India's Christians Suffer and Die While the World Watches

"Hindu intolerance and fanaticism are growing, and acts of violence against Christians are on the rise. To the silence and disinterest of the world."

ROMA (Chiesa) - On Friday, August 29, 2008 the 25,000 Catholic schools in India closed their doors for the entire day. The Indian Catholic Church has called for a day of prayer and fasting for the first Sunday in September, with peaceful processions all over the country.

The reason is the new wave of violence that has struck the Christians in the state of Orissa. Every day, there is news of killing, wounding, rape, assaults against churches, convents, schools, orphanages, villages, carried out by Hindu fanatics. Thousands of people have had to abandon their homes and flee to the forests.

The spark for the latest explosion of violence was struck with the killing, on August 23, of the Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and five of his followers. The killing was carried out by armed Maoist groups, but the Hindus used it as a pretext for blaming the Christians and taking revenge on them.

The epicenter of the latest violence is the district of Kandhamal, in the state of Orissa. For several months, this has been the most bloodstained state in the country. There are few Catholics there, less than 1 percent. There are also few conversions, but these are taken as another pretext for retaliation. What is unleashing the violence - according to Raphael Cheenath, the archbishop of Chuttack-Bhubaneswar, whose territory includes the district of Kandhamal - is the work that Christians in Orissa are carrying out on behalf of the tribals and the Dalits, at the very bottom of the caste system:

"Before, they were like slaves. Now, some of them study in our schools, start businesses in the villages, demand their rights. And those who - even in the India of the economic boom - want to keep intact the old division into castes are afraid that they will gain too much power. Orissa today is a laboratory. What is at stake is the future of millions of Dalits and tribals living all over the country."

According to the latest census, conducted in 2001, 80.5 percent of India's inhabitants are Hindu, while 13.4 percent are Muslim. The Christians are 2.3 percent. And they are even less numerous in Orissa and in the other states in the central and northern part of the country, the most densely populated areas. The highest percentages of Christians are in the easternmost part of the country, reaching 90 percent in Nagaland and Mizoram, 70 percent in Meghalaya, and 34 percent in Manipur. But these areas are thinly populated and very backward economically. In absolute numbers, Christians are most heavily represented in the southern part of the country, in Goa, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. In Kerala, Christians are 19 percent of the population, and most of them are Catholic. The state boasts the highest level of education, including female education, in all of India.

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The events of recent days confirm that coexistence between Christians and Hindus in India is no longer as peaceful and harmonious as the tradition - and myth - of this country would have one believe. Hindu intolerance and fanaticism are growing, and acts of violence against Christians are on the rise. To the silence and disinterest of the world.

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Chiesa is a wonderful source on all things Catholic in Europe. It is skillfully edited by Sandro Magister. SANDRO MAGISTER was born on the feast of the Guardian Angels in 1943, in the town of Busto Arsizio in the archdiocese of Milan. The following day he was baptized into the Catholic Church. His wife’s name is Anna, and he has two daughters, Sara and Marta. He lives in Rome.