, on March 26. The 15 extremists threatened to kill the Christians if they did not worship Hindu gods. The next day the intolerant Hindus forced 11 Christians to the Andaragamma Temple, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). The extremists forcibly applied tilak, a Hindu ritual mark, on their foreheads and, in the presence of Deputy Superintendent of Police Santosh Kumar and a sub-inspector from the Holevannur police station, forced them to sign a written statement saying, “We accepted Christ on our own will, and now we accept Hinduism on our own free will.” But one of the 11 Christians, Hanumantha Naik told the extremists, “Even if you take my life, I will not deny Christ and I will continue to go to church no matter what,” The GCIC reported. “All the time these radicals have been blaming Christians for forcibly converting, and here we see that the conversions are forced by the Hindu radicals,” Sajan K. George, GCIC national president, told Compass. “It is sad to the extent that these people have been forced and police are conniving with the radicals.”

More than three months after anti-Christian violence burned hundreds of churches and Christian-owned homes to ashes in Kandhamal district, three Christians are in judicial custody on fabricated charges in connection with the murder of a Hindu in Barakhamar village. Prakash Kumar Nayak, Dasarath Digal and Aibara Nayak were booked after Prakash Nayak approached police to file a report against a Hindu mob for violence during the Christmastime rioting. Officers instead arrested Nayak, jailed him and filed a First Information Report against him in connection with a Hindu killed during the violence in Barakhamar. Later arrested were Digal and Aibara Nayak on the same charge. The latter has refuted the charge, asserting that he was one of the victims of the communal and ethnic violence. All three have been denied bail, attorney Bibhu Dutta Das told Compass. Regarding Aibara Nayak, Dass said, “It is a fabricated news item. He never made any attempt to engineer the riots or communal and ethnic violence.” The attorney said four other Christians suspected of involvement in the murder have fled.

Two pastors attacked in Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh

All India Christian Council (14.04.2008) / HRWF (15.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Hindu fanatics have attacked two Pastors for distributing Christian literature at Devarakonda in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh.

Pastor Mark and Evangelist John Kumar were visiting one of the independent pastors at Devarakonda in Nalgonda district on 14 April 2008 and distributing Christian literature among the children when a mob of 50 people led by three activists belonging Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh (RSS) arrived and attacked them with sticks, leaving them badly injured. John Kumar’s hand was broken.

Evangelist John Kumar was rushed to the Government Hospital in Nalgonda for treatment. A complaint was lodged on 16 April 2008 and the case booked under Section IPC 324, 506, against the three RSS leaders who led the attack.. On 17 April 2008 the three RSS leaders were arrested and released on bail the same day. The Christian community in the area expressed disappointment over the way the case was handled.

All India Christian Council has condemned the attack and sought action against the culprits.

1,000 Dalit Christians to reconvert to Hinduism in TN

The Times of India (13.04.2008) / HRWF (15.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Thousand members who belong to Dalit Christian community will officially get reconverted into Hinduism on Monday in Tirunelveli town in a colourful function being organized by Hindu Monks Tamil Nadu Council.

This event gains significance in the backdrop March 9 police shootout in which two people were killed when clashes broke out between the members of upper caste Catholics and Dalit Catholics.

Speaking to TOI, Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK) president Arjun Sampath said: "185 families of Dalit Christians will formally return to Hinduism. All of them hail from the interior villages of Tirunelveli district. This event is being organized on the occasion of Ambedkar’s birthday."

HMK had earlier tried to hold the event at Nellayappar temple in Tirunelveli. However, the HR&CE department which governs the temple refused permission saying that the temple premises could not be used for such purposes.

"So, we’re now holding the function at Nellai Sangeetha Sabha - which is a private hall", Arjun said. It’s learnt the function will start with a ganapathi homam and would be followed by prayaschitha yagam (atonement ritual) and sudhi chadangu (purification rite).

"We’ll purify all those who return to Hinduism by sprinkling ‘ganga theertha’ and ‘sethu theertha.’ We’ve specially brought waters from Rameshwaram sea and the Ganges for this purpose", Arjun said and added all of them would also be bestowed with holy Hindu names.

Further, those who want to follow Saiva cult would be given bhasmam (sacred ash) and a string of rudraksha while the vaishnavite converts would be given namam (tilak) and a string of tulsi. The Dalit Christians who return to Hindu fold would also be given a mantra deeksha (formal initiation) both in Sanskrit and Tamil.

HMK has also engaged the services of several notaries who would be present during the re-conversion function. "The members who return to Hindu fold will take an oath before them and sign affidavits. Later, we’ll get the conversion certificates from Arya Samaj to get their names changed in the gazette", Arjun said.

Depending on the success of this re-conversion, HMK also plans to re-convert 20,000 Christians in Villupuram district. "We’ll take it up in August", Arjun said.

India has a total 24 million Christian population. Of this Dalit Christians constitute 15 million while tribal Christians account for 3 million.

In Tamil Nadu, Dalit Christians complain of discrimination at the hands of upper caste Christians. They have separate burial grounds and seating arrangements.

Mgr Saldanha slams murder of Hindu, killed for alleged blasphemy

By Qaiser Felix

AsiaNews (09.04.2008) / HRWF (10.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Sentenced to death by his Muslim co-workers, 22-year-old Jagdeesh Kumar was beaten for almost half an hour and left to die in the leather factory where he worked. Charging him with blasphemy the workers arbitrarily enforced the country’s infamous law which imposes the death penalty for anyone guilty of defiling or blaspheming against Islam and the prophet Muhammad.

Mgr John Saldanha, archbishop of Lahore and chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan and of its National Commission for Justice and Peace, harshly slammed the killing.

“Changes to the blasphemy law to prevent abuses have not improved ordinary people’s lives; they are still victims of people led by emotions and instincts who take the law into their own hands,” he said. “The government should heed demands from the population for the law to be scrapped.”

The archbishop said that killing someone without solid evidence and without a trial is clearly an irresponsible act. He urges the authorities to investigate this case.

“Incidents such as this in which people take the law into their own hands, meting out justice to alleged offenders, are shocking and upsetting,” Monsignor Saldanha said.

This case must become a test for the new government to show that “laws are applied and that all citizens are considered equal before the law.”

Police arrived on the scene after the incident and confirmed that Jagdeesh’s alleged blasphemous statements provoked his co-workers into beating him to death.

But the blasphemy accusations have not convinced the family who believe that religion had nothing to do with it. For them it is just a personal vendetta.

Jagdeesh’s brother-in-law Raju said that “he was a simple young man and knew little about religion. We came to Karachi to earn a living, not to take part in religious disputes. It is very easy to kill a member of a minority and then accuse him of blasphemy. This is why we want the inquiry to go ahead.”

In Pakistan blasphemy is punishable by the death, but no one has officially been sentenced. However, some 30 people have been the victims of illegal summary justice, even in police custody.

The places of worship of religious minorities and the homes of their members have often come under attack.

In Pakistan Hindus are minority representing 1.6 per cent of the population of this Muslim nation of about 160 million people.

Recent incidents of persecution

By Nirmala Carvalho and Shireen Bhatia

Compass Direct News (31.03.2008) / HRWF (01.04.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Peerzada Shakeel, a convert to Christianity from Islam in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir state, was arrested along with his wife Arifa on March 26 on false charges of forced conversions after he refused to deny Christ. On March 21 (Good Friday), members of the local mosque broke into his house and beat Shakeel, asking him why he was not offering Islamic prayers. They dragged him to the mosque and further struck him when he told them he would worship none other than Christ. Shakeel’s father, local mosque member Peerzada Gulam Nabi, brought the charge against him, and Shakeel and his wife were arrested and taken to the Ram Munshi Bagh police station at Sonwar, Srinagar, said a source who requested anonymity. Since becoming a Christian in 2006, Shakeel has faced severe opposition from his family and community; he and his wife had begun studying at a Bible school in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2006, but family and community pressure forced them to finish the studies in another state, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians. Shakeel and his wife were released on bail on March 27 but remain under house arrest now.

On March 23 (Easter Sunday) seven people associated with the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh attacked the evening service of a house church in Bherugarh village, Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh state. With stones and sticks, they beat the owner of the house, Bhurji Dindore of Shalom Mission, and his wife, who sustained severe injuries in her lower abdomen with internal blood clotting. They looted the house and destroyed its roof. “Money, Bibles and Christian literature from the house went missing after the attack,” Jogu Dindore, pastor of Shalom Church, told Compass. The next day, only the intervention of villagers kept the approaching Hindu extremists from attacking again. Dindore, his wounded wife and the pastor went to police at Khawasa to file a complaint, where officers told them that the assailants had filed a First Information Report against Bhurji Dindore. “One of the attackers had hurt himself while damaging Bhurji’s roof,” Pastor Dindore told Compass, “and he filed a false case against us alleging that we attempted to murder him with an axe.” Rather than taking action against the attackers, police arrested the pastor and Dindore on March 27, promising them a more likely release on bail in exchange for 6,000 rupees (US$150). “But instead they were forwarded to the Jhabua Prison,” Pastor Dindore said. They managed to secure bail after paying 1,200 rupees (US$30) to a local lawyer. “Our homes have been destroyed,” Pastor Dindore told Compass, while on a train home. “We do not know what condition our families are in, and our attackers still roam free.”

Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) extremists belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on March 9 disrupted Christian worship in a rented home in Davangare, Karnataka, severely beating members of a Brethren Assembly, with one believer requiring hospitalization for internal injuries. Pastor Philemon Babu said that among the 25 people attending Sunday morning worship was a new person fidgeting with his mobile phone. “Suddenly at around 11:30 a.m., around 30 extremists barged into the assembly shouting Hindu devotional chants, ‘Jai Shri Ram [Hail god Rama],’” Pastor Babu said. “They began slapping and hitting the believers, snatched Bibles from their hands and tore them. They made false accusations of [forced] conversion and played the recording of my sermon, which the newcomer had recorded on his mobile phone.” Cursing the Christians, the Hindu extremists beat up several of them, he added, with evangelist Jobin Varghese repeatedly struck and another identified only as Nagaranjan hospitalized with internal injuries. The intolerant Hindus left at around 1:30 p.m. with a warning not to conduct prayer meetings again or “suffer more serious consequences,” Pastor Babu told Compass. His landlord ordered him to vacate the house, and no Sunday worship has been held since, said Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, “as the believers and the pastor fear the extremists.”

A mob of about 50 local Hindu extremists attacked two Catholic nuns on March 15 in Alibaug, Raighad district in Maharashtra, reported the national daily Times of India. As Sister Mercy Tuscano and Sister Philomena D’Mello, members of Jeevan Jyoti Kendra, a non-governmental organization, were preparing to hold a women’s empowerment program to spread AIDS awareness among tribal people, nearly 20 men and 20 women gathered about them. They falsely accused the nuns of forcibly converting the tribal people to Christianity, then began throwing chairs and tables. Some of the women extremists allegedly kicked Tuscano on her private parts, dragged her by the hair 100 meters and forced her into a gutter. D’Mello was reportedly slapped and punched. Tribal person Taramati Balaram told the daily that the nuns had been associated with them for six years and never talked about God. Abraham Mathai, vice chairman of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, told Compass that anti-Christian sentiments and violence toward Christians were no longer isolated incidents in the state. “In spite of assurances from authorities of security for Christians, communal elements are always suspicious of any Christian presence at tribal gatherings and make false accusations of ‘allurement to conversion,’” Mathai said. Police arrested 13 Hindu women and men for rioting and causing minor injuries, releasing them on bail on March 15.

Hindu nationalists of the extremist Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) disrupted a Christian program entitled “Miracle” on March 14 at a playground in Koramangala, Bangalore, Karnataka, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians. “Around 7:30 p.m., a large mob of KRV activists barged into the venue and began hitting the participants,” said Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians. “Several believers were injured in the attack.” Police said KRV extremists mistook preaching at the program for “mass conversion” and disrupted the event, reported The Hindu. Soumendu Mukherji, deputy commissioner of police, told the newspaper that “the situation was tense for a while and officers made preventative arrests.” George said police arrested 20 people.

Hindu extremists belonging to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh beat pastor Tulsi Ram and had him arrested on false charges of forced conversion on March 11 in Maksi district, Shajapur in Madhya Pradesh. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said that at around 6 p.m. the Bethsida Church pastor was on his way to visit a congregant’s house with Christian literature when a mob of RSS members approached him and angrily questioned him. They snatched a Christian magazine and gospel tracts and threw them onto the road, slapping Pastor Ram, repeatedly punching and kicking him and making false accusations of forcible conversion, said Sam Mathew, regional coordinator GCIC. The Hindu extremists dragged the pastor to the Maksi police station, where he was charged for disturbing the peace and for harming and insulting religious sentiments of a community. “I have been badly beaten up, both outside and inside the police lock up,” the pastor told Compass. Reports have also confirmed that police forced him to sign blank papers. Pastor Ram was released on bail March 14.

Hindu extremists assault Christian family in India

Group threatening to kill believers in Madhya Pradesh demands to abuse 15-year-old girl

By Surinder Kaur Lal

Compass Direct News (27.03.2008) / HRWF (28.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Hindu extremists in a village in Madhya Pradesh who have harassed and threatened local Christians beat the grandparents and aunt of a 15-year-old girl last weekend when the Christian family refused to allow the group to rape her.

Shouting anti-Christian slogans and curses and drunk from a Hindu festival, nine members of the Hindu extremist Bajrang Dal on Saturday (March 22) arrived at the home of Brij Gopal Saket in Bahera village, Rewa district, and demanded that he turn over his daughter Urmila so they could abuse her.

“I pleaded and reminded them that we are brothers from the same village and community,” Saket told Compass. “They deterred not, and told me that by becoming a Christian I am no more of their community.”

Saket managed to lock himself, his wife and his daughter inside their home, but the intolerant Hindus – who have threatened to kill other members of the community unless they stop worshipping Christ – got hold of his parents and sister while they were still outside. They relentlessly beat Saket’s mother Hirawa Saket, father Sant Lal Saket, and sister Michwa.

“They hit them with rods, sticks and stones,” eyewitness Ram Mani told Compass. “Villagers gathered together to stop this brutal carnage.”

These villagers took the injured to Nai Garhi Primary Health Center, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) away. There doctors found that one of the stones had smashed the bone in the bridge of the nose of Saket’s mother. More than 60 years old, she suffered other head and body injuries.

Saket’s sister also suffered severe head injury. His father, who had been seriously ill the past four months, sustained injuries on his left hand, including a possible fracture of the middle finger.

Villagers recruited and trained by local Hindu extremist leaders Shrikant Tomar and Subhash Gupta (both belonging to high castes), have threatened to kill area Christians unless they too join the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council). Area members of the Bajrang Dal have continually harassed Christian women and denied Christians access to water from a government-installed hand-pump, said local Christians.

Since becoming a Christian two years ago, Saket said he has been attacked twice before, last January 17 as well as on July 1, 2007.

“The previous attacks were not targeted at my family,” Saket said.

A case has been registered against the assailants at the Nai Garhi police station, but no arrests have been made so far. The names of those recorded in the complaint are Bhagwandeen, Jagdish, Kanhai, Somnath, Ramesh, Suresh, Shivpal, Mohan Lal and Gopilal. Police are awaiting a final medical report.

March 22 marked the celebration of the Hindu festival of Holi in India, characterized by people putting colors on each other, but also used as an excuse for drinking binges.

There are about 40 Christians in the village who are poor, landless subsistence laborers with no political or social influence.

Rajasthan, India passes new 'anti-conversion' bill

Unconstitutional measure called more arbitrary than previous legislation

By Vishal Arora

Compass Direct News (24.03.2008) / HRWF (25.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan state on Thursday (March 20) passed a new "anti-conversion" bill with more stringent and arbitrary provisions than previous legislation stalled by objections from the former governor.

The state government passed the Rajasthan Dharam Swatantrya (Religious Freedom) Bill of 2008 by voice vote, with Congress Party members staging a walkout in order to register protest over the constitutionally questionable move, reported private news channel NDTV.

The Rev. Dr. Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman for the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, told Compass that some aspects of the new bill were more stringent and arbitrary than the previous measure.

Section 4(2) of the bill, he said, states that if a society or trust is found to be "contemplating" the use of money for converting people, its registration can be cancelled.

A representative of the Christian Legal Association (CLA) asked, "How can one decide if a registered body is 'contemplating' conversion? Since it is left to the discretion of the state government, Hindutva [Hindu nationalism] groups are likely to lodge numerous complaints against Christian organizations."

In addition, Section 5(1) makes it mandatory for anyone intending to convert to send notice at least 30 days in advance or face a fine of up to 1,000 rupees (US$25). It adds that the same requirement and penalty will not be applied to a person wishing to revert to her or his "original religion."

"The exemption of 'reconversion' from the bill's ambit is based on an unfounded assumption that a person who renounces a religion always does so out of some pressure or financial benefit," added the CLA representative. "This is why local authorities will do an inquiry only in a case of conversion out of one's 'original religion.'"

The new bill also provides for stricter punishment if the convert is underage, a woman, tribal (aboriginal) or Dalit (lowest caste formerly known as "untouchable") - two to five years of imprisonment.

Christians also complain that the bill, like anti-conversion laws in other states, only vaguely defines "force," "fraud" and "inducement," which can paralyze Christian social and evangelistic service by exposing Christian workers to false charges. The vagueness clears the way for spurious attempts to label Christ's commands to feed the hungry and make disciples as "fraud" or "inducement."

Unconstitutional

Congress Party leader Harimohan Sharma told The Hindu newspaper that a 1962 Supreme Court ruling in Purushottam Namboodiri v. State of Kerala clarified that a bill cannot be introduced in the House if another one on the same subject is pending.

"By bringing in the same legislation again, the BJP is showing disrespect to the highest constitutional office of the country," he charged.

The Rajasthan government had introduced and passed the previous bill on April 7, 2006. But then-Gov. Pratibha Patil, now India's president, refused to sign the bill. Later, she referred the bill to the president, before becoming president herself. The previous bill had been awaiting her approval.

According to the Indian Constitution, a bill does not become law until the state governor signs it, after which the state can frame rules for implementation.

"When she [Patil] refused to give this assent as the governor, how can she accept it as the president?" C.P. Joshi, Congress Party president of Rajasthan, reportedly said. "She has given her clear legal view against this bill. The [BJP's] attempt to bring back this bill is a grave attempt to undermine the constitutional office of the presidency."

Madan Dilawar, Rajasthan state's Social Welfare minister, claimed that in tribal areas and localities of poor Dalits, "all kinds of efforts" were being made to "tempt or force" people to change their religion. "We will not tolerate these designs," he told NDTV.

In a similar move, the BJP on March 11 revoked the Gujarat (state) Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill of 2006 in an apparent attempt to implement the older version of the legislation passed in 2003, which was yet to be brought in force. The state repealed it as the governor had refused to give his assent to it in July of last year. (See Compass Direct News, "State in India Revokes 'Anti-Conversion' Amendment Bill?," March 11.)

Anti-conversion laws are in force in four states, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh. Such legislation also exists in the states of Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh but has not been implemented.

Heightened Fears

Christians in Rajasthan fear more opposition in the already tense state.

NDTV quoted Father John Matthew, a pastor of Emmanuel Mission International (EMI) in the state capital of Jaipur, as saying, "Now we won't be able say anything about God or praise our Lord in public, because in this bill even a supposed intent to convert can be a cause for arrest. So there's no question of propagating our religion. This is against our fundamental rights under the constitution."

Several violent attacks have been reported recently in Rajasthan. On April 29, 2007, the Christian community looked on with horror as intolerant Hindus brutally attacked a priest, Walter Masih, on film that aired on a national TV channel.

Earlier, in February 2006, the state government targeted EMI, based in Kota district, under the pretext of objections to a book, Haqeeqat (Reality), which allegedly denigrated Hindu gods.

Claiming that EMI was distributing the book, authorities arrested EMI leaders and cancelled the registration of their ministry societies. A Supreme Court ruling in August of that year, however, restored the registrations and unfroze the accounts until the case is resolved. The arrested leaders remain free on bail.

There are only 72,660 Christians out of the total population of more than 56 million in Rajasthan, according to the 2001 Census. There has been no proven case of conversion by unfair means.

The state will hold legislature elections later this year.

Christians from India languish in Bangladeshi jail

Arrested for crossing border, their government leaves them locked up

By Aenon Shalom

Compass Direct News (21.03.2008) / HRWF (22.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - A group of Christians from India are languishing in a Bangladeshi prison even after finishing a three-month jail term for unknowingly overstepping an unmarked border between the two countries as they proclaimed Christ, authorities said.

Bangladeshi authorities say officials from India have failed to respond to requests to undertake the proper protocol for their release.

Police and jail officials said joint forces led by the army detained the 14 evangelists five months ago as they unknowingly trekked inside Bangladeshi territory near the Roma area of Bandarban hill district, some 272 kilometers (169 miles) southeast of the capital.

Ranging in age from 20 to 32, the evangelists – including four women and a 51-year-old man – were arrested at a point where mountains obscure the border where India’s Mizoram province and Bangladesh’s Bandarban district meet.

The Christians were sentenced to three months of prison by a Bandarban district court on charges of border trespass, said Inspector General of Prison Brig. Gen. Zakir Hasan.

“Their jail term was finished on February 28,” Hasan said. “We applied to our home ministry on February 9 about their repatriation to India.”

Normally Bangladesh’s home ministry informs the foreign ministry, and the foreign ministry deals with the concerned embassy or high commission about the repatriation of the foreign nationals who are imprisoned in foreign jails, said Hasan.

“But so far, we did not get any information about their repatriation,” said Hasan. “If their [India’s] high commission does not take any initiative about their repatriation, they will be in jail sine die [indefinitely].”

Bangladesh is “very much willing” to send the evangelists back to their country, Hassan said, but is proscribed from doing so without action from India’s high commission.

“If we release them without their high commission’s initiative, they will be caught again in Bangladeshi territory for not having any valid documents and passports,” Hasan said. “They will be put in jail for another crime.”

Roma neighborhood Sub-Inspector Babar Ali said Bangladeshi border patrols arrested the 14 evangelists on November 27 of last year, handed them over to local police the next day, and the Christians appeared in court on November 29.

“Those Christian people were actually preaching Christianity in that mountainous terrain,” said Ali. “They could not understand the demarcation line of the border between India and Bangladesh. In actual fact, there is no demarcation line of border there.”

Ali said the Christians had no illegal purpose for entering the country.

“Rather, they entered mistakenly while preaching their religion in predominantly tribal locality,” he said. “We investigated whether they were engaged in any illegal or criminal activities in Bangladeshi territory, but our investigation has drawn a blank. We did not find them involved in any criminal activities.”

Investigators found only Christian literature on them, Ali added.

India and Bangladesh share a 2,545-mile (4,095-kilometer) border that is largely unfenced. There are 111 Indian enclaves (locally known as Chits) in Bangladesh territory covering 17,258.24 acres, and there are 51 Bangladesh enclaves in Indian territory measuring 7,083.72 acres.

Hindu extremists in India forcibly ‘re-convert’ Christians

Believers lured to temple in Himachal Pradesh, pressured to deny their faith

By Surinder Kaur Lal

Compass Direct News (14.03.2008) / HRWF (15.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Hindu extremists recently carried out a well-planned scheme to lure to a temple and forcibly convert scores of Christians from villages around this capital city of Himachal Pradesh state.

Offering money, making threats, or leading the Christians to believe they were going to government offices for official paperwork, Hindu extremists from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on February 27 lured the believers to the Satyanarayan Temple in the heart of Rampur Bushar.

At the temple, a haranguing speaker and others pressured about 200 people to re-convert, forcing many of them to participate in rituals and purification ceremonies.

Ramlal Kanol, who is blind, said four men came to his house on February 26, first offering him money to go with them, then threatening to imprison and fine him if he didn’t.

“I was forced to participate in the Hindu rituals, and I could not resist the force in the temple because of the massive crowd surrounding us,” he said. As part of the purification ceremony, Christians were made to have their feet washed and to drink Gangajal, the water of the River Ganges.

By one Christian pastor’s estimate, about 30 percent of those present were Hindus pretending to be Christians re-converting back to Hinduism.

“The crowd was gathered together to make a show that all of them are converted Christians re-converting to Hinduism,” said pastor Bhadur Singh, who along with 20 members of his church was lured to the temple by local politician named Brij Lal. Lal took them by bus supposedly for them to support his bid to win election to office.

Local media subsequently reported that 60 families had reconverted to Hinduism in purification ceremonies performed by Hindu priest Lal Dass.

Kanol, who has a preaching and healing ministry with Amar Jyoti India in Bhutti village, said the four Hindu extremists who came to his house on February 26 offered him money, and then threatened him and his wife Meera Devi with seven years of prison and a fine of 15,000 rupees (US$372) if he did acquiesce to their demands.

“They threatened me, asking me to ‘Continue your work with the poor and healing the sick, but in the name of Ram, not Christ,’” he said.

Claiming that they were from an organization called Seva Bharati, the Hindu extremists offered Kanol an annual salary if he would do his service to humanity in the name of the Hindu god.

The Hindu extremists – “Heera Lal, Joginder, and a lady named Nirmala” among others – finally persuaded Kanol and his wife to accompany them to Rampur Bushar “for some official paper work,” he said.

His wife Meera Nevi recounted, “Instead, we were taken to the Hindu temple where they washed our feet, put a Hindu stole around our neck, and made us go around the temple. When we reached the temple, around 200 people from various villages were already brought there for the ceremony of re-conversion. I recognized only one of them.”

The harassment did not end that day. Some of the Hindu extremists came to Kanol’s house the next morning to set up a Hindu altar in his house in place of his cross and Christian altar.

“I told them straight, ‘I will never remove the cross, even if I have to die,’” Kanol said.

Sign Here

Among those taken by bus to the temple was Amar Singh, a Christian from Ganvi village.

Upon reaching the temple, Singh also was pressured to participate in the rituals and purification ceremonies.

“Brij Lal filled out some kind of a form which I did not sign – so he signed it himself for me,” Singh told Compass. “I, along with my family, will still follow Christ and go for the worship service to church.”

Anita Negi of Jhakadi village told Compass that two Hindu extremists told her to bring personal court case documents to authorities. While her husband was at work, she went with the two men, who took her to the Satyanarayan Temple.

“A man continuously lectured the crowd, persuading us to re-convert to Hinduism,” Negi said, adding that she there recognized four Christian women and three young children from her village.

“They did not give us opportunity to speak,” she said. “As soon as we entered, they welcomed us with garlands, Hindu temple songs, and we were made to eat food that was sacrificed to Hindu idols.”

Local Hindu extremists approached her husband, Sukhchand Negi, the next morning on his way to work and threatened him unless he forsook his Christian faith. He capitulated, she said with evident distress – their three children were also forced to re-convert – adding that her husband told her, “If you want to continue to believe, believe secretly, don’t force me.”

The Hindu extremists issued threats throughout the district. Dharmendra Kanol told Compass, “They sent me threatening messages, through the villagers, of attacking me with sticks in order to take me along to Rampur Bushar, but I did not [go].”

Lal Chand, one of 20 Christians taken from Ganvi village to the temple in Rampur Bushar, said the bus first stopped at a hotel where they were told to fill out a questionnaire asking, “What is your religion? What religion did you convert to? What means were adopted to convert you? Now are you willing to re-convert to Hinduism?”

“Then we were further lead to the Satyanarayan Temple,” Chand said.

‘Returning Home’

Local television channels and newspapers termed these incidents “returning home” in reports on February 28.

Amar Ujjala newspaper published statements from RSS and Bajrang Dal officials welcoming families who had returned to their “original homes,” saying they were glad that the re-converted families have recognized the “wrong intention” of Christians and their preachers and had decided to return to the Hindu fold.

They also claimed that they would organize more such “homecoming” events in other parts of Himachal Pradesh.

The state last year passed a controversial “Freedom of Religion Bill” mandating that anyone converting from one religion to another must first give notice to district magistrates, but it does not restrict people from reverting back to their “original religion,” which in most cases is deemed to be Hinduism.

The Christian population in Himachal Pradesh is 0.13 percent of the total.

Kuldeep Dogra, baptized a Christian four years ago, was among those lured to the temple. “I did not know that they would make me do all this,” he said. “I am badly hurt.”

Sundar Singh, one of the 20 Christians taken by bus to the temple, said there were about 10 cameramen there.

“I felt detestable,” he said. “That was the worst day of my life.”

Attacks by Hindu extremists on Christians

HRWF (13.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it –

WRITTEN QUESTION by Robert Kilroy-Silk (NI) to the Commission

What conversations has the Commission had with the Government of India about the attacks by Hindu extremists on Christians and churches in Kandomol District, Orissa State, India?

E-0787/08EN

Answer given by Mrs Ferrero-Waldner

on behalf of the Commission

(12.3.2008)

Upon becoming aware of numerous credible reports of violence against Christians, their property and churches in the Indian state of Orissa in December 2007, the Commission conveyed its concern to the Indian diplomatic mission to the European Union. Since that time, the Commission has remained seized of this issue with EU representatives in Delhi recently expressing concern to Indian interlocutors about the protection of Scheduled Castes/Dalits, the protection of the vulnerable in Orissa and the need to ensure that such violence is not repeated.

Religious freedoms in India

HRWF (13.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it -

WRITTEN QUESTION by Sajjad Karim (PPE‑DE) to the Commission

Over the course of late December, I understand that there have been countless attacks on the Christian community in the state of Orissa in India. I have been informed that the Indian authorities in the state have done either little or nothing to intervene in such abuse and have not yet investigated the attacks. I have been advised that 95 churches have been destroyed, 730 Christian homes were burnt down and a crude bomb was thrown at the Catholic Archbishop of Bhubaneswar.

Does the Commission plan to encourage the Indian authorities to see that justice is served to the perpetrators of such brutalities?

What measures has the Commission taken to raise the issues of caste discrimination, anti-Christian violence and anti-conversion legislation with the Indian Government?

Would the Commission consider reminding the Indian Government that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes Act must be implemented properly and monitored effectively?

E-0846/08EN

Answer given by Mrs Ferrero-Waldner

on behalf of the Commission

(12.3.2008)

Commission officials in both Brussels and Delhi have raised this issue with Indian interlocutors. The Commission has expressed the concern felt in Europe over the scale of the violence and the targeting of religious minorities. Indian officials have manifested awareness of the importance of pursuing justice and protecting the vulnerable.

In response to the reports of violence, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), an Indian Government body, sent a team on a fact-finding mission to Orissa earlier in January 2008 and has published a report which attempts to analyse and explain the reasons for the outbreak of violence. According to the report, in addition to religious causes, a climate of inter-communal tension arose partly as a result of competition between Dalit and Tribal groups. The report recommends, inter alia, that the State Government of Orissa:

- determine whether the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) incited violence and take appropriate action if it did;

- issue a White Paper on religious conversion issue to dispel suspicion of the Christian community and its institutions;

- provide an enhanced rehabilitation package to the victims of violence;

- increase police numbers and provide them with better training and equipment;

- improve communication with civil society organizations and non-governmental organisations to ensure that authorities are better aware of tensions that could cause future incidents;

- create a State Minorities Commission to safeguard the rights of minorities;

- ease tensions between different groups by extending the reservation for government employment and education to Christian Dalits.

The Commission’s Delegation in New Delhi will continue to follow closely the efforts of the Indian authorities to pursue the perpretrators of the December 2007 violence in Orissa and to prevent future outbreaks.

State in India revokes ‘anti-conversion’ amendment bill

Gujarat likely to try implementing dormant law of 2003

by Vishal Arora

Compass Direct News (11.03.2008) / HRWF (12.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - The Gujarat state government yesterday revoked the “anti-conversion” amendment bill in an apparent attempt to implement an older version of the legislation passed in 2003 that has remained dormant.

Ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the state repealed the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill of 2006 in the assembly House as the governor had refused to give his assent to it in July of last year, reported The Times of India daily.

“The repeal of the amendment bill seems to be a step towards bringing in force the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act of 2003, which remains pending ever since it was passed,” Lansinglu Rongmei of the Christian Legal Association told Compass.

On July 31, 2007 G ujarat Gov. Nawal Kishore Sharma said the anti-conversion amendment bill “violated the right to religious freedom.” Following the governor’s move, the Gujarat government on August 1 officially declared that it would reactivate the dormant 2003 anti-conversion law, reported The Indian Express national daily.

Dr. Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, said Christians were not satisfied with just the withdrawal of the amendment bill.

“In fact, the whole 2003 Act must be scrapped stock and barrel, and not just by the Gujarat government but in all the other states where they exist,” he told Compass.

For or Against Religious Freedom?

India’s Freedom of Religion Acts, which are referred to as anti-conversion laws, are supposed to curb religious conversions made by “force,” “fraud” or “allurement.” But Christians and rights groups say that in reality the laws obstruct conversion generally, as Hindu nationalists invoke them to harass Christian workers with spurious arrests and incarcerations.

Emmanuel added that various anti-conversion laws “mischievously called Freedom of Religion Bills or Acts” were aimed at harassing Christians and stopping the work missionaries trying to bring up the status of downtrodden Dalits (formerly known as “untouchables”) and tribal (aboriginal) people who have been exploited by the “higher castes” for centuries.

Harsh Mander, a social activist and former official in the Gujarat government, told Compass the freedom to propagate one’s faith was not only guaranteed by the Constitution but was also integral to a much more ancient ethos of the country “of tolerance of diversity of belief systems.”

The anti-conversion laws chip away at religious freedom, claiming to fight fraud, bribery and intimidation – all crimes for which no new law is needed, he said. Mander added that the anti-conversion laws are not applied to “reconversion” to Hinduism.

“I have seen thousands of alleged reconversions back to Hinduism in Chattisgarh led by [BJP leader Dilip Singh] Judeo without fulfilling the requirements under the state’s anti-conversion law,” he said. “It must apply to reconversion as well.”

Mander resigned from the government in 2002, when more than 2,000 Muslims were killed allegedly by Hindu nationalist groups in Gujarat as the BJP government merely looked on.

“As one who has served in the IAS [Indian administrative Service] for over two decades, I feel great shame at the abdication of duty of my peers in the civil and police administration,” Mander told the media in his resignation announcement. “The blood of hundreds of innocents is on the hands of police and civil authorities in Gujarat.”

The killing of Muslims took place under the pretext of taking revenge for the death of Hindu nationalists in a train fire in Godhra city. The perpetrators alleged that some Muslims had set the train compartment on fire.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Bill was initially passed by the state assembly on March 26, 2003. The government, however, was unable to frame implementing rules, reportedly because of objections by the state legal department over some of its provisions. To clear the hurdles, the government on September 19, 2006 introduced the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill.

The 2003 bill seeks to ban “conversion from one religion to another by force, allurement, or fraudulent means.” It provides for up to three years of imprisonment and/or a fine of up to 50,000 rupees (US$1,240). If the convert is underage, a woman, Dalit or tribal, the imprisonment is up to four years and the fine 100,000 rupees (US$2,480).

The bill also makes it mandatory for clergy to seek prior permission from the administrative head of the district (district magistrate) for carrying out or even taking part in any religious conversion “ceremony.” Prospective converts are also required to inform the administration about their intent to convert.

Failure to inform authorities in both cases can lead to imprisonment of up to one year and/or a fine of 1,000 rupees (US$25).

Pending in Other States

The BJP introduced amendment bills to make existing anti-conversion laws more stringent also in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. But both bills are facing objections by their respective governors.

Chhattisgarh Gov. Ekkadu Srinivasan Lakshmi Narsimhan raised objections to two provisions of the state amendment bill – obtaining permission from the district collector (administrative head) before any conversion, “and allowing people to return to Hinduism and not treating this as conversion,” reported news agency Press Trust of India on August 22, 2007. Gov. Narsimhan reportedly referred the bill to the state law department for assessment.

Banerji had asked the state government to submit a detailed report on the number of conversions over the past five years. The BJP, however, could furnish details of conversions only in 20 out of 48 districts – with no proof of forced conversions. Several poorer districts did not report any conversions, despite state government claims that conversions in poor areas were rampant because Christians were offering inducements to the poor.

Anti-conversion legislation is in force in four states: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh, while they exist on paper in three other states: Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Gujarat withdraws conversion Bill

By Manas Dasgupta

The Hindu (11.03.2008) / HRWF (11.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - In deference to the wishes of Governor Nawal Kishore Sharma, the Gujarat government on Monday withdrew a Bill permitting conversions from one denomination to another in the same religion.

The “Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill” was passed in 2006 by the Assembly despite objections from the Opposition. It sought to amend the Freedom of the Religion Act, 2003, which made any act of conversion by force or allurement punishable and made it mandatory for any religious sect to seek permission from the District Collectors concerned for conversions.

The amendment, however, sought to exclude conversions from one denomination to another the same faith from the purview of the 2003 Act. It defined Buddhism and Jainism as denominations of Hinduism; Shia and Sunni as sects of Islam; and Catholic and Protestant as denominations of Christianity, permitting conversions without requiring prior approval from the Collector.

Why Bill was returned

However, the Governor, on July 27 last, returned the Bill for reconsideration of the House, pointing out that it violated Article 25 of the Constitution under which the state was bound to protect all people against any forcible conversion.

The Governor noted that Jainism and Buddhism had been recognised as separate religions. Even the Supreme Court had defined Jainism as a “special religion” though for purposes of personal laws, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were treated alike. He said it would be the duty of the government to protect Buddhists and Jains from being forcibly or by allurement converted to Hinduism and vice versa.

The amendment Bill created furore especially among Buddhists and Jains, who not only sent delegations to the Governor but also petitioned the Union government.

Hindu extremists assault new Christian leader in India

Doctor had given legal help to believers beaten in Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh

By Surinder Kaur Lal

Compass Direct (03.03.2008) / HRWF (04.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Following a Hindu extremist attack on five Christians meeting in a home here on February 22, the Madhya Pradesh town of Balaghat witnessed another assault last Wednesday (February 27) when the newly elected president of the Balaghat Christian Association was beaten for providing legal help to the previous victims.

Members of the Hindu extremist Bajrang Dal allegedly targeted Dr. Robin Singh, a medical doctor and Christian leader, because he had provided legal and administrative help to Tom George, Sunil Lal and others who had been dragged from a Lent meeting and beaten with bamboo poles, sticks, rods and other weapons.

The attack on Dr. Singh appeared to be calculated to give him nonvisible internal injuries so that a stronger police case may not be formed against them, as the 10 to 12 Hindu extremists did not use any sharp weapons. They struck him with their fists and wooden sticks, as well as kicked him, to deftly give him internal injuries.

“They did not use any weapons this time for if injuries were visible, an attempt to murder case could have been registered against them,” Dr. Singh told Compass. “I was startled and did not know what was going on. It was so sudden and I was so in shock that I could not even register the faces of the attackers properly.”

As president of the Balaghat Christian Association, Dr. Singh is active in representing Christian concerns before the local administration.

The attack contrasted sharply with the February 22 assault on George, Lal, Vijay Patle, Aman Sri Nag and a woman named Leela Patle. Lal and George sustained severe internal injuries but we also left bruised and bleeding, with Lal suffering wounds on his head, ears, cheeks, shoulders, hands, stomach, knees and left leg. (See Compass Direct News, “Hindu Extremists Attack Christians in Madhya Pradesh, India,” February 25).

The Hindu extremists reportedly arrived in cars at 9:30 p.m. at the clinic, which they vandalized.

“The Bajrang Dal people completely broke the front portion of his clinic, destroying the glass, the reception area and all the medicines that were inside,” pastor Jagjit Singh from Creative Growth Ministries, Balaghat, told Compass.

Pastor Singh added that local police had done nothing so far, though a case has been filed against the assailants.

“No arrests have been made by the police even in the previous case,” he said. “The attackers are roaming free, and the Christian community is intimidated by all this.”

Dr. Singh appeared weak from the manner in which he spoke to Compass, and he reportedly has offered to resign from his post as president of the Balaghat Christian Association as the incident has left him fearful. Local Christian leaders are urging him to continue as the president.

Christian leaders of Balaghat, along with state and national leaders, are considering expressing their concerns over the growing violence on the Christian community in Madhya Pradesh to the state’s chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Gov. Balram Jakhar.

Anti-Christian sentiments boil over in capital

Compass Direct (29.02.2008) / HRWF (01.03.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - New Delhi, India -India’s national capital witnessed two incidents of anti-Christian violence this week, including an attack last night on a relief organization official by a large mob of Hindu extremists.

At about 9:30 p.m. yesterday in New Delhi’s Kalyanpuri area, a worker from Gospel Mission of India (GMI), which is linked to Samaritan’s Purse, was helping to unload a truck carrying gift packets for poor children when a crowd of the Hindu nationalists led by a female councilor from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) approached.

“Around 100 people, along with BJP Councilor Satyeshwari Jyoti, alleged that GMI workers were using gifts to allure poor children to Christianity,” Roshan Lal, the station house officer of the Kalyanpuri police station, told Compass.

Peter Banerjee, state coordinator of GMI, told Compass that the GMI office assistant who was distributing the gifts, Samuel Masih, managed to run away from the mob to inform him about the threatening accusations. Meantime, the crowd took the gift packets to a police station to file a complaint against GMI.

“When I reached the police station,” Banerjee said, “some people in the mob started using the filthiest possible language against me and Christians, accusing me of indulging in conversion by allurement.”

The BJP’s Jyoti and members of the crowd she was leading overpowered policemen, entered the station and beat Banerjee. Jyoti slapped Banerjee twice, after which he slapped her back.

“I felt sorry,” Banerjee said. “I should not have hit her, as a Christian.”

Police, however, managed to protect Banerjee and sent him to a room on the first floor. Soon the crowd swelled to over 500, Banerjee said. Although he did not need medical attention, his arm was swollen and he said the left side of his body was in pain.

Officers did not register the complaint of conversion by allurement against the Christians. Banerjee gave a written complaint requesting protection against any future attack but did not press charges against the assailants.

He was forced to spend the night in the police station, returning home at around 10 a.m. this morning. A mob of BJP supporters today protested at the police station, demanding action against the Christians.

Political Motives

On Sunday (February 24), around 30 extremists suspected to be from the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Hindu extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), pelted the Catholic St. Sebastian Church with stones and vandalized vehicles of church members in New Delhi’s Dilshad Garden area.

Bajrang Dal leaders denied members of their group took part in the attack.

The assailants shouted slogans ordering the Christians to leave the country (see Compass Direct News, “India Briefs,” February 26).

The BJP is gearing up for legislative elections later this year, and a representative of the Christian Legal Association (CLA), which assisted GMI, told Compass that the recent attacks can be linked to the forthcoming polls.

“In some areas in Delhi,” said the CLA representative, “especially where the crime rate is high, the BJP finds it easier to create tensions and thereby polarize voters along religious lines.”

Political parties are in election mode throughout the country as state legislative elections are expected to take place this year not only in Delhi but in Karnataka, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In addition, the next general elections are due next year.

Christians fear the incidence of persecution will increase this year. Last December 5, a mob of at least 150 unidentified people damaged a Catholic church under construction in Pitampura area of the national capital. The attackers threatened to break the bones of the site foreman and laborers, and said they feared people would convert to Christianity if the church were built. (See Compass Direct News, “Attack On Christianity Reaches Cosmopolitan Pockets,” December 18, 2007.)

There are 130,319 Christians in Delhi, which has a population of more than 13.8 million. The Congress Party is in power.

Recent incidents of persecution

by Nirmala Carvalho and Vishal Arora

Compass Direct (26.02.2008) / HRWF (27.02.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - A group of around 30 Hindu extremists suspected to be from the Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), pelted a Catholic church with stones and vandalized vehicles of church members on February 24 in New Delhi. According to a statement by the Christian Legal Association (CLA), the cars of at least two church members were damaged at St. Sebastian Church in Dilshad Garden area in northeast Delhi. The attackers also shouted slogans ordering the Christians to leave the country. The CLA quoted parish priest Anthony William as saying that the church had prior information about the attack and that the Sunday worship service was held with police protection. The extremists, however, hid in a nearby temple and waited for police to leave before they attacked. Police registered a case against unidentified attackers under Section 427 of the Indian Penal Code for causing mischief and damage, but at press time no one had been arrested. – VA

Hinduvta (Hindu nationalist) extremists on February 14 attacked a Catholic priest and staff members of Sachidanand Ashram, a Catholic center promoting inter-religious dialogue in Narsinghpur district, Madhya Pradesh. Father Anand Muttungal, spokesman of the Catholic Council of Bishops, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, told Compass that nearly 60 Hindu extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal and other right-wing groups led by Neelesh Sony forcibly entered the center shouting slogans charging that it allowed unmarried young people to celebrate Valentine’s Day. “The extremists kicked open every door in the center, broke chairs and tables in the rooms, and later they entered the church and desecrated it,” Fr. Muttungal said. The Ashram’s Father Anto Mundanmany had requested police security a few days earlier, but only one officer was on the scene. The extremists hit and kicked Fr. Mundanmany and beat workers. “Arjun Kumar Uike was abused and beaten, they snatched his cross and threw away his rosary,” Fr. Muttungal said. “Richard Daniel was beaten with a bamboo stick and abused very badly.” It was not an isolated incident, he added. “It’s all a well-planned strategy to polarize the society in view of the forthcoming elections,” Fr. Muttungal said. The police filed charges against about 40 people for assaulting the priest and others at the center. – NC

Three Christians of Shalom Full Gospel Church in Kumbara Halli village, Karnataka, were hospitalized on February 3 after a mob of 25 to 30 Hindu extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal attacked them during Sunday worship. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said that at about 11 a.m., as pastor Priya Darshan was preaching, the extremists led by a local villager identified only as Guruswamy surrounded the church on motorbikes that had saffron triangular flags on the handlebars. Shouting “Jai Bajrang Bali [Hail god Hanuman],” the extremists armed with swords, sticks and knives “stormed the church, slapped and repeatedly punched Darshan, and began hitting the believers,” George said. They destroyed the sound system and musical instruments, he added. The extremists took Darshan to the Hosdurga police station and made false allegations of forcibly converting the villagers, George said, but through GCIC intervention Darshan was released at 6:30 p.m. without any charges. Regional Coordinator Laxmi Narayan Gowda told Compass, “A believer identified only as Kallesh received a deep gash above his right eyebrow, while another identified only as Kripakaran had a fractured right arm, and a believer identified only as Anjenappa had swollen arms, and legs, and bruises all over his back and stomach.” They were treated at the Hosadurga Government Hospital. – NC

About 20 Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists on February 3 attacked the pastor and believers of an independent church in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state. The extremists, believed to be from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, the chief Hindutva organization in the country), barged into a house church in Hegganhalli in Bangalore’s Peenya area at around 10:30 a.m. and forced the Christians to pray to Hindu gods, Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians told Compass. The attackers snatched Bibles from the Christians and burned the books. They then beat the pastor, T.K. Benny, and other believers. Three Christians identified only as Vijay, Brijesh and Shyam sustained minor injuries. Before fleeing, the attackers locked up the house church and warned the Christians against holding any worship service in the future. – VA

Hindu extremists on January 28 beat an independent pastor, cursed at his wife and later filed a false police complaint against them in Arugere village, Belgaum district, Karnataka. Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) said pastor Yeshwant Krishnappa Myagadi and his wife Bharati were invited to a fellowship prayer and lunch meeting at the house of Appasab Naganoor, also a Christian. Later they were waiting at the Arugere bus stand to return home when 15 to 20 Hindu extremists belonging to the Bajrang Dal, began questioning them about the purpose of their visit, said George. Pastor Myagadi told Compass that some of the extremists grabbed his satchel and, finding a Bible inside, tore pages from it. “They began slapping and punching me on my head and stomach, and abused Bharati in filthy curses,” he said. “The extremists then shoved us into a Jeep and took us to the Kodachi police station, and en route the extremists kept cursing the Christian faith and repeatedly punched me on the head and back.” The extremists filed a complaint against the pastor and his wife charging they were converting Hindu villagers by force, but through GCIC intervention Myagadi and his wife were released on January 29 without charges, said George. – NC

Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists on January 20 beat an independent pastor, Erra Prakash, and co-pastors Kiran Kumar and Jaya Raj in Kondaram Palli, Medak district, Andhra Pradesh. Lion Francis, local coordinator of the Global Council of Indian Christians, told Compass that a three-day “Gospel Festival” was taking place in Kondaram Palli when on the last day, January 19, some villagers complained to village headman Meka Kankayya that forced conversions were taking place at the event. Kankayya summoned Pastor Prakash and a new convert, Srinivasa Reddy, to a public meeting in which Srinivasa firmly stated that he of his own free will had received Jesus for his salvation. “No sooner did he confess his faith publicly than local Hindutva extremists hurled filthy, blasphemous abuses at Srinivasa and the Christian faith,” Francis told Compass. The next day at about 8 a.m., as Pastor Prakash was leaving the village, 20 to 25 Hindu extremists stopped his auto-rickshaw, pulled out the pastor and his co-pastors and began hitting them with sticks. “They also spat on them,” Francis said. “Soon a large crowd gathered, and they too joined in hurling stones and shoes at the pastors. Later they dragged the three pastors around the village and locked them up in the local community hall.” Around 2 p.m. the extremists released the pastors, but only after making them sign a document stating that they would never evangelize in the village again. Prakash, Kumar and Raj underwent treatment in a private medical facility. “The pastors have refused to file charges, as they have forgiven the extremists,” explained Francis. – NC

Local residents believed to be Hindu extremists launched an attack on the house church of an independent Dalit pastor, identified only as 70-year-old Abraham, on January 18 in Tamil Nadu state’s Salem district. Dr. Sajan K. George of the Global Council of Indian Christians said a pastor’s neighbor, identified only as Govindhan, along with a few other residents, stormed the house church in Tharamangalam area in Salem and assaulted the Dalit pastor as he was preparing for a Friday fasting prayer meeting. The attackers also assaulted the pastor’s wife and five children, four of whom are minors. While Pastor Abraham went to police to report the attack, members of his church, who were not aware of the attack, arrived at his house for the meeting and the same group of extremists attacked them. At least three of the Christians, identified only as Ravi, Anaal, and the pastor’s son Prakash, were injured. Ravi’s hand was fractured and Anaal and Prakash sustained head injuries. Ravi and Anaal were treated at the Mettur Dam Government Hospital. Police registered a case against Pastor Abraham’s neighbor and arrested four people. – VA

Two more victims of violence succumb to injuries in Orissa

Christian leaders report lax concern for refugees remaining in camps

By Vishal Arora

Compass Direct (20.02.2008) / HRWF (21.02.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Two Christians have died in refugee camps from injuries sustained in Christmas season violence against Christians in Kandhamal district in Orissa. These deaths push the overall toll to six.

Christian leaders confirmed last month that four Christians died in attacks widely believed to have been led by Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) groups beginning December 24 in the mountainous district of Kandhamal.

“At least two Christians in a relief camp in Barakhama village have recently succumbed to injuries they received during the violence by Hindutva extremists,” said John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC). Dayal recently traveled to Kandhamal for the second time since the attacks. His visit left him with troubling questions about government treatment of Christian victims and what he believes is lax law enforcement and lack of concern for the Christians’ well-being.

“Why did these men die in the camp, and not in a hospital in Bhubaneswar [the state capital] or the district capital at Phulbani? No one seems to know,” Dayal told Compass. “Were the bodies examined in a forensic autopsy to find the cause of death? Apparently not. Have people been charged with the murder of these two men? The police and magistracy [senior administrative officials] are not telling.”

Dayal said that Rameshwar Digal, 55, died February 3 in a Barakhama village camp in Baliguda area. Digal was attacked December 26 in Kotasahi village. Law enforcement officials neither registered his case as murder nor performed an autopsy. Kojuna Digal, 65, died January 15. Both were agricultural workers. The men’s surname is shared by those belonging to the Kui tribe. They were not otherwise related.

Police, however, maintain only one person has died in the camp, and they attributed that death to natural causes. Kandhamal police superintendent Nikhil Kumar Kanodia claimed that no injured person has died after the attacks ended January 3. “Only one old man has died in a relief camp,” he said.

The Rev. P.R. Parichha, president of the Orissa chapter of the AICC, confirmed that two Christians had died in the relief camp from their injuries. Parichha said that the toll could rise as a few Christians remained missing. “Most of the missing Christians have returned though,” he added.

Hindutva groups, mainly the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), carried out attacks under the pretext of avenging an alleged assault on its leader Laxmananda Saraswati after the first anti-Christian incident was reported from Brahmanigaon village. Alleging that forced conversion was the main cause behind the communal riots in Kandhamal district, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is demanding that activities of foreign funded non-governmental organizations be monitored, The Indian Express newspaper reported February 9. Orissa is ruled by a coalition of a local party, Biju Janata Dal, and the BJP.

The attacks that lasted for more than a week razed at least 730 houses and 95 churches, according to a fact-finding team of the AICC Orissa chapter. Hundreds of displaced Christians remain in relief camps set up by the Orissa government.

Detention of Christian Activist

Meanwhile, on February 20, Baliguda area police detained the state coordinator of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), the Rev. Asit Mohanty, on charges of interfering in the judicial process. GCIC national president Sajan K. George told Compass that police dragged Mohanty more than 500 yards. Police also tried to assault him. George said Mohanty was harassed because he was following up on cases of continued oppression and forced conversion of Dalit Christians at gunpoint by VHP and other radical groups. Mohanty was released three hours later.

“Some lawyers, seemingly belonging to Hindutva groups, had lodged a complaint against Mohanty,” George said.

There have been several reports of forced conversions of Christians to Hinduism in Kandhamal following the violence. (See Compass Direct News, “Hindu Nationalists Plan to Revive Tensions in Orissa State,” January 23.)

Plight of Christian Refugees

Dayal said women, especially pregnant women, are suffering amid dire conditions in the camps that lack even toilets. “They have to suffer the pangs of being a woman in an absolutely undeveloped situation. The women have no gynecological experts available on hand,” he said. When refugees relieve themselves in fields outside the camps, they face hostile Hindu mobs who harass them for coming out of the camp. “The taunts can be dangerous,” Dayal said.

Refugee students are without books and supplies. They are missing exams and school registration that will force them to miss an entire academic year. Older students may miss job opportunities, he said.

Police Bias

Local Christians also complain about police bias. After dark, several villages are without men because they fear being arrested on false charges. “Such is the terror of the police against the Christians that the men just cannot sleep in their own homes. They remain in the forested hills,” Dayal said.

Police superintendent Kanodia, however, said the police are neutral. “A criminal is a criminal. His religious affiliation does not matter to the police,” he said.

Kanodia also said 127 cases related to “communal and ethnic” violence had been registered. He also claimed that the death toll was three and included only one Christian.

Christians do not believe that the Orissa violence was merely due to ethnic tensions. Christians make up approximately 16 percent of the 650,000 people in Kandhamal district. More than 60 percent of the Christians belong to the Pana community. They are classified as “scheduled castes,” or Dalits. They demand recognition as a tribal community, claiming they too speak the local language of Kui. But Kui tribal peoples oppose their recognition as it would add to the number of candidates for jobs reserved for them through the government’s affirmative action program.

According to the Indian Constitution, only Hindu Dalits can benefit from affirmative action in government jobs and education. A Dalit loses such privileges after converting to Christianity.

The National Commission for Minorities, which sent two researchers to Kandhamal district, reported on January 17 that the violence was “organized and preplanned.”

“The team maintained that the large-scale violence was because of the inaction of the administration,” reported the New Indian Express newspaper. In January, Dayal led a fact-finding team that also concluded the violence was carried out in a planned manner. (See Compass Direct News, “Fact-Finding Mission Suggests India Violence Was Preplanned,” January 4.)

Arunachal Das, the assistant district magistrate of Kandhamal, told Compass that 3,091 victims, both Christian and Hindu, live in five relief camps: two in Baliguda and three in the Daringbadi area. Attacks on Hindus’ houses were also reported during the Kandhamal violence.

According to an order of the district magistrate, only the state government can distribute relief through the Red Cross. Other non-profit organizations and churches are not allowed to bring aid.

The week-long spate of violence in Orissa began in Kandhamal on December 24. Special armed forces remain deployed in affected areas.

The Times of India newspaper reported on January 22 that the 700 members of the Central Reserve Police Force initially deployed would remain in Kandhamal until March 15.

Maoists said to recruit victims of violence in India

Communist group in Orissa state suspected of instigating Christians to retaliate

by Vishal Arora

Compass Direct (01.02.2008) / HRWF (07.02.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - With a strong presence in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district, Maoists are suspected of using recent violence in the area to recruit frustrated Christians and goad them into retaliating, Christian leaders said.

Extreme Marxist groups, among them Maoists, may find affected areas “happy hunting grounds” for recruitment, warned Dr. John Dayal, a member of India’s National Integration Council.

Dayal told Compass that Maoists’ normally recruit in areas in which state governments fail to deliver on promises, “where the rich, the powerful, the religious bigots rule with impunity,” and administrations are thoroughly corrupt.

According to a fact-finding team of the Orissa state chapter of the All India Christian Council (AICC), the violence in Kandhamal around Christmas time was perpetrated by Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) groups that killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches. Hundreds of displaced Christians are in various relief camps set up by the state government.

There were also reports of houses of Hindus being burnt.

“There may be vested interests or just misguided persons – and many agents of provocateurs, which is more likely – who are trying to goad the misguided and politically naive youth and seniors who have been pushed into a corner,” said Dayal, also secretary general of the AICC.

He added that area people may see both church and government as helpless before Laxmananda Saraswati, who allegedly incited mobs to launch anti-Christian attacks.

“The fact that Saraswati is not only roaming scot-free but also holding rallies in Kandhamal,” he said, “must be most galling to the youths amongst the Christians of all denominations and ethnic status – tribal [aboriginal], Dalit and semi urban – who have seen their churches burnt, their homes destroyed, their mothers and sisters reduced to begging and humiliated in the refugee camps.”

Hindutva groups, mainly the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), carried out attacks under the pretext of avenging an alleged assault on Saraswati after the first anti-Christian incident was reported from Brahmanigaon village last December 24.

Who Torched Hindu Houses?

While the identities of those who attacked houses belonging to Hindus remains largely elusive, Christian leaders suspect Maoists instigated some ill-advised Christians to retaliate.

Jacob Pradhan, general secretary of the Kandhamal district chapter of the Christian Endeavour Union, told Compass that around 100 houses belonging to Hindus were burnt in Brahmanigaon, Godapur, Barakhama and some other villages on December 26 and 27. Pradhan, who visited Brahmanigaon and Godapur villages to take stock of the situation, suspected that these houses were torched by sections of “misguided Christians” possibly incited by Maoists.

“You can read Christian-sounding names of Maoists who are reported in local newspapers as having been arrested,” Pradhan explained. “It seems to me that some from Christian families who are not religious and involved in the Maoist movement – like those from other faiths – instigated attacks on the houses of Hindus.”

The Rev. P.R. Parichha, president of the Orissa chapter of the AICC, said it was also possible that some Christians may have retaliated out of “desperation.”

“Local Christians are formulating a strategy on how to peacefully but effectively respond to incidents of persecution in future,” he added.

Hindutva Groups Behind Violence

Christians maintained, however, that isolated incidents of retaliation should not be used to suggest any Maoist-Christian partnership, as alleged by some Hindutva groups.

According to a January 10 report by private TV channel, NDTV, the VHP has accused Christian establishments and non-profit groups in Kandhamal and neighboring Gajapati district of having links with Maoists and diverting foreign funds to ultra-leftists to retain their allegiance.

The channel reported that the state government, formed in coalition with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, would investigate the allegation made by the Hindutva groups.

“There are people from all religious backgrounds in the Maoist movement,” said Dayal. “It is a political ideology.”

The NDTV indicated that the state government could be trying to “divert attention from the real issue.”

The Maoist movement in India is believed to have begun in West Bengal state in 1960s. It has spread to several parts of the country, such as Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa states, through the activities of underground groups like the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and some other Maoist factions, which are considered terrorists by the government of India.

Dayal also stressed that the violence cannot be portrayed as a tribal-versus-Christian conflict either, as the state government seeks.

“The evidence is to the contrary,” he said. “The relations between Christian tribals and Christian non-tribals, Christian Dalits and Dalits of other faiths, as well as between Christians belonging to the tribal and Dalit communities remain cordial as they have been historically.”

It is estimated that Christians make up 16 percent of the 650,000 people in Kandhamal district. More than 60 percent of the Christians belong to the Pana community, who are classified as Scheduled Castes or Dalits. They are demanding recognition as a tribal community, claiming they too speak the local language of Kui – a demand opposed by the Kui tribal peoples, as it would increase the number of candidates for jobs reserved in the name of affirmative action.

According to the Indian Constitution, only Hindu Dalits can benefit from affirmative action in government jobs and educational institutions. A Dalit Hindu therefore loses such privileges after conversion to Christianity.

“The violence was a result of the targeting of Christians by political-religious fundamentalists [Hindutva extremists],” Dayal maintained.

The National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which sent two researchers to Kandhamal district, said on January 17 that the violence was “organized and preplanned.” “The team maintained that the large-scale violence was because of the inaction of the administration,” reported the New Indian Express newspaper.

Earlier, a fact-finding team led by Dayal had also said the violence was carried out in a planned manner. (See Compass Direct News, “Fact-Finding Mission Suggests India Violence Was Preplanned,” January 4.)

Relief Agencies Remain Barred

On another front, the Orissa High Court on Wednesday (January 30) dismissed a petition of the Catholic Church asking the state government to allow Christian agencies to provide relief in affected villages of Kandhamal.

The district administration had issued a notice saying no private or non-governmental agencies would be allowed to provide relief in the area.

Christians have complained that the camps set up by the government lack basic facilities.

According to the Global Council of Indian Christians, two Christians died due to illness in Kandhamal relief camps in early January.

The spate of violence began in Kandhamal on December 24 and subsided in a week’s time, but special armed forces continued to be deployed in affected areas at press time.

The Times of India newspaper reported on January 22 that the 700 members of the Central Reserve Police Force initially deployed would remain in Kandhamal till March 15.

Despite the deployment of armed forces by the federal government apart from local police, however, there have been several reports of forced conversion of Christians to Hinduism. (See Compass Direct News, “Hindu Nationalists Plan to Revive Tensions in Orissa State,” January 23.)

Hindu nationalists plan to revive tensions in Orissa

Christians told to convert or die after Christmas attacks; extremists plot ‘Mission 2008’

by Vishal Arora

Compass Direct (23.01.2008) / HRWF (24.01.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Amid reports of forced conversion of Christians to Hinduism following an unprecedented spate of violence over Christmas in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district, federal intelligence sources have warned churches of the likelihood of more attacks.

The intelligence department intercepted a letter by an extremist of a Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) group stating members will renew efforts to spark tensions in Kandhamal district and neighboring Chhattisgarh state, said Father Babu Joseph, spokesman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).

According to a fact-finding team of the Orissa state chapter of the All India Christian Council, the violence killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches in the days following last Christmas Eve. Hundreds of displaced Christians in Kandhamal are in various relief camps set up by the state government, where at least two people have died recently due to ailments.

Joseph told Compass that the letter, written by an extremist of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Murari Lal, and sent to his colleague, Saudan Singh, reveals that the Hindutva group has planned an effort to create more tensions for Christians called “Mission 2008.”

Church leaders, added Joseph, have been asked to remain alert.

Lal, who was identified as an RSS worker in Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh state, named and praised several Hindutva outfits for their “good work” in the letter.

“Our Mission 2008 and its confidential meeting took place successfully,” the letter says, according to the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) newspaper. Our hope is to create Gujarat [state] type communal frenzy in Orissa.”

Gujarat is seen as the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “laboratory of Hindutva.” In 2002, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP colleagues allegedly allowed Hindu extremists to carry out anti-Muslim violence in which at least 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed.

“We have begun a program to create communal tension by using the cow issue,” adds the letter, originally written in Hindi language. As cows are considered sacred by Hindus, extremists portray Christians and Muslims as “cow eaters,” besides accusing them of conversions and terrorism.

“In Jashpur and Sarguja districts [of Chhattisgarh state],” the letter says, “we have created a very good environment against Muslims and Christians. Adivasis [tribal people] have also started a front against foreign missionaries … This time even the Congress [Party] is supporting us.”

The letter also says there is a need to install statues of Hindu gods Hanuman and Shankar, which tribal people “recognize faster.”

“We need to install the statues as early as possible to make adivasis Hindus,” it says.

Tribal people or aboriginals in India are not Hindu. Most tribal people groups have their own faiths, mainly animistic.

RSS leader Ram Madhav, however, claimed in DNA that his organization had no role in the violence. “The RSS does not support any violence,” he said.

Christians fear the incidence of persecution will increase this year as legislative elections are expected in 10 states, including three states ruled by the BJP – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan (See Compass Direct News, “Christians Fear More Violence in Election Year,” January 15).

Convert or Die

Although the spate of violence began in Kandhamal on December 24 and subsided in about a week, special armed forces continued to be deployed in affected areas at press time.

The Times of India newspaper reported on Tuesday (January 22) that the 700 officers of Central Reserve Police Force deployed during the week of violence would remain in Kandhamal till March 15.

Despite the presence of federal armed forces and local police, however, reports surfaced of forced conversion of Christians to Hinduism.

A local Christian source from the Indian Evangelical Team ministry told Compass on condition of anonymity that such conversions have taken place in at least four villages after the initial violence.

“In Jargi village, 41 out of the 45 families from my church became Hindu due to pressure and threats,” said the local source. “Extremist elements forced the Christians to break their church with their own hands, and now a temple will be constructed at the site.”

In Mardudi village, pastor Dibakar Digal and his wife were forced to drink cow urine and apply vermillion on their foreheads, declaring themselves Hindu. They were threatened that if they did not convert, they would be killed.

While 18 Christian families were converted in a similar fashion in Kambarkia village, nine families were converted in the same way in Dandikia village.

UCA News (UCAN) also reported on Tuesday (January 22) that Orissa Christians had been given a “convert or die” ultimatum.

“There was no other way than to convert to Hinduism,” a Christian youth, Sumant Digal, from Gochhapada village, told UCAN. Extremists had threatened to kill him and torch his house if he did not become a Hindu.

“Several people told UCA News in mid-January that although the violence had subsided, Hindu fanatics continued to threaten Christians in interior villages,” stated the UCAN report. “The radicals want Christians to convert to Hinduism or leave the area, and they threaten to kill those who do not comply.”

The Catholic news agency quoted another Christian, Pusali Digal, from Jemapadar village, as saying, “Reconvert or die, or leave the place, was the option given to me and my family.”

Deaths in Relief Camps

Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, told Compass that two Christians died due to unknown ailments in Kandhamal relief camps.

Pastor Hari Digal died in the Baliguda relief camp on Monday (January 21), and a church elder, Kujura Digal, died in a camp in Barakhama two days earlier, said George, who was in Kandhamal at press time.

Houses of both Christians had been destroyed in the violence.

“The two Christians could not bear the trauma of being attacked and the loss of their houses,” said George, adding that he had urged the state government to improve facilities at the relief camps.

Violence Preplanned, Organized

The National Commission for Minorities (NCM), which sent a team of two representatives to Kandhamal district, said on January 17 that the violence was “organized and preplanned.”

Additionally, the New Indian Express newspaper reported that the NCM team “maintained that the large-scale violence was because of the inaction of the administration.”

But Hindutva groups, mainly the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), dismissed the NCM report, saying it was “one-sided,” added the newspaper. The VHP is connected with the RSS, which allegedly planned and organized the Christmas violence.

Earlier, a fact-finding team led by Dr. John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council and a Christian leader, had also said the violence was carried out in a planned manner. (See Compass Direct News, “Fact-Finding Mission Suggests India Violence Was Preplanned,” January 4.)

The NCM team also criticized the state government for not giving sufficient compensation to the victims of the violence. In apparent response to the NCM report, the state government increased compensation to be given to victims.

Financial assistance for reconstruction of destroyed houses has been revised from 40,000 rupees (US$1,009) to 50,000 rupees (US$1,261), while 200,000 rupees (US$5,044) each will be provided for schools, hospitals and hostels damaged in the violence, the New Indian Express reported today.

Two Christians abducted, beaten in India

Hindu nationalists in Madhya Pradesh allegedly planned to sacrifice them in temple

by Vishal Arora

Compass Direct (22.01.2008) / HRWF (24.01.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - Six Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) extremists stormed a house church, abducted two Christians and severely beat them last Thursday (January 17) in Madhya Pradesh state’s Rewa district.

Brandishing swords, knives, tridents and sticks, the alleged members of the Hindu extremist Bajrang Dal arrived on three motorbikes at a house church prayer meeting in Pathigaon village, Naigadi area, and began forcing Vijaya Kumar Maurya and Keera Lal to come with them to a police station at around 8 a.m., said the Rev. Augustine Jebakumar of GEMS, an indigenous Christian organization with headquarters in Bihar state.

Other believers said they would like to accompany Maurya and Lal to the police station, at which point the Hindu extremists beat the two Christians, took them to a jungle, and beat them again.

“While two of the kidnappers left half way, the other four took us to a temple on a mountain, known as Sahaki Pahar, which is about six kilometers from Pathigaon village,” Maurya told Compass. “They said they were going to sacrifice us to the god of the temple. But they received a phone call and were warned that a police complaint had been lodged. This is why they did not kill us.”

The attackers returned the mobile phones they had confiscated from the Christians and forced them to call police to say they had not been kidnapped. They also forced them to sign a paper with the same statement.

Maurya received head and stomach injuries, while Lal was left with wrenching back pain. Released at around 8 p.m., Maurya and Lal walked back to their village, arriving around 3 a.m.

Maurya is a GEMS worker. He told Compass that the six men, who accused his house church of “conversions,” were shouting, “Jai Bajrang Bali [hail god Hanuman]” and had saffron-colored flags, usually carried by Bajrang Dal extremists, on their motorbikes.

Area Tense

The bikers were allegedly led by Bajrang Dal area secretary A.P. Sakhi. The other five were identified as Yedupati Prasad Mishra, Hari Shankar Mishra, Ravindra Kumar Mishra, Gangadhar Singh and Yogender Mishra.

Alluding to the Bajrang Dal extremists, Superintendent of Police Mohammed Shahid Absar said some “vested interests” were trying to make an issue out of nothing to take political advantage.

The Bajrang Dal is the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a Hindutva extremist group. Hindutva is a political ideology of Hindu nationalism, according to which India belongs to Hindus, who form more than 80 percent of the country’s total population of more than 1 billion, while minorities such as Christians are deemed second-class “outsiders.”

The superintendent told Compass that the attackers tried to file a counter complaint saying the Christians had kidnapped two of their people. “We are investigating at the moment,” he said.

At press time, police had not formally registered any complaint against either the attackers or the Christians.

“We do not want to press charges, but we do want an assurance that such a thing will not be repeated in the future,” said Maurya.

Local Christians complained that the situation continued to be tense at press time.

“While yesterday [January 20], Bajrang Dal men surrounded the house of a local believer and threatened him, today [January 21], they beat a Christian girl, denying her access to the common water tap in Pathigaon,” said a local source requesting anonymity.

Christians in India fear that the incidence of persecution is likely to increase this year given that legislative elections are due in 10 states, including Madhya Pradesh, where the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is making all efforts to come back to power.

Madhya Pradesh, which has only 170,381 Christians out of the total population of more than 60 million, is one of the states with the highest incidence of anti-Christian attacks.

According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Madhya Pradesh, more than 55 attacks on Christians by various Hindutva extremist groups were reported in the state between July 2006 and April 2007.

Christians in India fear more violence in election year

Hindu nationalists are likely to intensify attacks to polarize voters along religious lines

by Vishal Arora

Compass Direct (15.01.2008) / HRWF (15.01.2008) - Website: http://www.hrwf.org - Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - With elections due in 10 states this year and a general election scheduled for 2009, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is apparently planning to use religion-related issues to polarize voters. This tactic, Christians fear, will increase the incidence of anti-Christian violence.

While state legislative elections are expected to take place early this year in Karnataka, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura, elections are scheduled for the second half of the year in Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The BJP holds power in three of these states: Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Persecution of Christians is already a cause for concern in these states. The party is planning to hold major rallies in almost all state capitals by the end of March in preparation for the general election, reported The Hindu on January 9. Parties have begun preparing for the general election in 2009, when the five-year term of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-led by the Congress party will end.

“There will be increased violence against Christians in the 10 states that go to the polls – and in other states, too,” said Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC).

Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), agreed with Dayal. “The climate for the Christians is likely to be volatile this year,” he said. “Hindu nationalism has grown over the years, and there are severe threats, life risks, and several other challenges from the Hindutva extremists and their leaders.”

Hindutva is a political ideology of Hindu nationalism asserting that India belongs to Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of the 1-billion-plus population, and that religious minorities such as Christians are “outsiders.”

Ram Puniyani, a social activist who has long been working for religious harmony in the country, warns that the recent victory of BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the state legislative election in Gujarat is a “shot in the arm for fascist forces [Hindutva extremists],” and that they are likely to intensify their “tirade against the minorities” in other parts of the country as well.

Modi is widely known for persecuting minorities, including the Christian community. He allegedly allowed Hindu extremists to organize large-scale violence in 2002 in which more than 2,000 Muslims were reportedly killed.

The BJP has won twice in Gujarat assembly elections, most recently in December, as voters split along religious lines, Christian leaders say.

Disillusionment with Congress Party

Christians who have traditionally voted for the Congress Party are now becoming disillusioned with it, saying it is soft on Hindutva at the federal level.

“The politicians of the Congress Party will silently utter the same words the Sangh men do more loudly. That is routine,” said Dayal.

“Sangh” refers to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps or RSS), the chief Hindutva umbrella organization for numerous extremist groups. The BJP is its political wing.

The Congress Party enacted an anti-conversion law, seen as restricting the rights of people to convert out of Hinduism, in Himachal Pradesh state last year, allegedly to woo Hindus before state elections that took place in December 2007. The BJP, however, defeated the Congress Party.

Before coming into federal power in 2004, the Congress Party promised to fight Hindutva extremists by enacting a comprehensive law against religion-related violence, but the legislation has yet to be passed with the party’s term about to end around April 2009.

Implementation of Hindutva

Referring to Hindutva, Dayal said he cannot countenance an ideology “in which I have no place, or in which my faith makes me a second-grade citizen.”

“I cannot take this lying down,” he said. “I refuse to flee and become a refugee or a non- resident Indian. I intend to live in India and fight for what I think is the real idea of India.”

Dayal recalled how Christian persecution rose to new heights during the BJP’s rule at the federal level through the coalition it leads, National Democratic Alliance (NDA), from 1998 to 2004.

When Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines was burnt to death in his jeep with his two sons by Dara Singh and his “mad men” in January 1999 in Orissa, then-Indian president K.R Narayanan called it a blot stain on the Indian civilization, Dayal said. He added that only a month before the gruesome murder, three dozen or so village churches had been destroyed by “similar mad men” in a distant forest in Dangs district of Gujarat state.

“Atal Behari Vajpayee, the then-prime minister, responded [to the killing of Staines] by calling for a national debate on conversions,” he added. “Interestingly enough, his party, now under his then-deputy Lal Krishna Advani, is calling not just for a debate but for a national law against conversions.”

On December 10, the BJP named Advani as its prime ministerial candidate in the 2009 general election, reported The Indian Express newspaper. Advani, leader of the opposition coalition at the federal level, the NDA, is seen as the leader who revived Hindutva in the early 1990s.

Puniyani also said that a “deeper communalization [penetration with Hindutva ideology]” of the country had been intense.

“The coming to power of the BJP signifies the polarization along religious lines,” he said. “In Karnataka, an anti-minority atmosphere is heating up, while, in Orissa, the blatant attacks on the Christian minority community are a sign of times to come.”

Dalits Hardest-Hit

GCIC’s George indicated that Dalit (formerly known as “untouchables”) and tribal (aboriginal) Christians will bear the brunt of the attacks expected this year.

“We have documented over 525 cases in the last two years, and 85 percent of the victims are of Dalit or tribal origin,” he said.

George added that it is not common Hindus, “for whom religion is a matter of personal faith and inner realization,” but Hindutva extremists who oppose the religious freedom of Dalits and tribal peoples. “We have deep regard for Hindus who respect the liberty of others to choose and pursue any faith.”

Thus far in modern India, 2007 was the most violent year for Christians. With more than 800 attacks around Christmas time in Orissa state, the number of attacks on Christians last year crossed 1,000 for the first time since India’s Independence in 1947.

The AICC, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and the Christian Legal Association recorded at least 200 incidents of anti-Christian attacks, including four murders, before violence erupted in Orissa’s Kandhamal district that killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches.

According to the latest government figures (2001 Census), Christians account for only 2.3 percent of the total population.

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Victims of Orissa, India violence evicted from homes

Muslims demonstrate in Indian Kashmir over land transfer to Hindu shrine

Recent incidents of persecution

Chief Minister Mayawati urged to put grant full constitutional rights to Dalit Muslims, Christians (*)

Christians in Orissa, India still targeted after attacks

Christians brace as Hindu nationalists win Karnataka

Recent incidents of persecution

Indian bombings fit pattern of efforts to foment interreligious strife

Hindu fanatics beat a Maharashtra Village Ministry Worker, police fail to take action

Recent incidents of persecution

Serious charges omitted in attack on pastor in India

Anti-conversion’ law takes effect in fifth state in India

Recent incidents of persecution

Two pastors attacked in Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh

1,000 Dalit Christians to reconvert to Hinduism in TN

Mgr Saldanha slams murder of Hindu, killed for alleged blasphemy

Recent incidents of persecution

Hindu extremists assault Christian family in India

Rajasthan, India passes new 'anti-conversion' bill

Christians from India languish in Bangladeshi jail

Hindu extremists in India forcibly ‘re-convert’ Christians

Attacks by Hindu extremists on Christians

Religious freedoms in India

State in India revokes ‘anti-conversion’ amendment bill

Gujarat withdraws conversion Bill

Hindu extremists assault new Christian leader in India

Anti-Christian sentiments boil over in capital

Recent incidents of persecution

Two more victims of violence succumb to injuries in Orissa

Maoists said to recruit victims of violence in India

Hindu nationalists plan to revive tensions in Orissa

Two Christians abducted, beaten in India

Christians in India fear more violence in election year