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Report on India Disputed; Persecution Continues

On September 16, Pastor Virendra Singh and his wife Bhawna were assaulted by 150 Hindu extremists as they were arriving on a motorbike at their prayer site, where they regularly hold prayer meetings every Sunday in the village of Barauli in India.

The couple was able to escape serious injury and fled to a police station for help. Meanwhile, extremists burned the prayer site. Pastor Singh has been falsely accused of carrying out conversions. He had been threatened by Hindu leaders in the area for over a month and a half prior to the incident. The police still haven't arrested the accused, even though the names and their descriptions were provided.

Six Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) and their families in the village of Nutangram in West Bengal have been pressured to relinquish their Christian faith. The Muslim mosque committee called for thousands of villagers from nearby areas to rally against the Christian families on September 4, as they wanted the families to recommit themselves to Islam. The believers, who came to faith about one year ago, are terrified.

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A few days prior to September 4, the mosque issued a ban against anyone communicating with the MBBs. As a result, vegetables were not sold to them, no workers came to do jobs in their fields and no customers came to their shops. They were further threatened that they would be killed and their homes burned if they did not give up their faith. The extremists stirred up several women to attack one of the Christian women. They physically tortured her, examining her body as they searched for "Christian signs" on her.

Incidents like these two have been documented almost weekly by Compass Direct News this year.

The U.S. Department of State's 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom which was released last month gives India high marks for respecting religious freedom. But Christian leaders said this does not mean that persecution in the country is not increasing. The incidence of anti-Christian violence is much higher than available statistics indicate, the leaders say, as most cases are not reported to the police and are ignored by the media.

"I record and prove between 200 and 400 cases of anti-Christian violence a year in my unofficial white paper released annually since 1997 – but the actual figure may be from 1,000 to 2,000 such cases a year, perhaps even more," Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC), told Compass.

Though 200 to 400 attacks in a country of 1 billion may not sound like much, Christian leaders say that not only are attacks under-reported but that targeting of a minority community is alarming.

Moreover, the attacks are concentrated in geographic pockets.

The report on India criticizes "anti-conversion" laws enacted or amended by some state governments, asserting that Congress Party officials in Himachal Pradesh state passed an anti-conversion law that, "similar to other laws of its kind, restricts and regulates religious proselytism." Anti-conversion laws are in force in three states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Such laws in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan as well as Himachal Pradesh remain on paper, awaiting implementation, according to Compass.

"Public hysteria aside," Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, told Compass Direct News, "it has to be remembered that the real threat to democracy in India today comes from anti-democratic laws and regulations curbing the rights of Christians."

It appears some religious parties are using their influence to marginalize Christians. They're creating environments that have less and less ability for Christians to speak, to gather together, to evangelize freely.

"It is the targeting of this minority population that becomes a cause for concern," said Christian Legal Association General Secretary Tehmina Arora, pointing out that Christians make up only 2.3 percent, or 24 million, of India's population.

"India is huge in terms of both its area and population, and therefore some may underestimate its intensity," she said. "But the fact is that Christians particularly in seven states – namely Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh – are facing the brunt of Hindu extremism."

The total population in these seven states is more than 354 million people, of which 4 million are Christian.

What can be done? Christians need to pray that the democratic process in India would be strengthened, that Christians would be given the proper minority representation at this point and that the proper rights would be respected.

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Dr. Carl Moeller is president/CEO of Open Doors USA

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