attacks on the Christian Priests and on Christians

Violence against the Cross


Ram Puniyani


On 6th May (2007) two evangelists were beaten up by
the Bajrang Dal/VHP workers and police arrested them
on the charges of conversions. On the same day
Christians returning from the Marathoma church in
Naraspur, Kolar near Banglore were beaten up by RSS
workers and threatened that the church must close down
in ten days. On 3rd May, a group of twenty Christians,
who had assembled in house, were beaten up resulting
in the fractures on couple of them, and police did not
register the complaint on the first approach, in a
place in Sarguja Chattisgarh. On May first, in
Sikandara area of Agra, a group of Bajrang Dalis
attacked a Christian school when the board meeting was
going on.
These are amongst the few incidents of anti-Christian
violence, which have come to light in the span of few
days. The anti Christian violence has been going on
from over a decade, on regular basis, on low scale but
consistently. Few of these incidents had been very
frightening and drew the attention of the nation like,
the burning of Pastor Graham Stains on 22nd Jan 1998,
the burning of Bibles and attack on Churches in
Gujarat amongst others. Anti Christian violence has
been carefully orchestrated and the propaganda which
precedes these is that Christian missionaries are
converting by force and fraud.
In the wake of burning of Pastor Stains many a
columnists and propagandists harped on this point of
conversion till Wadhva Commission appointed by the
then NDA government gave the report that Pastor Stains
was not involved in the work of conversions and also
that the area where the Pastor was working did not see
any increase in the percentage of Christian
population. It is an interesting fact that while the
RSS campaign through Vanvasi Kalyan Ahsram, VHP and
Bajrag Dal has popularized that Christians are
converting by force and fraud, at the same time the
demographic data as culled out from the Census figures
show that there has been a constant decline in the
percentage of Christian population during last four
decades, 1971-2.60, 1981-2.44, 1991-2.34 and
2001-2.30. Apparently this is due to comparative
better educational levels amongst Christians.
Indian Christianity is older than the one in US or
many other Christian majority countries. St. Thomas
set up Churches in Malabar Coast as early as AD 52,
since then the Christian missions have been working in
different facets of India's social life. To them goes
the credit for setting up educational and health
facilities in many remote areas, as well as in many
cities. Paradoxically while the Christian missionaries
in the remote areas are being attacked, their
counterparts working in the cities are managing
hospitals and educational institutions, which are a
hot favorite not only with the urban middle class but
also with those who keep spewing hate against these
missionaries.
Indian Christianity is very old but the issue of
conversions by Christian missionaries is comparatively
a recent one. It began to be raised in late fifties,
but really speaking this tirade has picked up steam
from mid eighties with the rise of identity politics
and the rise in the activities of Vanvasi Kalyan
Ahsram. During this period many a Babas and Acharyas
went and set up camps in Adivasis areas and began
their work of Hinduising them. The Ghar Vapsi (return
home) campaign was flagged off with newly devised
techniques of Hindusing them. Political calculations
behind this were to get a big electoral support for
the BJP, which got reflected, in the success of BJP in
Adivasi areas. In later times the Anti Conversion
bills, started being put forward in different states,
the politics behind this became clear with
Jayalalitha, who got it passed in Tamil Nadu and when
she lost out badly in Lok Sabha elections she got the
same bill rescinded.
The Anti Christian violence is much different than
the anti Muslim violence. The latter began in the
areas where there was some competition between Muslim
and Hindu traders and was taken to the intense heights
on various pretexts and more so in the after math of
Babri demolition and the pretext of Godhra train
burning. Unlike the intense bloodbath of anti Muslim
violence Anti Christian violence is most of the time
low key and in Adivasi areas. Even in areas where
Adivasis are less than 0.5% of population this is made
an issue like in Gujarat.
There is a social dimension to the problem In the
Adivasi areas; there is an intensified move to
popularize Hanuman and Shabri as the holy deities in
these areas. In urban areas Ram and Laxmi-Durga are in
vogue. It is a case of giving message of social
agenda, the place of Adivasi in the scheme of Hindu
rashtra. It is an attempt to idolize destitution
amongst Adivasis, who are asking for their land rights
after their empowerment due to education. It is due to
this that the attempts of Christians to spread
education in these areas are not to the liking of the
practitioners of identity politics. To prevent the
Adivasis from getting educated may be the main agenda
of VHP/Bajrang Dal and attack on Christian
missionaries are meant to frighten them away from
these areas. Same Christian missionaries working in
education field are more than acceptable in urban
areas.
As such there are multiple reasons for RSS combine to
unleash the anti Christian violence. RSS politics is
built around creation of external enemies. While
Indian nationalism constructs the communities in n
inclusive manner, the RSS politics excludes Muslims
and Christians from their concept of nation and also
projects them as threats to Hindu nation. In this
direction it constructs their image as external
enemies. The anti Christian violence attempts of
supplement this RSS agenda. To begin, so far Muslims
have been attacked and presented as a threat. With
this violence aimed against Christians, one more
creation of ‘external enemy’ is under progress. This
in turn consolidates the section of Hindus and to also
to mobilize larger section of Hindus around the
politics of Hindutva. This politics of Hindutva is for
status quo, to maintain the hegemony of dominant
castes and in that direction the attacks on Christian
missionaries ensures that the process of empowerment
of Adivasis through the education process is averted.
Thirdly this politics also wants to co-opt them to be
able to use them against the ‘other enemy’, the
Muslims. This last one was witnessed in Gujarat where
Adivasis were used to do the violence for the communal
forces.
The scattered attacks on the Christian missionaries
working in remote places speaks a lot about the nature
of the political formation carrying out these attacks,
their agenda of regarding Muslims and Christians as
internal threat to Nation explains the current
politics which is far from the one which should be
seen in a civil society!
--

Issues in Secular Politics
May 2007 II
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