Exiled Christians ˜forced to convert in order to return'


BHUBANESWAR: Chritians in Orissa are being forced to convert so they can return home, agencies have reported.
Many Christians are restrited to wooded areas by violene in their villages.
Meanwhile authorities imposed a curfew in several towns in eastern India yesterday after fresh attacks by Hindus on Christians as clashes over religious conversions spread, officials said.
Hindu crowds set fire to houses in two largely Christian villages on Tuesday in the district of Kandhamal in the state of Orissa on Tuesday, killing one person. One church was also burnt.
"We have now re-clamped day and night curfew in at least nine towns," district superintendent of police S Praveen Kumar said. Ten people have been arrested.
The violence followed a string of attacks on Christians in three states that has killed at least 34 people and damaged dozens of churches in the last month. Christians have responded with some violence in Orissa.
More than 3,700 federal police have been deployed in Orissa, the focus of the violence, although Christian groups and local media have accused police and state authorities of turning a blind eye to some attacks.
In Orissa, thousands of Christians now live in government camps because their homes were destroyed or they are too fearful to return.
The Hindu, a respected national newspaper, reported yesterday that many Christians were only allowed to return to their villages if they converted back to Hinduism.
The same newspaper has this week detailed attacks, largely on Christians, that included reports that a young nun was gang raped in August and a priest who tried to stop the attack was beaten and doused with kerosene.
Victims of attacks say Hindu nationalist political groups such as the hardline Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Sangh Parivar have been involved. Hindu nationalist groups deny this.
Pope Benedict has condemned the attacks and Roman Catholic bishops have urged the European Union to treat persecution of Christians as a humanitarian emergency.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, repeatedly questioned about the violence while on a trip to France, called the attacks a "national shame" and asked the Orissa state government, run by a Hindu-nationalist coalition, to ensure law and order.
The clashes were sparked by the issue of religious conversion in Orissa's poor tribal region, home to many Christian missionary groups. Hindus have opposed the Christian missionaries' conversion of lower-caste Hindus.
Religious clashes have also been reported in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka states, which are both headed by Hindu-nationalist governments.
The clashes first erupted in Orissa in August after the killing of a Hindu leader linked to the main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Police suspected Maoist rebels but many Hindus in the region blamed Christians.
India does not have a long history of attacks on minority Christians, but intolerance has risen in the past two decades with a revival of Hindu nationalism.
India's federal Home Ministry also sent a communique to the Orissa government with instructions to take firm and effective steps to bring the "apparent lawlessness" under control, PTI and IANS news agency reported.
Several of the injured had bullet wounds, while others were wounded by sharp-edged weapons like axes, hospital sources were quoted as saying.
Jibardhan Majhe from Rattanga village, who fled from his home on August 26, was quoted as saying that a local Hindu group had been asking him to convert since December 2007. He had refused and his house was burnt in August, along with those of several other Christians.
"Four families of my village have converted to Hinduism and gone back," he said.
"In my village, the Hindus told us that if you want to stay here you have to convert. All Christian families except four converted to Hindusim," Rina Diggal, from Raisimandi village, said.
"The attacks were made in a very systematic manner, like blocking roads and felling trees so that police cannot go to the spot," Home Ministry official ML Kumawat said.–Agencies

The notion that one can convert to hinduism is not true.. What action does one take to show that he is converting to hinduism?

quote:

Originally posted by Ramakant_p:
The notion that one can convert to hinduism is not true.. What action does one take to show that he is converting to hinduism?

What did the Bandit Reepu do when he converted?

quote:

Originally posted by Ramakant_p:
The notion that one can convert to hinduism is not true.. What action does one take to show that he is converting to hinduism?

Convert is a problematic word, and you are arguing from the point of view of IDEALS in their highest from. The modern argument is not based on this. "revert" is one word. How so? By simply acknowledging the authority of the vedas...

quote:

Convert is a problematic word, and you are arguing from the point of view of IDEALS in their highest from. The modern argument is not based on this. "revert" is one word. How so? By simply acknowledging the authority of the vedas...

That's mean they are returning to what they were taught to practice and not what they were born as. At the same time, people are not free to follow their faith of choice, but are comanded to revert to hindu in a democracy. This is great!

quote:

Originally posted by Ramakant_p:
The notion that one can convert to hinduism is not true.. What action does one take to show that he is converting to hinduism?

The point was not a conversion as such but forced to drop christianity and revert back to the Hindu philosophy which the abandoned and live the life of a rat to which they are relegated.

Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee

BOREPANGA, India "” The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop.

The New York Times

Borepanga has been rocked by weeks of religious violence.
They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.

" ˜Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,' " Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. " ˜Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.' "

India, the world's most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.

The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.

The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.

Across this ghastly terrain lie the singed remains of mud-and-thatch homes. Christian-owned businesses have been systematically attacked. Orange flags (orange is the sacred color of Hinduism) flutter triumphantly above the rooftops of houses and storefronts.

India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India's Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.

It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area's people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.

The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami's killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible.

In recent weeks, they have plastered these villages with gruesome posters of the swami's hacked corpse. "Who killed him?" the posters ask. "What is the solution?"

Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.

Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.

Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.

The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.

Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda.

Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.

The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.

India Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state's highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as "a spontaneous reaction."

He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.

On Sunday evening, as much of Kandhamal remained under curfew, Mr. Chauhan sat in the hall of a Hindu school in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, beneath a huge portrait of the swami. A state police officer was assigned to protect him round the clock. He cupped a trilling Blackberry in his hand.

Mr. Chauhan denied that his group was responsible for forced conversions and in turn accused Christian missionaries of luring villagers with incentives of schools and social services.

He was asked repeatedly whether Christians in Orissa should be left free to worship the god of their choice. "Why not?" he finally said, but he warned that it was unrealistic to expect the Kandhas to politely let their Pana enemies live among them as followers of Jesus.

"Who am I to give assurance?" he snapped. "Those who have exploited the Kandhas say they want to live together?"

Besides, he said, "they are Hindus by birth."

Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country's indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.

It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence.

A few steps from where the nun had been attacked in Nuagaon, five men, their heads freshly shorn, emerged from a soggy tent in a relief camp for Christians fleeing their homes.

The men had also been summoned to a village meeting in late August, where hundreds of their neighbors stood with machetes in hand and issued a firm order: Get your heads shaved and bow down before our gods, or leave this place.

Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice.
He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.

In the eyes of his neighbors, he reckoned, he became a Hindu.

In his heart, he said, he could not bear it.

All five men said they fled the next day with their families. They refuse to return.

In another village, Birachakka, a man named Balkrishna Digal and his son, Saroj, said they had been summoned to a similar meeting and told by Hindu leaders who came from nearby villages that they, too, would have to convert. In their case, the ceremony was deferred because of rumors of Christian-Hindu clashes nearby.

For the time being, the family had placed an orange flag on their mud home. Their Hindu neighbors promised to protect them.

Here in Borepanga, the family of Solomon Digal was not so lucky. Shortly after they recounted their Sept. 10 Hindu conversion story to a reporter in the dark of night, the Digals were again summoned by their neighbors. They were scolded and fined 501 rupees, or about $12, a pinching sum here.

The next morning, calmly clearing his cauliflower field, Lisura Paricha, one of the Hindu men who had summoned the Digals, confirmed that they had been penalized. Their crime, he said, was to talk to outsiders.

If those turncoats and betrayers of ancestral culture who are forced to leave traditional Hindu villages had a brain they would show up at a U.S embassy where they will be immediately granted U.S. visas.

quote:

Originally posted by Pointblank:
Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice.
He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.

.

Hmmm. Now I wonder what those who claim to have a culture unchanged from India and who deny the validity of an IndoCARIBBEAN culture think of this ritual?

ICIP your reaction will be most welcomed.

quote:

Originally posted by caribj:

Hmmm. Now I wonder what those who claim to have a culture unchanged from India and who deny the validity of an IndoCARIBBEAN culture think of this ritual?

ICIP your reaction will be most welcomed.

A dose is cow down drink cleanses the stomach and intestines.

quote:

Originally posted by ICIP:

quote:

Originally posted by caribj:

Hmmm. Now I wonder what those who claim to have a culture unchanged from India and who deny the validity of an IndoCARIBBEAN culture think of this ritual?

ICIP your reaction will be most welcomed.

A dose is cow down drink cleanses the stomach and intestines.

So I take it that you indulge in this practise regularly. Do you let people know?

quote:

Originally posted by caribj:
So I take it that you indulge in this practise regularly. Do you let people know?

This act is conducted mostly by the illiterate.

They play religious card in India
Alistair Scrutton

Reuters

ASKED when he thought attacks by Hindu mobs against Christians would end in Cutttack, a remote part of eastern India, local Christian leader Ranjit Nayak replied immediately, and with a resigned smile. "March," Nayak said, referring to a general election due in early 2009. "This is all totally politically motivated."

Like many Christians, human rights groups and government ministers, Nayak suspected hard-line Hindu groups of organizing these attacks in Orissa state, trying to win political support among Hindus over long-standing tensions with missionaries. From attacks on Christians to suspected Islamist bombings, communal politics is back on the agenda across India, to challenge an embattled secular-leaning government as its gears up for an election against a Hindu-nationalist opposition in 2009.

The Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to take the political offensive, campaigning in Orissa state on issues such as missionary conversion, or convincing Hindus in other states of the risks from militant Muslims. The ruling Congress, under pressure to ban Hindu hard-line groups and get tough on terrorism, is struggling both to avoid alienating Hindu voters while also securing its traditional support among minorities, including Muslims. Attacks in Orissa and bombings by suspected Islamist militants that have killed hundreds have dominated media and political debates in the last month. Muslim leaders accuse the police of indiscriminate arrests and even murders of Muslim youth as they try to show they are catching terrorists.

Dozens have died in Muslim-Hindu riots in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The headlines often supplanted voter worries over inflation. "Do the leaders of the various state and the union governments realize the country is on a dangerous communal and sectarian brink and that urgent measures must be taken to put a lid on violence?" The Mail Today said in an editorial this month.

The last election in 2004, when Congress came to power, was partly seen as a secular backlash against the incumbent BJP-led government, especially after the Gujarat riots in 2002 when more than 2,000 Muslims were massacred by Hindu mobs. While some BJP leaders now prefer to campaign on economic issues, others are happier to rail against issues such as religious conversion, which unite many Hindus.

"Where the BJP is challenging for power they are playing the Hindutva card," said Kuldip Nayar, a political analyst, referring to the concept of Hindu revivalism. Take Orissa, where at least 35 people, mostly Christians, have been killed in religious clashes since late August. The BJP's support rose by around five percent in September's local elections. Congress fell to third place for the first time. Many saw the campaign against conversion as helping the BJP. The BJP denies it has been involved in attacks, but many people blame its grassroots organizations. The government is considering banning one such group, Bajrang Dal.

Ashok Sahu, a respected Hindu leader in Orissa, offers a glimpse into the mentality of grassroot Hindu nationalists. He lamented that Christians were a tight group that counted more than more loosely-knit Hindus. He criticized Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, a Roman Catholic, for using Christians politically. "Christians may only be three percent of the population, but they account for about five percent in polls. That makes a lot of difference in elections," he said.

But it is not just about attacks on Christians. Bombings this year, including serial blasts in New Delhi that killed at least 23 people, were blamed on Islamists and put the government's response to terrorism high on the political agenda. On the one hand, the government has been criticized for being soft on terrorism for failing to stop the attacks. But it has also come under fire for the tough police response.