Interview with a Christian leader in India about the Persecution of Christians

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Some snippets from the article –

However, Hindutva is a political ideology. It’s a fascist ideology. It believes in one nation, one culture, one people. And it borrows directly from Hitler and elevates Hitler as one of their heroes. They believe in the final solution. These were the forces that killed Mahatma Gandhi and they would they don’t hesitate to kill. So this is the ideology that began in, I would say in the 1920s, and Hindutva, what it means is “Hindu Essence.” So they’re just taking the name Hindu and building a political narrative around it. So they’re using religion for political gains. That’s what it is.

It is not just him, the entire BJP— the Bharatiya Janata Party—is built on the platform or on the rhetoric of anti-minority bashing. That’s what it is. And they borrow it directly from their mother ideology, that’s the RSS, which is the main proponent of this ideology.

My question is tomorrow, if we stop preaching the gospel in India, will these attacks stop? Tomorrow, if we stop running education institutions and medical institutions in India, will these attacks stop? The answer is no because we are persecuted not because of what we do but because of who we are. It’s a matter of identity.

Christianity has done more in India then just preach Christ. Our missionaries have actually been the ones who have preserved languages, even though we are a tiny minuscule—2.3 percent, that’s how much we are. But the ratio of our service to the nation has far outweighed much communities that are much larger than us. In terms of education, in terms of health, in terms of service to the nation even though defense—lots of Christian people in our defense forces—and the Christian involvement in the freedom movement of India.

The persecution of Christians in India is not new. The persecution of Christians in India was first noticed around the mid-1990s. That’s when it started to get a little systematic. At that point of time the central belt of India—mainly the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha/Orissa—where the hot spots where Christians were most often beaten up. In most often, they would have trouble. But that was almost 20 years ago. And now persecution of Christians has become a pan-India phenomenon. Earlier, it was thought it was not present in the south, because south had a fair amount of Christian presence, but now Tamil Nadu very surprisingly ranks number second in terms of persecution of Christians in India, following Uttar Pradesh. The religious liberty Commission of India, we’ve been documenting these incidents since 1998.

Persecution of Christians is primarily physical. See in India, the Pew Forum did a bit of a reporting on persecution in India, and they said that social hostilities was highest in India, or at least the one of the three countries where social hostility to religious freedom or to religions, were very high, were highest. And we found that to be true.

:pray: Pray for India. Especially for the new government that has been re-elected.:pray:

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