BJP’s Use of Religion

The BJP’s turn towards hard-core Hindutva became visible early December. On December 10, the BJP named senior leader Lal Krishna Advani as its prime ministerial candidate in the next general election in 2009, reported The Indian Express newspaper.

Advani, leader of the opposition coalition at the federal level, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), is seen as the leader who revived Hindutva in the early 1990s.

Advani was allegedly behind the demolition of a 14th century mosque, Babri Masjid, in Ayodhya area of Uttar Pradesh state in 1992. This led to an era of divisive politics, as it became a “successful experiment” of the BJP to polarize people along the religious lines.

Due to the polarization, the once-marginal BJP gradually emerged as a mainstream party. It came to power at the federal level through the NDA in 1998.

In 2003, however, the BJP slightly changed its strategy. The party began using religion at the national level, but only covertly, to maintain its ties with allies in the NDA, which is secular in its ideology. But to please its parent organization, the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the party continued to overtly inflame religious passions at regional levels.

After the Congress Party defeated the BJP-led NDA in the general election in 2004, the RSS tightened its grip over the party and has been trying to bring it back to become an explicit pan-Hindutva party.

After assembly elections in Gujarat on December 23, 2007, Advani reportedly asked party members to replicate the combination of Hindutva and development as a major plank in other states.

Gujarat is seen as a BJP’s “laboratory of Hindutva.” In 2002, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP colleagues allegedly allowed Hindu extremists to carry out anti-Muslim violence in which at least 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed.

The killings took place after a train carrying Hindu extremists was allegedly torched, killing 59 people in Gujarat’s Godhra town on February 27, 2002. Hindu groups blamed a Muslim mob for the fire.

Gujarat is also infamous for a spate of anti-Christian violence in its Dangs district from December 25, 1998 to January 3, 1999.

Murders

At least four Christians had been killed across the country in 2007, prior to the Orissa violence.

On November 19, the body of 21-year-old Aayatu Kashyap, a Christian and distant relative of a pastor, Suduru Kashyap, was found about 15 kilometers (nine miles) from his village in Chhattisgarh state’s Bastar district. A day earlier, the pastor and believers were attacked by Hindu extremists. (See Compass Direct News, “Church Attacked in Chhattisgarh; Young Man Killed,” November 27, 2007.)

On September 19, local villagers in Jharkhand state arranged for a Christian worker, Ajay Topno, to be shot to death for converting three tribal families to Christianity. Topno, who worked for Christian media organization Trans World Radio, was found dead with bullet wounds in a jungle near Sahoda village in Ranchi district. (See Compass Direct News, “Christian Worker Shot Dead for Preaching,” September 28, 2007.)

On July 29, after launching a series of attacks on a Dalit Christian pastor, Paul Chinnaswamy, from Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu state, Hindu extremists allegedly murdered his brother Amos. (See Compass Direct News, “Hindu Extremists Allegedly Kill Pastor’s Brother,” August 31, 2007.)

On July 1, unidentified assailants suspected to be Hindu extremists beat Hemanta Das, a 29-year-old Christian worker, to death in Guwahati in Assam state. (See Compass Direct News, “Christian Worker Beaten to Death in Assam,” August 3, 2007.)

Other Attacks

In April, Christians in India were shocked by two attacks launched by Hindu extremists before TV cameras.

On April 29, extremists from the VHP and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal, severely beat an independent pastor, Walter Masih, at his home in Nandpuri area in the heart of Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state, even as a private news channel filmed the attack. A few days later, on May 7, VHP extremists beat two Christian workers in Maharashtra state’s Kolhapur district before a TV camera and a large crowd. (See Compass Direct News, “India Briefs,” May 8.)

Another setback to Christians was the implementation of the “anti-conversion” law by the Congress Party government in Himachal Pradesh state in September. The law requires any person wishing to convert to give a prior notice of at least 30 days. The move brought the number of states with anti-conversion laws in India to four: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh.

In Chhattisgarh state, by February the administration in Jashpur district harassed local Christians by filing 271 property complaints against their institutions, allegedly misusing a state land law. Mainly targeting Catholic churches, educational institutions, hospitals and social work centers that help tribal people, these cases were filed in the name of verifying the credentials of the land purchasers.

Yet another disappointment for Christians came when the Supreme Court deferred a hearing on the rights of more than 16 million Dalit Christians. The hearing was deferred for the ninth time despite the fact that an advisory panel, the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, had in May favored affirmative action benefits for Dalit converts to Christianity.

The year was not without some good news. Ending a long era of absence of adoption rights for non-Hindus, the government in October cleared the way for all religious communities in all Indian states to adopt legally.

Copyright 2008 Compass Direct News