Since August of this year, a spate of violence has swept across significant portions of the eastern Indian state of Orissa. More than 30 people have been killed, thousands of homes torched and hundreds displaced. The principal victims have been the small, beleaguered Christian communities. Sadly, they are no strangers to such tragedies. In 1999, Hindu zealots murdered an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two sons. The ostensible trigger for the renewed attacks on the Christian communities appears to be the unresolved murder of a local Hindu preacher, Swami Laksshmanananda Saraawati, in August. The local police have blamed a neophyte Maoist terrorist organization, the Naxalites, for his murder. But the Bajrang Dal, a radical Hindu organization, with ties to the hypernationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), assert that the preacher was killed because of his staunch opposition to evangelical Christian missionary activity in the state. The BJP has sought to pin blame on the Christian community. Despite expressions of outrage in India's vigilant national press and statements of concern on the part of the country's vibrant civil society about the plight of the Christians, the state government has proven to be appallingly complacent—it has failed to act quickly to stem the violence. The Christians in Orissa—predominantly converts from either lower castes or from the tribal populations of the state—constitute a tiny minority with little or no electoral clout. The tragedy that has now befallen the hapless Orissa Christians is emblematic of a growing tide of intolerance and violence that is sweeping across much of India. The nation's disregard for the plight of the Christian minority, which constitutes barely 2 percent of India's population, constitutes a failure to guarantee religious and cultural freedoms under India's Constitution. Also- follow all the news about this region and he persecution of Christ followers there here
October 16, 2008
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