07324
May 31, 2007

Indian Christians protest ‘blind eye’ to violence

by Anto Akkara
Ecumenical News International

NEW DELHI – Thousands of Christians have marched in New Delhi to protest against violent attacks in recent weeks against India’s Christian minority and to which they say the government is failing to respond.

     Chants of “hallelujah” were interspersed with slogans denouncing “atrocities on Christians” as church leaders, lay activists and some non-Christian campaigners marched on May 29 to the Indian parliament.

     There they handed in a statement addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which stated that the Christian community is “saddened at the silence of the government on whom we look to for support in meeting the gravest challenge facing our community.”

     In many cases, house churches, nuns and pastors have been attacked, and wives, daughters and sisters of pastors have been dragged out of their homes and had “violence committed against them,” it stated. “In most cases, the police remained passive witnesses,” and in several regional states authorities “connived” with Hindu fundamentalists.

     “Things are going from bad to worse,” said Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council (AICC), which organized the protest rally. “There is a steady increase in the number of attacks in different parts of the country. It is vicious and there is a systematic pattern behind it,” he told Ecumenical News International.

     More than 20 cases of serious violence against church personnel have been reported since Easter. These include two brutal attacks on pastors, which were covered live by television stations apparently tipped off by Hindu fundamentalists.

     In 2006, the AICC recorded 128 serious cases of violence against Christians, who account for 2.3 percent of India’s 1.1 billion people.