Church leaders in India are concerned about a dramatic increase in attacks on Christians in the state of Andhra Pradesh, which has seen the murder of a pastor, attacks on other Christians and the destruction of several churches in a matter of weeks.
The All India Christian Council documented 72 cases of anti-Christian violence and hostility in Andhra Pradesh in 2013, almost double the 39 cases in 2012. Today, the state, which has the fifth largest population in India, has the highest incidence of anti-Christian incidents, according to the All India Christian Council.
"The jump from 39 cases in 2012 to 72 in 2013 is very worrying. The reason for this increase in violence against Christian minorities is a culmination of all the efforts of the right-wing political party to influence the social agenda in the run-up to the upcoming 2014 elections," says Moses Vattipalli, who served as project coordinator for the All India Christian Council in the Danish European Mission's response to the major persecution of Christians in Orissa state in 2008.
India's "social agenda" stems from the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's emphasis on "a clear vision for India's civilizational consciousness", which they say is "rooted in the Indian/Hindu worldview". According to that worldview, the party says, "virtually all religions practiced in different parts of the world have coexisted peacefully in India and will continue to do so".
The reality is somewhat different. The BJP is the ruling party in three of the five Indian states that have laws prohibiting forced conversion - laws that are often misused to close churches or threaten Christians who speak out about their faith. The party has proposed stricter punishments in one of these states, Madhya Pradesh, the second largest state in India.
Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, another BJP-ruled state with anti-conversion laws, is "the textbook example of how India has failed to punish the violent," writes Katrina Lantos Swett, vice chair of the American Commission on International Religious Freedom in a November column with commissioner Mary Ann Glendon.
During the time Karnataka has been ruled by the BJP, the state has had India's highest number of attacks against Christians from 2010 to 2012. In early 2013, the Indian National Congress Party took over. The number of attacks dropped from 50 in 2012 to 28 in 2013, according to the Global Council of Indian Christians.
The BJP has just two out of 294 seats in the Andhra Pradesh state assembly, but it has increased its influence across India, including gains in two state assemblies after the December elections. National parliamentary elections are due in May and Narendra Modi is the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Meanwhile, the pressure on Christians continues
On December 28, in Narketpally town in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh, Suverthamma Moses opened her door when a knock came late at night. She was hit on the head with an iron rod and then stabbed with a knife. When her husband, Nama Moses, a Baptist minister, ran there, he was stabbed several times. "The attack took less than 10 minutes while three extremists stood outside the house. Later, neighbors came to their rescue and rushed them to Kameneni Hospital," says Franklin Sudharkar, General Secretary of the All India Christian Council.
Moses and his wife survived the attack. Sudharkar says Hindu Vahini, a nationalist youth organization suspected to be behind the December 28 attack, has seriously injured at least six priests in Andhra Pradesh.
On January 10 in the town of Vakirabad, armed Hindu Vahini members knocked on the door of Pastor O. Sanjeevi of Hebron Church. When his wife answered the door, they beat her with an iron bar. The attackers stabbed the pastor eight times. He died three days later, leaving behind his wife and four children.
"About 250 church members whom he had taken care of felt helpless and suffered great deprivation because of the incident," says a church leader from the area, Pastor Madhusudan Das of the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
On New Year's Eve, extremists in the city of Rajamundry set fire to a faith center run by a church named Dr. John Wesley of Young Holy Team after church members held an evening service.
On the morning of February 2, a Sunday, the Bethel Gospel Church in Hyderabad district, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, was burned to the ground.
Source: World Watch Monitor