Sunday, October 26, 2008
Anti-Christian violence in the nation killed 38 and destroyed dozens of churches.
TIKKABALLI, India (AP) — They still worship in what remains of the little Baptist church not far from this forest town. The church is empty except for the rubble swept neatly into the corners. The sun comes through ragged holes where the mob smashed in the window frames.
On the roof, the crucifix is just twisted metal and broken concrete. It’s barely recognizable, and you have to ask to make sure that’s what it once was.
Here, prayers are said only in secret.
“We do it without making any noise,” said Subhash Digal, holding his 4-month-old son on his hip as he stood outside the church, where the smell of burned timber lingered on a warm autumn afternoon. “We don’t want these people to know we are inside.”
In this corner of the eastern state of Orissa, it’s hard to find a Christian who isn’t afraid.
Bloody anti-Christian riots broke out here in late August, rampages by Hindu hard-liners that since then have left at least 38 people dead, as many as 30,000 homeless and dozens of churches destroyed. The worst of the violence ended after a week or so, when authorities finally deployed soldiers to set up checkpoints and relief camps.
But nearly every day since then, the trouble has continued: a house burned, a carload of people beaten, a soldier hacked to death. Repeatedly, Christian villagers say, they have been told they must convert to Hinduism. The anti-Christian violence has also flickered across other parts of India, with churches vandalized and Christians attacked in the high-tech hub of Bangalore, the city of Mangalore and the coastal state of Kerala.
In a country desperate to be seen as a stable, democratic world power, the violence is a window into India’s hidden fragility, its sometimes-dangerous political climate and the fierce historical divisions buried in its vast diversity.
India is more than 80 percent Hindu but its 1.1 billion people include all of the world’s major religions, a caste system of near-impossible complexity, colossal divides of wealth and poverty, and, by some estimates, more than 2,000 ethnic groups.
“If you look at Africa, you don’t see this kind of diversity, if you look at all of Europe, you don’t see this kind of diversity,” said Swami Agnivesh, a Hindu intellectual and liberal social activist. When it comes to India’s continued existence: “Sometimes I think it’s a miracle.”
Trouble can seem inevitable. In just the past couple of weeks, violence has ranged from the northeastern state of Assam, where at least 50 people have died in ethnic clashes, to the central state of Madhya Pradesh state, where three people were killed in religious riots after a Hindu procession passed through a Muslim neighborhood.
Then there is Orissa’s Kandhamal district, where widespread trouble began after the Aug. 24 killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a hard-line Hindu leader who rose to prominence in the area by advocating that Christian converts return to Hinduism.
Police blamed Maoist guerrillas for the killing, though it’s unclear why they would have targeted him.
But Hindu militants quickly turned on local Christians, setting fire to a Christian orphanage and attacking churches and Christian-owned shops and homes. A nun accused a Hindu mob of raping her. At least 32 people have been killed, tens of thousands have fled their homes and thousands are believed still to be hiding in Orissa’s thick forests.
The Kandhamal region is a place where villagers tend farms in small valleys circled by humpbacked hills, and where roadside ponds are filled with swimming children and floating lotuses. But it’s also a place long cut off by poverty and illiteracy, where electricity is unknown in most villages and the pay for day laborers — the only job most people hope for — is 30 rupees, or 60 cents. That wage is only for men: Women earn 20 rupees, or 40 cents.
Kandhamal has long been a battleground over Christian missionary work among low-caste Hindus and the indigenous people known in India as “tribals.” Though Christians account for just 2.5 percent of India, their population in Kandhamal has risen sharply in recent decades, reaching nearly 20 percent by the last census in 2001.