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 3 rd 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 22 nd 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!
