DelhiDareDevil
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Well at least no one died.
Hindu Extremists attack converted Sikh family in Thar
- Thread starter Omar1984
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King123
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My Few friends ancestors were born in Multan and they told After 1947, Hindu population was almost 30% and Today only 1%. Where 29% Gone ??
About Hindu Extremism ? Hindus almost lost 90% Populations in last 60 years. This is what an Islamic Countries means ?? If Yes, then Good Luck. U.A.E. and Bangladesh is far better Islamic Countries.
Few people talk about few incident of Muslims happened in India. Population is many times since 1947 and they are mostly happy. But those people who talk about muslims in India forget about 90% lost population in pakistan due to Conversation, Killing, Humiliation, Kidnap, Rape, and so on.
Good Luck.
About Hindu Extremism ? Hindus almost lost 90% Populations in last 60 years. This is what an Islamic Countries means ?? If Yes, then Good Luck. U.A.E. and Bangladesh is far better Islamic Countries.
Few people talk about few incident of Muslims happened in India. Population is many times since 1947 and they are mostly happy. But those people who talk about muslims in India forget about 90% lost population in pakistan due to Conversation, Killing, Humiliation, Kidnap, Rape, and so on.
Good Luck.
You have provided no source supporting your claim that you are talking solely about West Pakistan.
So of course Pakistan's non-Muslim population fell down significantly from 15% when Bangladesh became independent, as East & West Pakistan had similar total population, & East Pakistan had 25% of its population non-Muslims, a very significant amount. If East & West Pakistan had similar populations, & their combined non-Muslim population was 15%. Then the non-Muslim population in West Pakistan was:
Let's denote the non-Muslim population in West Pakistan in 1947 as 'x':
(25 + x)/2 = 15
x = 5%
So essentially, the non-Muslim population in Pakistan today fell down from 5% to 2%. One of the reasons for this is also because Muslims grow faster in population than non-Muslims. There are currently 8 million Hindus in Pakistan today, the population of non-Muslims in Pakistan has grown, it's just that the population of Muslims in Pakistan has grown faster.
King123
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You always try to Increase number of posts without seeing both side. What you talking is small incident happened. India is vast country. So, its impossible to Stop 100% such things. But I am really proud, than Indian Government able to Stop 99% such things.
Answer why 90% Hindus were Killed, Raped, Kidnapped Converted into Islam with force and Humiliation in Last 60 years. This is Classic Example of Ignoring own Extremeness. Do you want 100 Links written by your own writers ??
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First of all its very much Cast based religious terrorism. terrorism is terrorism you cant just change its names but again we here in this thread are NOT talking about terrorism.
the incident which is being debated in this thread had happened on the basis of Hindu castism and hence we are debating it.
Your answer is in Post # 27 & 48.
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small incident ?? killing of Hundreds of Christians in Orrissa is a small incident in your view ???
and NO govt of India has not stopped such cast based prosecution of low cast Hindus in India at the hands of high cast extremists hindus.
DelhiDareDevil
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Well every country have this problem.
In the west world its KKK vs black and brown people. Christian, Sikhs, Hindus vs Muslim.
The the main difference is, they isnt murders happening every other day or reported anyway.
In the west world its KKK vs black and brown people. Christian, Sikhs, Hindus vs Muslim.
The the main difference is, they isnt murders happening every other day or reported anyway.
King123
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100 Killed ?? Even if happened. then those killed are behind the bar. Do you want link ??
and why not replying Why 90% Hindus were Killed, Raped, Kidnapped Converted into Islam with force and Humiliation in Last 60 years. This is Classic Example of Ignoring own Extremeness. Do you want 100 Links written by your own writers ??
King123
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Protecting Pakistan's Hindus
The cultural and institutional marginalisation of Hindus in Pakistan is a travesty of human dignity and freedom
Hindus in Pakistan have suffered grievously since the founding of the nation in 1947. Recently, in the southern province of Sindh, a Hindu man was accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by his co-workers. This comes at the heels of the abduction and dismemberment of a Hindu engineer.
A little while earlier, the military removed 70 Hindu families from lands where they had been living since the 19th century. To this day the temples that Pakistanis destroyed in 1992 in response to the destruction of the Babri mosque in India have not been restored.
Pakistan, according to many accounts, was founded as a way to protect the rights and existence of the minority Muslim population of Colonial India in the face of the larger Hindu majority. Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is reported to have said in 1947: "In due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims - not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state." It is therefore a travesty of Pakistan's own founding principles that its Hindus - and not to exclude Christians and Ahmadis - have suffered so grossly.
There are two levels of prejudice in Pakistan with respect to Hindus - the cultural and the legal.
While it is difficult to say which one is more pernicious, cultural prejudice is certainly more difficult to uproot because it is perpetuated by religious supremacism, nationalism, stories, myth, lies, families, media, schooling and bigotry.
Cultural prejudice has become part and parcel of language itself. Hindus are referred to as "na pak." Na means "un" and pak means "pure." So, Hindus are turned into the impure, or unclean. Given that the word "pak" is part of the word "Pakistan" - which means Land of the Pure - somebody's impurity suggests that they are not really Pakistani.
To make matters even worse, Pakistani mullahs teach a very supremacist version of the Islamic creed, the kalima. Usually, the kalima reads simply: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His final messenger." The version that children are taught, however, reads as follows: "The first kalima is Tayyab; Tayyab means Pak (Pure); There is no god but God and Muhammad is His final Messenger."
Do you see how the word "Pak" - which denotes both purity and connects to citizenship in Pakistan - is smuggled into the Islamic creed? Since in Urdu this little ditty rhymes very effectively, this is the version of religiosity that most children repeat their entire lives. As a result, while they grow up, they psychologically equate Hindus with impurity, with uncleanliness, as not Pakistani, and therefore less than, both Islamically and as citizens.
The only two parties that can begin to bring some change in this arena are the state and the liberal clerics.
Last year Pakistan's prime minister did greet Hindus during Diwali and a prominent Hindu nationalist leader - who had to quit his party because of his outreach - that was born in Karachi did come back and pay respects to his birth-city.
Cricket diplomacy, which began in 2004, helped a little (but not really, because the focus was on cricket and not on religion). Also, there are a few prominent Hindus here and there - one is a justice of the Supreme Court and one is the leading leg-spinner for the cricket team. Yet, as the Pakistani exile Tarek Fatah points out, Justice Bhagwandas had to take the oath on the Quran. Meanwhile, Kaneria is regularly excluded from the Pakistani cricket team's congregational Islamic prayer.
As bad as the cultural prejudice is, legal prejudice is the one that must be more urgently dealt with, because it is what allows cultural prejudice to acquire institutional power.
Two laws in particular have been very problematic for the Hindu community.
The first one was promulgated under the 1973 constitution which made Islam the state religion of Pakistan and established a separate electorate for Muslims and non-Muslims so that Hindus could only vote for Hindu candidates. Musharraf abolished this in 2002. I think Muslims who support the idea of Islamic states around the world really need to stop and think about this for a second. It took an American-backed dictator in the year 2002 for a Muslim state to abolish unequal voting? As a wise man once said: are you kidding me? This is a deplorable commentary on the state of equality in today's Islam.
The second law is the infamous blasphemy law passed under Islamist dictator Zia ul Haq in the 1980s. Designed specifically to punish the Ahmadi minority, the blasphemy law now provides convenient protection to anyone who ever wants to kill, murder, maim, beat up, mug, abduct, or punish any religious minority. All you really have to do is carry out your brutality and then point at the victim and say that he was blasphemous.
This law needs to be repealed immediately: no reform, no fixing, no tweaking, but total abolishment. Efforts to repeal it under Musharraf failed in the Senate. The secular parliament in session now is probably not going to touch it unless it is told to do so by international groups (who frankly aren't really interested). The UN, EU, US, and International Council of Jurists must make some noise about repealing Pakistan's heinous blasphemy law.
There are little more than three million Hindus in Pakistan (a nation of 160 million). They are still part of Pakistani life and need to be treated with respect and dignity. According to some sources, at the founding of Pakistan, Hindus comprised nearly 15% of the country's population and now number barely 2%. Many have left, many have been killed, and many have converted to other religions to protect themselves. All in all, a travesty for a state that was created with the intended purpose of protecting minorities.
Ali Eteraz
guardian.co.uk
The cultural and institutional marginalisation of Hindus in Pakistan is a travesty of human dignity and freedom
Hindus in Pakistan have suffered grievously since the founding of the nation in 1947. Recently, in the southern province of Sindh, a Hindu man was accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by his co-workers. This comes at the heels of the abduction and dismemberment of a Hindu engineer.
A little while earlier, the military removed 70 Hindu families from lands where they had been living since the 19th century. To this day the temples that Pakistanis destroyed in 1992 in response to the destruction of the Babri mosque in India have not been restored.
Pakistan, according to many accounts, was founded as a way to protect the rights and existence of the minority Muslim population of Colonial India in the face of the larger Hindu majority. Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is reported to have said in 1947: "In due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims - not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state." It is therefore a travesty of Pakistan's own founding principles that its Hindus - and not to exclude Christians and Ahmadis - have suffered so grossly.
There are two levels of prejudice in Pakistan with respect to Hindus - the cultural and the legal.
While it is difficult to say which one is more pernicious, cultural prejudice is certainly more difficult to uproot because it is perpetuated by religious supremacism, nationalism, stories, myth, lies, families, media, schooling and bigotry.
Cultural prejudice has become part and parcel of language itself. Hindus are referred to as "na pak." Na means "un" and pak means "pure." So, Hindus are turned into the impure, or unclean. Given that the word "pak" is part of the word "Pakistan" - which means Land of the Pure - somebody's impurity suggests that they are not really Pakistani.
To make matters even worse, Pakistani mullahs teach a very supremacist version of the Islamic creed, the kalima. Usually, the kalima reads simply: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His final messenger." The version that children are taught, however, reads as follows: "The first kalima is Tayyab; Tayyab means Pak (Pure); There is no god but God and Muhammad is His final Messenger."
Do you see how the word "Pak" - which denotes both purity and connects to citizenship in Pakistan - is smuggled into the Islamic creed? Since in Urdu this little ditty rhymes very effectively, this is the version of religiosity that most children repeat their entire lives. As a result, while they grow up, they psychologically equate Hindus with impurity, with uncleanliness, as not Pakistani, and therefore less than, both Islamically and as citizens.
The only two parties that can begin to bring some change in this arena are the state and the liberal clerics.
Last year Pakistan's prime minister did greet Hindus during Diwali and a prominent Hindu nationalist leader - who had to quit his party because of his outreach - that was born in Karachi did come back and pay respects to his birth-city.
Cricket diplomacy, which began in 2004, helped a little (but not really, because the focus was on cricket and not on religion). Also, there are a few prominent Hindus here and there - one is a justice of the Supreme Court and one is the leading leg-spinner for the cricket team. Yet, as the Pakistani exile Tarek Fatah points out, Justice Bhagwandas had to take the oath on the Quran. Meanwhile, Kaneria is regularly excluded from the Pakistani cricket team's congregational Islamic prayer.
As bad as the cultural prejudice is, legal prejudice is the one that must be more urgently dealt with, because it is what allows cultural prejudice to acquire institutional power.
Two laws in particular have been very problematic for the Hindu community.
The first one was promulgated under the 1973 constitution which made Islam the state religion of Pakistan and established a separate electorate for Muslims and non-Muslims so that Hindus could only vote for Hindu candidates. Musharraf abolished this in 2002. I think Muslims who support the idea of Islamic states around the world really need to stop and think about this for a second. It took an American-backed dictator in the year 2002 for a Muslim state to abolish unequal voting? As a wise man once said: are you kidding me? This is a deplorable commentary on the state of equality in today's Islam.
The second law is the infamous blasphemy law passed under Islamist dictator Zia ul Haq in the 1980s. Designed specifically to punish the Ahmadi minority, the blasphemy law now provides convenient protection to anyone who ever wants to kill, murder, maim, beat up, mug, abduct, or punish any religious minority. All you really have to do is carry out your brutality and then point at the victim and say that he was blasphemous.
This law needs to be repealed immediately: no reform, no fixing, no tweaking, but total abolishment. Efforts to repeal it under Musharraf failed in the Senate. The secular parliament in session now is probably not going to touch it unless it is told to do so by international groups (who frankly aren't really interested). The UN, EU, US, and International Council of Jurists must make some noise about repealing Pakistan's heinous blasphemy law.
There are little more than three million Hindus in Pakistan (a nation of 160 million). They are still part of Pakistani life and need to be treated with respect and dignity. According to some sources, at the founding of Pakistan, Hindus comprised nearly 15% of the country's population and now number barely 2%. Many have left, many have been killed, and many have converted to other religions to protect themselves. All in all, a travesty for a state that was created with the intended purpose of protecting minorities.
Ali Eteraz
guardian.co.uk
King123
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Discrimination against Hindus
There have been severe persecution of Hindus by Muslims in Pakistan since its formation in 1947.[citation needed]The increasing Islamization has caused many Hindus to leave Hinduism and seek emancipation by converting to other faiths such as Buddhism and Christianity. Such Islamization include the blasphemy laws, which make it dangerous for religious minorities to express themselves freely and engage freely in religious and cultural activities [11]
Minority members of the Pakistan National Assembly have alleged that Hindus were being hounded and humiliated to force them to leave Pakistan.[12] Hindu women have been known to be victims of kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam.[13] Krishan Bheel, a Hindu member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, came into news recently for manhandling Qari Gul Rehman.[14]
Hindus in what is now Pakistan have declined from 23 % of the total population in 1947 to less than 2% today. The report condemns Pakistan for systematic state-sponsored religious discrimination against Hindus through bigoted "anti-blasphemy" laws. It documents numerous reports of millions of Hindus being held as "bonded laborers" in slavery-like conditions in rural Pakistan, something repeatedly ignored by the Pakistani government.
Forced and coerced conversions of religious minorities to Islam occurred at the hands of societal actors. Religious minorities claimed that government actions to stem the problem were inadequate. Several human rights groups have highlighted the increased phenomenon of Hindu girls, particularly in Karachi, being kidnapped from their families and forced to convert to Islam.
Kidnapping charges were pending against a Muslim man who abducted a fifteen-year-old Christian, Samina Izhaq, and forced her to convert in August 2004.
On September 2, 2005, Ghulam Abbas and Mohammad Kashif reportedly drugged and kidnapped Riqba Masih, a Christian woman, from the village of Chak, Punjab, and took her to Lahore. The kidnappers repeatedly raped Masih and threatened to kill her and her family if she did not convert to Islam but Masih refused. On September 3, 2005, another unidentified accomplice took Masih into custody and detained her until September 6, 2005, raping her repeatedly. Later that day, the kidnappers took Masih to Faisalabad and abandoned her at a bus stop from where she made her way to her parents' home. Police arrested Ghulam Abbas and Mohammad Kashif and charged them with kidnapping and rape. Following an October 24, 2005, hearing in which a Faisalabad court denied bail, Kashif escaped from the courtroom and remained at large at the end of the reporting period. Abbas remained in police custody, and police are attempting to find Kashif.[15]
On October 18, 2005, Sanno Amra and Champa, a Hindu couple residing in the Punjab Colony, Karachi, Sindh returned home to find that their three teenage daughters had disappeared. After inquiries to the local police, the couple discovered that their daughters had been taken to a local madrassah, had been converted to Islam, and were denied unsupervised contact with their parents
Source : Wikipedia
There have been severe persecution of Hindus by Muslims in Pakistan since its formation in 1947.[citation needed]The increasing Islamization has caused many Hindus to leave Hinduism and seek emancipation by converting to other faiths such as Buddhism and Christianity. Such Islamization include the blasphemy laws, which make it dangerous for religious minorities to express themselves freely and engage freely in religious and cultural activities [11]
Minority members of the Pakistan National Assembly have alleged that Hindus were being hounded and humiliated to force them to leave Pakistan.[12] Hindu women have been known to be victims of kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam.[13] Krishan Bheel, a Hindu member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, came into news recently for manhandling Qari Gul Rehman.[14]
Hindus in what is now Pakistan have declined from 23 % of the total population in 1947 to less than 2% today. The report condemns Pakistan for systematic state-sponsored religious discrimination against Hindus through bigoted "anti-blasphemy" laws. It documents numerous reports of millions of Hindus being held as "bonded laborers" in slavery-like conditions in rural Pakistan, something repeatedly ignored by the Pakistani government.
Forced and coerced conversions of religious minorities to Islam occurred at the hands of societal actors. Religious minorities claimed that government actions to stem the problem were inadequate. Several human rights groups have highlighted the increased phenomenon of Hindu girls, particularly in Karachi, being kidnapped from their families and forced to convert to Islam.
Kidnapping charges were pending against a Muslim man who abducted a fifteen-year-old Christian, Samina Izhaq, and forced her to convert in August 2004.
On September 2, 2005, Ghulam Abbas and Mohammad Kashif reportedly drugged and kidnapped Riqba Masih, a Christian woman, from the village of Chak, Punjab, and took her to Lahore. The kidnappers repeatedly raped Masih and threatened to kill her and her family if she did not convert to Islam but Masih refused. On September 3, 2005, another unidentified accomplice took Masih into custody and detained her until September 6, 2005, raping her repeatedly. Later that day, the kidnappers took Masih to Faisalabad and abandoned her at a bus stop from where she made her way to her parents' home. Police arrested Ghulam Abbas and Mohammad Kashif and charged them with kidnapping and rape. Following an October 24, 2005, hearing in which a Faisalabad court denied bail, Kashif escaped from the courtroom and remained at large at the end of the reporting period. Abbas remained in police custody, and police are attempting to find Kashif.[15]
On October 18, 2005, Sanno Amra and Champa, a Hindu couple residing in the Punjab Colony, Karachi, Sindh returned home to find that their three teenage daughters had disappeared. After inquiries to the local police, the couple discovered that their daughters had been taken to a local madrassah, had been converted to Islam, and were denied unsupervised contact with their parents
Source : Wikipedia
Anyone interested in finding about Hinduism in Pakistan, please visit this thread I created before. It will be very enlightening for you:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/general-images-multimedia/109249-hindu-mandars-pakistan.html
http://www.defence.pk/forums/general-images-multimedia/109249-hindu-mandars-pakistan.html
King123
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Being a Hindu in Pakistan
It’s not easy these days being a Hindu in Pakistan. The number of cases of members of the Hindu community being kidnapped for ransom is on the rise, both in Sindh and in Balochistan. While recently attending a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee for Law and Justice, I realised that a stringent law was already in place under which a person convicted of this offence could be sentenced to life in prison or even death. As usual, the discussion revolved around the fact that while we had good laws, they were not being implemented.
Personally, I am against capital punishment — and the logic is quite straightforward: since we don’t give life, we have no right to take it away. And hence life imprisonment is acceptable but not capital punishment. However, the rise in cases of kidnapping, often of children, has altered this view. Those who kidnap people for ransom need to be dealt with a heavy hand, more so because in Pakistan where we hardly ever see anyone punished for this crime. In August, before the floods had hit Sindh, I visited a Hindu Sindhi family in Kashmore whose six-year-old had been kidnapped. The state of the mother was enough to convince me to press for severe punishment as a deterrent to stop this kind of crime.
I was told that Hindus were being targeted because, by and large, they lacked political clout and made for easier targets. Furthermore, those involved in kidnapping for ransom often had connections to powerful people, and this explained why, in most instances, the kidnappers were never caught.
The tragedy is that as a result of these kidnappings, many Hindu families have migrated to India. After all, it is better to live in another country than in perpetual fear. This is the biggest failure of the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan — that its minorities don’t feel safe on their own soil.
Clearly, the government’s package, called ‘Aghaz-e-Huqooq Balochistan’ has not achieved much in that province. For instance, in 2009 a 13-year-old was kidnapped and released after a ransom of Rs1.8 million was paid. Another Hindu was kidnapped from the busy Sariab road and released after a ransom of Rs4.2 million was paid. A Hindu man was kidnapped and released after his family paid Rs1.5 million. A Hindu shopkeeper was asked to pay Rs6million at which point he migrated to India — this happened in August of this year. And this is just a partial list.
The Hindu community is peaceful — so what is its biggest sin? It is a minority in a land where there is no rule of law. All that is needed is the political will to go after those involved in these kidnappings — the incidents will stop and our Hindu compatriots will stop fleeing to India.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2010.
By Marvi Memon
Being a Hindu in Pakistan – The Express Tribune
It’s not easy these days being a Hindu in Pakistan. The number of cases of members of the Hindu community being kidnapped for ransom is on the rise, both in Sindh and in Balochistan. While recently attending a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee for Law and Justice, I realised that a stringent law was already in place under which a person convicted of this offence could be sentenced to life in prison or even death. As usual, the discussion revolved around the fact that while we had good laws, they were not being implemented.
Personally, I am against capital punishment — and the logic is quite straightforward: since we don’t give life, we have no right to take it away. And hence life imprisonment is acceptable but not capital punishment. However, the rise in cases of kidnapping, often of children, has altered this view. Those who kidnap people for ransom need to be dealt with a heavy hand, more so because in Pakistan where we hardly ever see anyone punished for this crime. In August, before the floods had hit Sindh, I visited a Hindu Sindhi family in Kashmore whose six-year-old had been kidnapped. The state of the mother was enough to convince me to press for severe punishment as a deterrent to stop this kind of crime.
I was told that Hindus were being targeted because, by and large, they lacked political clout and made for easier targets. Furthermore, those involved in kidnapping for ransom often had connections to powerful people, and this explained why, in most instances, the kidnappers were never caught.
The tragedy is that as a result of these kidnappings, many Hindu families have migrated to India. After all, it is better to live in another country than in perpetual fear. This is the biggest failure of the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan — that its minorities don’t feel safe on their own soil.
Clearly, the government’s package, called ‘Aghaz-e-Huqooq Balochistan’ has not achieved much in that province. For instance, in 2009 a 13-year-old was kidnapped and released after a ransom of Rs1.8 million was paid. Another Hindu was kidnapped from the busy Sariab road and released after a ransom of Rs4.2 million was paid. A Hindu man was kidnapped and released after his family paid Rs1.5 million. A Hindu shopkeeper was asked to pay Rs6million at which point he migrated to India — this happened in August of this year. And this is just a partial list.
The Hindu community is peaceful — so what is its biggest sin? It is a minority in a land where there is no rule of law. All that is needed is the political will to go after those involved in these kidnappings — the incidents will stop and our Hindu compatriots will stop fleeing to India.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2010.
By Marvi Memon
Being a Hindu in Pakistan – The Express Tribune
King123
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Few Pakistani members have bad habit of raising 10-20 minority people killed in years. But They Don't raise and talk the issue of Millions of Hindus Killed in Pakistan. This is Biggest Reality.
Minorities Community doing pretty well in India with very minor incident happening once/twice in year. and after seeing what happening in Pakistan. I feel Ashamed of Humanity in Pakistan.
Minorities Community doing pretty well in India with very minor incident happening once/twice in year. and after seeing what happening in Pakistan. I feel Ashamed of Humanity in Pakistan.
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Orissa: killing Christians to stop Tribals and Dalits from developing and achieving dignity
by P. Augustine Kanjamala, Svd
An expert sociologist talks about the motives behind the ongoing waves of violence against Christians—conversion to Christianity, education and emancipation allow Tribals and Dalits to escape slave-like conditions. Hindu fundamentalism is against the search for greater justice and wants to stop ongoing social transformations.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) – Fr Augustine Kanjamala, a Verbite clergyman who teaches at the University of Mumbai, appeals to the Churches of the world to “express their protest to the government of India” which has remained “inactive” with regards to anti-Christian violence. He openly charges the Orissa state government for its increasingly explicit collusion with the pogrom currently underway against the community of faithful. According to Father Kanjamala a plan to cleanse Orissa of its Christian population has been in the making for years, especially in the district of Kandhamal (where most of the atrocities have taken place) where Christians now constitute around 5 per cent of the population. Conversions by, development for and emancipation of Tribals and Dalits are confronted by Hindutva conservatism.
“On 24 December 2007, while the Christians were getting ready to celebrate the birth of Lord Jesus Christ, Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, a member of a Hindu fundamentalist organization (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and his supporters attacked and destroyed many churches and prayer centres. A large number of Christians were injured and made homeless in the communally sensitive district of Kandhmal, in Orissa state, eastern India.
Exactly eight months later, on 23 August 2008 when the same seer and the Hindu community were preparing to celebrate the birthday of Lord Krishna (Janmashtami) in Jalespata ashram (monastery), he and four of his disciples were gunned down by tribal revolutionary Maoists.
That it was a premeditated attack is evident from the fact that he was warned in advance and that government authorities were aware of it. A local TV Channel reported that the murderers left a note on the spot of the murder that this was a revenge killing for the last December attack on the Christians.
Hindus were quick to accuse the Church of masterminding the murder of their revered religious leader, who was in his 80s, rather than accept the government’s view that the attack had a Maoist colour.
A meeting of Hindu leaders took place on the following day in Rourkela, also known as Steel City, where a decision for an immediate and violent retaliation was taken. The total success of the dawn to dusk strike in Orissa on 25 August is clear evidence of the shocking reaction. The simultaneous unleashing of violent attacks on 35 Christian centres in Orissa on the evening of 25 August further confirms that the plan was organized.
All bomb attacks were directed at Christians and their institutions. The rampaging mob, seeking revenge for the Guru’s murder, destroyed the pastoral centre of the archdiocese of Bhuvaneshwar with a bomb. A priest and a nun working there were beaten up, stripped and paraded naked in order to humiliate them. Four other priests were severely beaten—one suffered severe burns and is now in critical conditions in Burla Medical College, in the district of Sambalpur.
The mob also ransacked a church-run orphanage near Burgarh, and the caretaker, Ms Rajni Maji, was set ablaze and burned to death.
A large number of churches, prayer centres, convents, hospitals, dispensaries and vehicles were attacked and torched. Some nuns received warned by mobile phone and either ran into the jungle or escaped by jeep to the neighbouring state of Chattisgarh.
A few lay people lost their lives while thousands ran for theirs into the forests; more than 200 houses were set on fire.
The radical Hindu mobs defied the curfew and forced everyone and everything to shut down, bringing life to a stand still and the state virtually to its knees. The official death toll of 20 reported by the controlled media is totally false.
With 40 per cent of the population made up of Tribals and Dalits (outcasts) Orissa is one of the most underdeveloped states in the country.
The Kandhamal district, which has seen high levels of anti-Christian violence in the last decade, is also where a significant number of Christian conversions have taken place in the same period. As Dalits who embrace Christianity achieve socio-economic progress, many Tribals have followed them in that path in recent times. Thus while Orissa's Christian population is less than 2 per cent, the Christian population in the district doubled in the last decade to reach the 5 per cent mark.
In January 1999, the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were burned to death by a mob led by one Dara Singh (convicted in 2003).
Objecting to missionary activities, the murdered Hindu sage recently said: “The sooner Christians return to the Hindu fold the better it would be for the country.”
Orissa was the first state in the country that passed legislation against religious conversion in 1967, followed later by other states.
While Christian missionaries firmly assert that serving the poor and the marginalized is their missionary vocation, the anti-conversion law is based on the view that these services are inducements and fraudulent means to abet conversions.
Another factor also generates opposition to Christians. It is becoming increasingly clear that where Christian missionaries operate, important social changes take place. People develop, acting and living with greater dignity. Thus, as a result of education, even basic education, Tribals and Dalits are no longer willing to be used as cheap labour in farming. Their sense of dignity and their education have given them the courage to protest against their exploitation and oppression.
In addition to such changes over the past two generations, Tribals are now moving in great numbers to the big cities. In Mumbai alone there are some 100,000 young Tribals or Adivasi from Orissa, all working in domestic service or small industrial plants. It is obvious that these changes are transforming Orissa’s socio-economic structure.
Radical Hindus’ political programme
The total breakdown of law and order in the state has created the impression that state authorities are conniving with Hindu fundamentalists under political compulsion. The state of Orissa is ruled by a coalition government, supported by the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janatha Party. There are fears that Orissa might go the way of Gujarat and turn into a Hindu laboratory and a land of massacres.
On behalf of Christians, particularly Catholics, Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Bhuvaneshwar, the capital of Orissa, strongly condemned the dastardly acts and violent killings, including that of Swami Laxmanananda, and has appealed to everyone for peace and harmony.
A Christian delegation led by Archbishop Vincent Concessao met the Home minister in New Delhi, giving him a memorandum.
The court cases against the culprits of last December attacks, including police officials and state ministers who failed to act, are presently underway. This partly explains the coolness of the state’s governmental machinery to the current events.
In order to protest and express solidarity with the suffering Christians of Orissa all Catholic schools in the country will remain closed on Friday, 29 August. But we shall not forget to show our appreciation for the police officials who acted promptly to help missionaries and some church institutions. Likewise many Hindus and other people of good will expressed their sympathy and support.
We urge Christians around the world to protest to the government of India. We believe that India will be eager to protect its image as a secular and democratic nation in the international community of nations by promptly taking those steps that promote religious freedom and harmony.
At the time of writing this article (28 August) the situation remains highly volatile so much so the government extended the curfew to nine towns. Security forces are also expected to arrive in the area from the Union capital.”
* Rev Dr Augustine Kanjamala, SVD, holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion. He was the Director of the Ishvani Kendra (Missiological Institute), in Pune. He was secretary of the Commission for Evangelisation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. He is currently director of the Institute of Indian Culture, which is associated with the University of Mumbai.
INDIA Orissa: killing Christians to stop Tribals and Dalits from developing and achieving dignity - Asia News
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