Christians Attacked in India

By Joseph D’souza

Gladys Staines, the widow of the martyred Australian missionary Graham Staines, wrote to India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with an urgent request on January 1, 2008. She expressed deep concern about terrible persecution of Dalit Christians which broke out on Christmas Eve in the Kandhamal district of Orissa (“Gladys Staines expresses concern over Orissa violence”, The Indian Express, Jan. 1, 2008, http://www.indianexpress.com/story/256457.html). The Prime Minister promised immediate action to restore peace in the area.

But the affected areas still report sporadic violence now, over two weeks since the attacks against Dalit Christians began. The apparition of the gruesome burning of Graham Staines and his two sons in 1999 is being revisited. Hindu fundamentalist groups led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have attacked Christians and their institutions at will in rural Orissa. Over 70 churches and Christian institutions have been burned and vandalized, over 500 Christian homes destroyed, and the number of pastors and Christians killed is yet to be known. One report says that eleven pastors have been killed and thousands of Dalit Christians are displaced. Report speaks of many people who are missing and have vanished in the nearby forests.

Time magazine was quick to state that Hindu caste discrimination is one major factor behind the present persecution of Dalit Christians in Orissa (“A Christian-Hindu Clash in India”, Dec. 27, 2007, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1698533,00.html?imw=Y). Large numbers of Dalits have turned to Christianity in the area and their transformed social, educational, and developmental conditions are plainly evident.

The caste ridden Hindu fundamentalist groups find this difficult to digest and made threats and false propaganda against Christian missionaries and humanitarian workers in recent years. Now they’ve resorted to violence to kill, destroy, and intimidate those who exercise free choice and live under the law. Their ideologues publicly raised the issue of conversions again saying that this is the main reason for the violence.

Human Rights Watch and others recognize that freedom of religion –especially in a democracy like India’s – must be respected and have decried the present carnage in Orissa (“India: Stop Hindu-Christian Violence in Orissa”, Dec. 29, 2007, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/28/india17668.htm).

Frankly, conversion is the way of revolt taught to the Dalits by their champion and liberator Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, a lawyer educated in the USA, who himself turned to Buddhism. His writings are well known all over India among the Dalits. He clearly called for the Dalits to convert in order to escape caste-based humiliation and discrimination.

The Christian, Buddhist, or any other faith community in India cannot shut the doors to the Dalits who want to turn to a new faith. Under India’s Constitution, Christians and any people of others faiths in India are free to practice and propagate that faith in India. The practice of the Christian faith demands that the Christian church receive all the Dalits that want to follow Christ.

In the Kandhamal area there are about 100,000 Dalit Christians and 500,000 non-Christians and media reports admit that the Dalit Christians have “done well after converting to Christianity” (“Caste, tribe, conversion make Orissa district volatile,” CNN-IBN, Dec. 30, 2007, http://www.ibnlive.com/news/caste-tribe-conversion-make-orissa-district-volatile/55272-3.html). Clearly, a transformation rooted in Christ is offending today’s attackers.

A transformed Christian community becomes a powerful motivator and attractor of all those who are still treated as sub-humans by the caste system in Orissa. Despite the excuses of Hindu fundamentalists, the problem is definitely not improper conversions. Christians are not conducting fraudulent or forced conversions. Instead the inhuman and fraudulent social structure of the caste system stands fully exposed.

Violence against Dalit Christians in Orissa and state-sponsored anti-conversion laws will not stop the conversions into other faiths. Nor will it take care of the decay within the caste-based social system.

Sadly, the state government is not implementing laws that call for severe punishment of those who commit crimes against Dalits. But even worse, it is in the state of Orissa that Dalits cannot go to the main temples because they are considered polluted and will supposedly pollute the temple. It is in Orissa where Dalit girls cannot ride a bicycle through an upper caste village. It is in Orissa where the Scheduled Castes and Tribes eat poisonous roots because of lack of food and imminent starvation. All this in an India which is claiming to be one of the biggest economies and democracies in the world!

The last few weeks of violence have produced a surprise to human rights veterans like myself. An unexpected and new dimension in the persecution of Dalit Christians in Orissa was the involvement of extremist left-wing groups called the Naxalites. These militant Maoists draw many of their members from the Dalit and tribal communities. The Naxalites are blamed for retaliatory attacks against the VHP fundamentalists and the Hindu community in the wake of the violence against Dalit Christians. Reports suggest that this has left about a hundred Hindu families homeless.

My colleagues and I have condemned all forms of extremism, whether Hindu or Christian. But India stands on a precipice of caste discrimination and impoverishment. I pray that we will back away from the ledge of caste-based violence and discrimination and limitations to religious freedom. Only then will India achieve its potential as a super power in the 21st century.

Joseph D'souza is director of the All-India Christian Council.