The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution

by John L. Allen

  Yiwu was especially captivated by a feisty Catholic nun named Zhang Yinxian, who was 101 years old at the time they met, partially deaf and blind, and missing virtually all of her teeth. Her spirit, however, was undimmed. She recounted to Yiwu in vivid detail how during the Cultural Revolution, she and other Catholics were forced to publicly confess to the most absurd crimes—murdering orphans, for instance, or sheltering priests who were secretly vampires. For thirty-one years, authorities refused to allow her to live in her convent or perform religious activities, forcing her to work as a farmer in a collective. Today, she said, things have improved, but fear remains pervasive.

  Yiwu asked Yinxian whether, in keeping with the precepts of Christianity, she was prepared to forgive her Communist oppressors.

  “No, certainly not!” she fired back. “They still occupy our church property. I refuse to die … I will wait until they return everything back to the church!”

  INDIA

  The emergence of India as a primary battleground in the global war on Christians is especially tragic, given India’s great national aspirations to both democracy and religious tolerance. Although Christians are a small minority in India, just 2.3 percent of the population, they enjoy an outsize degree of visibility and respect, in part because they operate many of the country’s best-regarded schools, hospitals, and social service centers. When the iconic Catholic figure Mother Teresa died in 1997, she was awarded a full state funeral. The gun carriage that bore her body was the same as that used to carry India’s founding father, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, to their cremations.

  Yet India is also home to a powerful revivalist current in Hinduism, which in some cases shades off into a virulent form of radical nationalism hostile to religious minorities, especially Islam and Christianity. Some of the most violent outbreaks of anti-Christian animus anywhere on the planet over the last decade have come in India, and acts of violence against churches and worshippers have become so frequent as to pass without fanfare. In 2011, for instance, at least three Christian leaders were killed, and none achieved anything like the notoriety that surrounds Asia Bibi. They were activist Rabindra Parichha, who bled to death in the town of Bhanjanagar after his throat was slit; pastor Saul Pradhan, who froze to death after being dumped outside by unknown assailants; and pastor Michael Digal, whose badly beaten and decomposing body was found near the village of Mdikia in the northeastern district of Kandhamal. Originally all these deaths were attributed to random violence or accidents, but most Christians in the country are skeptical. Digal, for instance, had testified against Hindu radicals in court proceedings about the anti-Christian pogroms in Orissa in 2008, and many observers believe his murder was payback.

  According to reports from monitoring bodies, anti-Christian violence has become especially common in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and New Delhi in north-central and northwestern India. One survey conducted by an Indian monitoring body reported that in the thirty-two years from 1964 to 1996, only 38 incidents of violence against Christians were recorded, meaning 1.18 attacks per year. By the year 2000, that total had jumped to 116 attacks per year, and it rose to 170 in the year 2011.

  The Evangelical Fellowship of India issues an annual “Persecution Watch Yearly Report,” cataloguing anti-Christian violence and intimidation. It focuses primarily on evangelicals and Pentecostals, and is thus not necessarily a comprehensive overview of the situation for all Christians. For 2012, the group recorded 131 acts of violence—one attack every 2.7 days. Incidents included intimidation, harassment, false accusation, arrests and detention, churches being vandalized and assaulted, and direct physical attacks on individual believers. The report notes that many acts of violence and intimidation go unreported, so 131 is probably not a complete total. It also asserts that in cases when local police step in, charges often are filed not against those who instigated the violence but rather against the Christians for allegedly engaging in proselytism.

  Observers link this trend to the rise of Hindu nationalist organizations such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajirang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and their related political affiliates, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which have engaged in aggressive propaganda campaigns faulting Christians for their alleged “forced conversion” of Hindus and for being agents of the West hostile to Indian national interests. Suspicion of political cover for the violence isn’t just a conspiracy theory. In 2011, an independent inquiry led by a judge found that anti-Christian assaults in Karnataka state had been planned and backed by the state’s highest authorities, including the chief minister and the police.

  In other parts of India, especially the disputed province of Kashmir, Christians face instability and occasional violence from Muslims. In late December 2011, for instance, an Anglican pastor named Rev. Khander Mani Khanna was arrested for having baptized seven young Muslims, an act that had touched off ferocious backlash among local Muslim leaders. The pastor spent weeks in prison on the charge of “forcible conversion” before being released on bail, his health badly compromised by untreated diabetes.

  The first tremor of a looming anti-Christian earthquake came in January 1999, when an Australian Christian missionary named Graham Staines was burned to death along with his two sons, ages seven and nine, while sleeping in their station wagon in the state of Orissa. Staines, who had been responsible for the Evangelical Missionary Society of Mayurbhanj, had been accused by local Hindu radicals of distributing beef and desecrating Hindu deities as part of a “forced conversion” campaign. The killings were dismissed at the time as an isolated act by authorities, some of whom not-so-subtly suggested that Staines had it coming because of his missionary activity. By 2008, however, claims that outbreaks of anti-Christian sentiment are random or not part of a pattern dissolved amid the notorious 2008 anti-Christian pogrom in Orissa that spread to three hundred villages, resulting in almost five thousand burned homes, fifty thousand displaced people, eighteen thousand injuries, and more than one hundred deaths. At the time, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the rising tide of anti-Christian violence as a matter of great “national shame.”

  The following are snapshots of the threats Christians in parts of India face, on what has become virtually a daily basis.

  In late December 2011, Hindu extremists burned down a Protestant church in Tamil Nadu state, threatening Pastor K. Solomon. Radicals also destroyed the Christu Sabha Church and beat and stabbed its pastor, Paul Chinnasawamy, who said they threatened to abduct and abuse his four daughters. Around the same time, police in Madhya Pradesh arrested a group of Christians and charged them with “forcible conversions” after Hindu extremists attacked their church and beat Pastor Dilip Wadia and other members of the Light Giving Church.

  In Karnataka, Hindu extremists disrupted a service at the Agape Bible Church and attacked pastors Reuben Sathyaraj and Perumal Fernandes. Nearly two hundred radicals assembled outside the church and shouted derogatory slogans before bursting in and hauling out the pastors and other congregants, assaulting them with fists and sticks. The sixty-year-old Sathyaraj was hospitalized for his injuries. Another Christian pastor in Andhra Pradesh was grabbed at a railroad station, put in a car, and driven to a Hindu temple, where radicals burned his Christian literature and subjected him to a beating. Also in Andhra Pradesh, extremists stormed into a Sunday service at the New Fellowship Gospel Church and started throwing stones at the pastor, leaving him bleeding heavily and requiring fourteen stitches.

  In January 2012, a group of radicals armed with sticks and iron bars assaulted twenty Pentecostal Christians in a home near Bangalore, accusing them of proselytism and forced conversions. Pastor Shanthakumar Srirangam of the Pentecostal Agape Church lost a finger on his left hand, while one of his female congregants suffered a head injury and permanent loss of nerve function in part of her right hand. That incident came just days after a similar assault on ano
ther church, the Blessing Youth Mission Church, in a nearby district. According to reports, when Christians attempted to file a complaint with the police, a member of the local Commission for Minorities told them: “If you really knew the teachings of Jesus, Christians shouldn’t be complaining.”

  In June 2012, in a village called Deopani in the state of Assam, Hindu extremists demolished three houses belonging to evangelical Christians named Bhageswarn Rabha, Rana Rabha, and Motiram Rabha, as well as their place of worship. The attackers also looted their grain stores, cattle, and poultry.

  In Tamil Nadu in July 2012, Hindu extremists launched a series of attacks on Christian targets that left fifteen people seriously injured and at least one person dead. According to reports, a mob of extremists moved into the area on June 21 and directed local Hindus to boycott Christian businesses and to impede the Christians from gathering for worship. That evening, armed extremists attacked Christian homes with swords and sticks, burning four homes to the ground and forcing the residents to flee. Three days later another round of attacks took place, leaving one Christian man dead and scores more wounded. At the same time, a mob charged into the Bethel Prayer House in Tamil Nadu, destroying furnishings and beating up the church leaders. Both the pastor and assistant pastor were hospitalized. According to reports, the same mob of about 150 extremists forced the local Christians to assemble at a Hindu temple and to worship tribal and Hindu deities. Observers said that despite the obvious persecution, the Christians opted not to make any complaint to the local police for fear of courting even greater hostility.

  One month later, in July 2012, another round of anti-Christian attacks broke out in the states of Karnataka and Utter Pradesh. In one incident, a pastor of the Pentecostal Church Zion Prathana Mandira was leading a prayer service in his home when roughly twenty members of a Hindu ultranationalist group burst in, accusing him of proselytizing. Facing threats of a beating, the pastor agreed to discontinue the service. He went to the local police station to file a complaint, but no action was taken. In another episode, local police raided the home of a Pentecostal minister conducting a three-day revival and warned him that he’d be beaten and tossed into prison if he didn’t leave the area. The pastor, named Ramgopal, was released only after signing a statement promising not to conduct any more services.

  Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, which acts as a clearinghouse and advocacy body for Christians, said at the time, “More and more, Christians do not enjoy the constitutional freedom to profess and practice their religion in their places of worship.” George also complained that in regions where the Hindu radicals dominate the local government and police forces, “our appeals for greater security are useless.”

  In November 2012, Hindu extremists attacked a Christian worship service in Karnataka, reportedly tearing up Bibles in the process and beating a pastor named Koshy. They subjected the congregation to verbal abuse and accused Koshy of proselytism, beating him badly enough that he had to be hospitalized. At the same time, another band of roughly one hundred extremists invaded a series of Christian prayer meetings in the state of Chhattisgarh, herding the Christians into a public square and accusing them of forcible conversion, insulting Hindu deities and disturbing the social peace. Believers were threatened with bodily harm if they continued any Christian activities, while the radicals confiscated their Bibles and tossed them into a nearby river. After the radicals accused three Christians in particular of both forcible conversion and witchcraft, local police arrested them and charged them with offenses under the Indian penal code, though they were later released on bail.

  Religious radicals are not the only threat. Sr. Valsa John was hacked to death in November 2011 not by ardent Hindus but by henchmen working for a mining mafia in the Dumka region of Jharkhand state. The fifty-three-year-old Catholic nun was a social justice activist, dedicated to defending members of the tribal underclass displaced from their homelands and subjected to various forms of discrimination by local mining interests. A former high school economics teacher, Sr. John felt drawn to missionary work among India’s tribals, in particular insisting on an equitable distribution of revenue. For her trouble, she was attacked and dismembered by thugs working for the mining concerns.

  Here’s a rundown of incidents contained in the Evangelical Fellowship of India report just for the month of November 2012, some of which were noted above. The report documents nine attacks in thirty days, right in line with the statistical average for the year of roughly one every three days.

  • On November 1 in Pitlam, Nizamabad, Hindu extremists accused an evangelical Christian named Elish of forcible conversion while he was distributing Gospel tracts.

  • On November 7 in Ujjain, police arrested Pastor R. K. Badodiya after Hindu extremists from the Bajrang Dal shouting anti-Christians slogans barged into a prayer meeting he was leading, beat up the Christians gathered in the church, and accused Badodiya of forcible conversion.

  • On November 12, Hindu extremists beat up Pastor Abraham Koshy from the Indian Pentecostal Church, burned up Bibles in the church, and damaged its door and windows.

  • On November 20 in Chippagiri, Yellapura Taluk, extremists utterly demolished the Blessing Youth Mission Church.

  • On November 23 in Kammadahalli, Hindu extremists accused Pastor Girish of forcible conversion, disrupted the dedication of a new prayer hall, and forcibly installed a Hindu idol inside the hall.

  • On November 25 in Chindwada, extremists beat up Pastors Rajkumar and Nanaswor and accused them of forcible conversion.

  • On November 27 in Huzurabad, police arrested an evangelical named Abraham after Hindu extremists shouted accusations of rape while he was distributing Gospel tracts.

  • On November 30 in Machewa village, Mahasamund, Hindu extremists attacked four Christians, accusing them of forcible conversion and of arranging intercaste marriage for three newly converted girls from the Sahu community.

  • Also on November 30 in Boothpada, Ratlam, extremists assaulted two pastors, Govind Meida and Sharad Pargi, seriously injuring the latter.

  On December 30, 2012, extremists disrupted a New Year’s Eve program for tribal Christians in the western state of Maharashtra. They beat up the believers, tore Bibles, and broke musical instruments. Thereafter, most of the Christian men fled the area in fear, leaving behind their wives and children. The remaining Christians were harassed—for instance, they were not allowed to fetch water from the public well or gather firewood. A January 13, 2013, service took place without incident under police protection, but the next day extremists beat up three Christian women and a twelve-year-old girl for listening to a gospel song on a mobile phone, saying that “such songs should not be played within our hearing range.”

  On January 10, 2013, in Chhattisgarh, a mob of about eighty anti-Christian agitators barged into the dedication service of a church called Inlightening Prayer Tower and started accusing Pastor Ritesh Barsa and other church members of forcible conversion. The next day, extremists broke into the home of a local man who had donated the plot of land for the church and beat his family. Also in Chhattisgarh, government officials demolished one side of the boundary wall of Karkapal Christian Graveyard after Hindu extremists filed a complaint of constructing a boundary wall in an encroached area. Unsatisfied with that solution, a group of about a hundred extremists arrived and demolished the entire wall. They desecrated the old graves, shouted anti-Christian slogans, and hurled verbal abuse.

  As of this writing, Christian leaders and other religious freedom advocates were trying to convince the national parliament to adopt the Communal Violence Bill, which would give the federal government the power to intervene directly when interreligious violence erupts, bypassing state authorities. Activists say the bill is required because some local authorities are allied with the Hindu radicals and are therefore disinclined to take aggressive measures to combat violence. To date the bill has been blocked, in part because critics style it as an unc
onstitutional usurpation of the authority of the states.

  INDONESIA

  In the world’s largest Muslim nation, Protestants represent roughly 7 percent of the population of 242 million and Catholics around 3 percent. Indonesia has long prided itself on a climate of tolerance, and the country’s constitution guarantees religious freedom. In some cases, the state backs up those promises. In April 2009, ten jihadist militants in Palembang, Indonesia, were sent to prison for the murder of a Christian teacher. Nevertheless, Indonesian Christians also report increasing harassment and occasional violence. One eruption came in 1999, around the time of East Timor’s independence. Tens of thousands of people were driven from their homes, injured, or killed as radical Muslim gunmen targeted Christians who had supported independence.

  Anti-Christian hostility has become routine in parts of western New Guinea, Maluku, and Sulawesi, regions where radical Islamic groups such as Jemaah Islamiah and Laskar Jihad have attempted to impose Islamic law. In 2006, three Christian girls were beheaded in Poso in retaliation for previous deaths that had come amid a bout of Muslim/Christian rioting. Less dramatically, many Christian leaders have reported episodes of intimidation. Luspida Simanjuntak, a thirty-eight-year-old Lutheran pastor, told Francesca Paci in 2011 that her small church of fifteen hundred believers had been repeatedly assaulted by Muslim radicals wearing white shirts and sporting Islamic headdresses. The church was burned to the ground in 2004, she said, then relocated, only to be effectively zoned out of existence. When they were forced to move yet again in 2010, a crowd showed up at the new location brandishing signs that read THE PEOPLE OF THIS AREA REFUSE A CHURCH and shouting “kuffar [infidels].” Radicals continued to show up to menace the services, even spitting on Christians as they left, and today’s shrunken community worships in a private home.