Serial attacks on churches are raging across different parts of India and there are a recorded 300 attacks on churches just in 2021, possibly radical Hindu fanatics have been emboldened by the government’s plan to enact the anti-conversion law.
This has led radical groups to attack every Christian gathering, including church meetings, worship services and label it down as conversion when no such event was occuring.
Many churches in India’s Karnataka state are canceling their regular Christmas programs due to worries over surging attacks on Christian gatherings by radical Hindus presumably by groups from Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal.
The situation has become extremely dangerous in some churches in the Belagavi District that they have canceled Sunday gatherings and completely shut down church operations.
Earlier this year, a 14-year-old boy, Nitish Kumar, was brutally murdered by men who poured acid on him because he had become a Christian, yet the police filed it as a case of suicide and he never got justice.
Mobs are storming into churches and beating up Christians and the police instead of controlling the mobs are telling Christians to go home!
Conversion does not happen by force, but by choice. In USA and UK and other places in Europe, the Western people are become Hindus and they are not beaten for doing so! Hindus have the freedom to worship and even propagate Hinduism and no one hurts them for that. In fact, remember, Hinduism is growing fast in Europe and Russia. Yogic centers are all over USA with Krishna Centers and ashrams, temples.
However, in India, the Hindutva fanatic crowd accuse the 2% Christians of conversion and presently are using intimidation tactics to suppress and abuse them.
Christians are 2% plus, so where is this theory that Muslims and especially Christians forced conversions on Hindus? In fact, the more one tries to force someone to convert, the more they will run away. People could still take the benefits and not convert.
Most of the English-speaking people in India studied in Christian missionary schools and there were hundreds of these missionary schools scattered over India! Did anyone force them to believe in Christ? If that was so, then all would be Christians today, which is not the case. In the 2000s, Christian missions ran 16,500 schools and 6,500 hospitals in India. L. K. Advani ji, late Arun Jaitley and many others studied in missionary schools.
Today, in India when Christians gather on Sunday mornings to worship God, their church doors are rammed open, pastors and even congregation in the church are beaten, sometimes so badly that they break their legs, break the churches and the Hindu fundamentalists make reports to the police that these Christians are converting the people to Christ. People gather in a house for a prayer meeting and the Hindu extremist barge in to stop them, declaring they cannot do that, as this is a Hindu country. (India is declared as a secular democratic republic by our constitution. We now ask, “Is not the law protecting Christians anymore? Today, hundreds of churches have been stopped and shut down. The Hindutva group barge in, demanding who is funding them.
Today, pastors are taken to prison, or the lockup for claims of conversion. The violates are never punished for beating and even for killing Christians because most of their reports are not taken by the cops. On one occasion, a neighbor asked a Christian for Bible, and they gave it, and the neighbor called the cops on them for conversion. It was a set up! This is happening today!
During the 2008 massacre of Christians done by the Hindu radicals, a friend’s friend wife was pregnant and they cut open her stomach, killed her and her baby. During that time, people were burned alive and in one case, six men in a room and burned alive – a pre-planned murder because they were pastors.
Today Hindutva DJS leader vows to free India of Muslims and Christians by 2021:however American Indian Hindutva supporters enjoy minority rights in USA but advocate fascism and minority suppression back in India.
Firstly, we gotta remember that all our origins are from elsewhere. The North Indians moved into India from Mesopotamia, which is present day Iran and Iraq regions. The first Indians to come to present India were the Adivasis..so to tell Christians to get out of India would mean telling the whole world, go back to Genesis!
Incidentally, the Keralites converted to Christianity at the time the Apostle Thomas came to India over 2000 years back. Ironical, because the British were here from the 1800s when the rice bag theory arose, so most of the people accusing Christians of being rice bag Christians don’t know their facts or history.
Please know that people are Christian by choice and not “converted”. Many It is their spiritual quest with God. Meet them and talk to them, you will find out!
If there is ever a case where there is a Christian converting others by force, it can be prosecuted by law and certainly, the whole nation would know about it because it would be in the rarest of rare cases because Christianity is never for force or violence by conversion. Again, not all humans are perfect and there will be some bad apples in the basket, but it is incorrect to generalize a whole community because of that or ridicule them.
A Twitter handle (No Conversion) is devoted to ridiculing and misrepresenting Christians in a very distorted way. This way of thinking promotes more hatred towards Christians. Such a nucleus of hate from powerful people influencing and organizing events enable violence that is taken out on poor pastors in villages in their house gatherings. These pastors were not “converting” anyone, just having a prayer meeting at home, or gathering for church, but beaten until bones are broken and also taken to prison, happening more regularly every Sunday.. This behavior is very similar to ISIS. They used to barge into Christian churches and attack them. We are leading to another 2008 again very soon if courts and cops, and government are silent about this.
As Ashok Swain (Associate Professor and Director of the Programme of International Studies, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, from Sweden) said, “Diaspora politics is seductive & populist. It is a dangerous game for both homeland & host country. Pampering to diaspora can make political leaders compromise national interest for the sake of political opportunism. #HowdyModi is good for Trump & Modi but bad for USA & India. And “Indian American Hindutva groups, largely upper caste Indians, are advocates of minority rights in the U.S., but simultaneously and contradictorily supportive or uncritical of cultural supremacism and majoritarianism in India.” This is so absolutely true and harming the nation.
If we mix our faith too with hatred, it is no longer a sanctified faith. Violence begets violence. An eye for an eye will turn the world blind, Mahatma Gandhi.
I hope we realize that life is not forever and we cannot hold on to our earthly identities, our properties.
We don’t have to protect God, dharma…He and it will protect us. Fear is the Biggest force driving the world today, which is why people do what they do. Even politicians in order to win do this.
Millions of Hindus over globe have freedom to build temples, ashrams, and worship in peace. Italy has 180,000 Hindus with freedom to worship. In India, though PM Modi ji says is a democracy, freedom to worship is being taken away.
Christmas is going to be stormy for Christians all over India, it seems and as a mark of solidarity, it would be good if we spend this Christmas quietly praying for India, not celebrating and also to send a message out that minorities are not safe.
Rita
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