India: Violence against Christians and native peoples 2007 at a record level

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) warned on Monday of a further increase in the violence against Christians in India. According to information received from the „All India Christian Council“ the number of acts of violence rose to over 1000 in the year 2007, which is more than in any year since the founding of the state 60 years ago. „The latest placatory explanations of the Indian Prime Minister offer scant grounds for confidence among the Christians“, said the GfbV Asia correspondent, Ulrich Delius. So the attacks at Christmas have caused more and more Christians in the federal state of Orissa to hide in the woods. The influence of fanatical Hindus is in many Indian states has become too great.

In Orissa radical Hindus burnt down at Christmas 2007 at least 730 houses belonging to Christians and 95 churches. „Those who suffer most from the violence in this federal state are the Adivasi native people“, said Delius. The indigenous people, who are already frequently the victims of discrimination and marginalisation on account of their ethnic origin, are now also being persecuted on account of their faith. The Adivasi are not just a large section of the community in Orissa, but make up one quarter of the population of 37 million in the federal state and with 84 million make up about 8 percent of the total population of India. The Christians make up only 2.3 percent of the population, while 80.5 percent are Hindus.

„Since 1996 the pressure of fanatical Hindu organisations on the Christian Adivasi has been increasing, not only in Orissa, but also in other federal states“, said Delius. These Hindu groups see in the indigenous people a significant target group of the Christian missionaries and they want to prevent new baptisms by exercising massive pressure on the Adivasi. So the radical „Vishwa Hindu Parishhad Movement“ (VHP) decided in 2004 to carry out projects in 100,000 Adivasi villages to stop the influence of the Christian churches. The fanatical Hindu movement states that it can mobilise up to 60,000 volunteers for this „project work“.

„The Adivasi on the other hand consider the Christian church as one of the few places in which they are treated free of discrimination as citizens with equal rights“, reported Delius. For them membership in Christian churches is a chance to free themselves from centuries of domination in the caste society of India.

It is not the first time that violence has escalated at Christmastime. In 1999 the worst violence yet against Christians took place in the federal state of Gujarat. The mobilisation for these attacks on churches often takes place at large meetings of radical Hindu groups, which are with the approval of the authorities organised for the time of the Christian Christmas holidays. At one of these meetings the call went out to attack churches and this then happened in the following few days in different parts of India. On Christmas Day 2006 radical Hindus called out to a large meeting in Orissa to protest against the arrest of five people who had struck Christians. Priests had in vain applied to the authorities not to allow the meeting, which produced new attacks on Christians.