INDIA – Hindu nationalists target Christian Dalits
28/08/07
Attack on hospital reflects RSS' top priority
An attack on a Christian hospital during its programme for Dalits in Uttar Pradesh state highlights Hindu ultranationalists' main objection to Christian work: conversion of people who were once called 'untouchables'.
On 17 August, a mob of about 100 people, led by Hindu nationalists, barged into the compound of the Kachhwa Christian Hospital (KCH) in the Kachhwa Bazaar area of Mirzapur district and beat and stoned those leading the programme for the Dalit students and their parents, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
Dr Raju Abraham, chief surgeon at KCH, and pastor T V Joy were among four Christians injured in the attack.
Dr Abraham, a Christian leader, and Pastor Joy received head injuries as mob leader Anshu Singh allegedly struck them with stones.
The mob was said to be led by nationalists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council).
There were about 400 Dalits, including women and children, attending the programme that celebrated the 60th anniversary of India's Independence (on 15 August).
The attackers also vandalised the hospital and beat Christians and Dalit participants, besides tearing the Indian flag.
On 16 August, about 20 nationalists had intruded into the hospital compound and threatened to kill Dr Abraham if he continued with the programme for Dalits.
Dr Abraham filed a complaint with the Kachhwa Bazaar police station two days later, naming six people who were leading the mob.
Police arrested four of the accused and were investigating the case at press time.
Uttar Pradesh has more than 35 million Dalits out of the total population of 166 million. Christians number only 212,578.
Obstructing Hindu consolidation
Because conversion of Dalits in most instances happens en masse, Hindu nationalists' are deeply concerned that Christian work could bring a change in religious demographics.
In 2003, supporters of the RSS promoted a book called Religious Demography of India, which warns that more than 50 per cent of India would be Muslims and Christians in the following 50 years due to a decline in Hindu population.
The book, written by A P Joshi, M D Srinivas and J K Bajaj, was published by the Centre for Policy Studies and released by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani.
The BJP is the political wing of the RSS.
According to a 1997 study by the Indian Missions Association, more than 65 per cent of Christians in India are from Dalit background. India's 2001 census showed there are about 24 million Christians, or 2.3 per cent of the total population.
Dalits make up about 16 per cent of the population, or close to 166 million.
With "Hindu consolidation" as one of its top objectives, the RSS has endeavoured to halt mass conversions taking place among Dalits.
"RSS is against mass conversions, which are carried on by various churches by means both fair and foul," the RSS says on its website.
"To allow a tolerant person to embrace an exclusionist belief is to turn him into an intolerant person. For this reason RSS is against the proselytising activities of Christians."
The website includes a special section devoted to 'social equality' and 'Hindu consolidation'.
While mass conversions to Islam took place decades ago – the latest being in Meenakshipuram, Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu state in the 1980s – Dalits continue to convert en masse to Buddhism and Christianity in order to protest and avoid discrimination and atrocities meted out to them by higher-caste Hindus.
Most recently, hundreds of Dalits converted to Buddhism and Christianity on 14 October 2006 in Nagpur in Maharashtra state as a part of a rally against both the caste system and anti-conversion laws in some states, the BBC reported.
As India legally defines a Hindu negatively as someone who is not a Jew, Christian, Muslim or Parsi – as shown in the Hindu Marriage Act – Hindu nationalists oppose conversions to Christianity more than they oppose conversions to Buddhism or other religions not named in the act.
The RSS' objection to conversions is also rooted in Hindutva, a Hindu nationalistic ideology that proposes a nation ruled by those whose ancestors were born in India and who belong to religions that originated there, namely Hinduism and its offshoots.
According to Hindutva, the India is the homeland of Hindus, while Christians and Muslims, as 'outsiders', are its enemies.
Dalits were formerly called 'untouchables' because they were traditionally considered to be outside the confines of caste by the Brahmins, the priestly class.
The Dalits' supposed impurity derived from their traditional, humble occupations.
India's former national leader, Mahatma Gandhi, applied the term Harijans, meaning "'children of God', to Dalits in the 1930s. In 1949, the Indian government outlawed the term 'untouchables' and reclassified them as the 'Scheduled Castes', granting them special educational and political privileges.
But Dalits continue to remain on the margins of society and still face discrimination.
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