The greatest violence against Christians is witnessed in the Indian
state of Karnataka. It is no coincidence that the party in power is the
Bharatiya Janata Party, which is backed by Hindu extremists.
According
to a representative of the Christian Legal Association, lawyer Nova
Bethamia, Christians or their property are attacked on average three
times a week in Karnatake. In recent weeks, there has been a significant
increase in violence, including an attempt to cut the throat of a
Protestant pastor while he was in hospital recovering from a previous
attack.
A number of Indian states are affected by interreligious tensions and
Hindu extremists always seem to be at the centre. But Karnataka comes
first in the national rankings for anti-Christian violence.
According to
the Indian Evangelical association, there were 49 such cases last year,
56 in 2010 and 48 in 2009. But the real problem, according to Christian
lawyers, is that “No serious investigations are carried out into these
cases and those responsible are never tracked down or called to account
for their actions. And this makes them bolder and ready to expand their
activity.”
It is usually, though not exclusively, Protestant Churches that come
under attack for their missionary activities among the rural
populations. For example, last 2 November, Hindu extremists forced four
Christians from the Zion Prayer Hall, to undergo a “Hindu bath ritual”
and threatened to kill the pastor.
They ordered them to publicly
renounce Christianity and to embrace Hinduism, otherwise they would
ostracise them, making it so that they lost their government
contributions as members of the Bhovi ethnic community.
The Christians
refused and so were made to go through the bathing ritual by force.
The police was informed about the incident but did nothing. Such
attacks, including physical ones, happen frequently. The most serious
case was that witnessed in the village of Kannur, near Kolar, where
pastor Samuel Kim from the Jerusalem Prayer House, reported he had been
beaten senseless by Hindu extremists who left him unconscious on the
street.
He was taken to hospital with broken ribs and wounds to the neck
and head, then, in the early hours of the morning, his assailants
returned and tried to strangle him, before going on to hold a razor to
his throat. In the end, they fled, after some people heard the pastor’s
screams and came to see what was going on.
The police protected him for
seven days after that but no one was arrested because the aggressors had
gone into hiding. Police inspector, Davendra Prasad advised him to
cease his activity to avoid “graver consequences.”
The Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and conversion
from one faith to another is legal. But Hindu nationalists claim that
all those born in India are Hindus by default.
This is despite the fact
that many tribal populations have indigenous religions and there are
millions of Christians living in Southern India, whose faith dates back
to the time of the Apostles and to the preachings of St. Thomas.