Orissa bloodshed

I hoped, in coming to India, to get more insight into the well-publicized unrest in the state of Orissa (pronounced o-REES-uh) where rioters have attacked Christians. The Times-Nation of Tuesday, October 21, 2008 had a news report and a commentary on the situation.
“Communal riots battered Orissa government on Monday rejected (an archbishop’s) demand for 300,000 rupees for the reconstruction of damaged and demolished churches…saying giving grants to religious places was against its secular ethos.” Also opposed was a request for paramilitary protection of NGO workers who distributed relief for victims of the violence.
A women police team had also arrested a suspect in the rape of a nun, but the state government refused the demand for a probe into the matter.
Background: In August Swami L. Saraswati had been killed. He had been a vocal campaigner against the “illegal” and allegedly forcible conversion of many in the Pani community to another religion—Christianity, still perceived by the masses as a foreign religion. This sparked a reaction by the Kandhas community against Christians, even though the murder was carried out by Maoists, who more recently killed a dozen people in Chhattisgarh.
The commentary blasts the government for in-action, not only in this recent case, but in 1984 Sikh riots, in 1992 Mumbai riots, and in the Gujarat riots of 2002. In Orissa 107 churches were torched starting on Christmas Day last year, followed by descration of Bibles and statues, and burning houses in “pre-meditated and well-organised attacks” that left at least six dead and thousands homeless. “Victims were mostly tribal or Dalit, poor Christians.” The gangs were local Bajrang Dal activists responding to the Swami’s preaching about “wiping Christians off the face of Orissa.”
Analysis.
Friends here are providing me some insight on this.
The Bajrang Dal is one of several activist wings of the Indian Hindu party, the BHP. BHP is a missionary movement within Hinduism. They have many fronts in the USA funded from India. Many of these fronts are yoga centers that appeal to the desire for stress-reducing techniques among many Americans. Meditation and other eastern methods of spiritual development are often (not always) provided by this Hindu missionary movement.
The Dalits are low caste Hindus—the untouchables. The Hindu caste system requires them to do menial tasks that would pollute higher caste people working their way up the re-incarnational cycles to liberation (moksha) where the soul no longer comes back into this world of suffering but becomes swallowed up into the impersonal ultimate being, Brahman, much like a drop of water losing itself in the ocean.
Two ideologies oppose this class exploitation: Christians and communists. The latter attack it via violent overthrowing of government policies. The former address it by acceptance into the body of Christ. The constitution of India allows for conversion if it comes from “within” the person. Many of these Dalits are now responding to the Gospel of love and convert by their own choice. The irony is that the Maoists murder the Hindu preacher and the Christians take the hit. Why?
As usual, follow the money. Businessmen and landowners find their cheap labor diminishing. This is a threat to their hegemony over the economy. Since religion and life here are inseparable, the Swami blames Christianity for inveigling these hopeless low caste Hindus into apostasy. “It’s the economy, stupid.”
The Gospel is the new Mosaic call—“let my people go.” The Hindu desire to cleanse Orissa of Christians is at bottom a move to maintain their economic and political power against two threats—the classless vision of communism and the Christian vision of a brotherhood of all people. Whether the agents trying to change this millennia-old system be godless or godly, the bottom line is the same—the slaves are seeking their freedom.
This insight fits in well with one of the papers in the theological conference I am presently attending at New Theological College, calling for the church to make an impact on issues of injustice. In India the issues are women’s dignity, extreme poverty, freedom of religion, as well as the curse of caste. The first century Christians cared for the oppressed. There were no poor among them in those days. And they salvaged infants the pagans left to die in the dumps outside Roman cities.
They paid a price for their compassion then. The same is true now. There is still a high price Christians pay in many nations today—hatred, beatings, exclusion, death.
Christians are opposed in many places around the globe for their beliefs and their empowerment of oppressed peoples. We see some of this in Europe and Canada. Will the USA be next?
Some say yes.
It’s hard to argue against that answer, for true Christianity speaks against powerful elements in any society—elements that wish to use political power to suppress speech, control thought, monopolize morality, and eventually to coerce behavior.
I am by nature an optimist. But I have to admit that reality keeps chipping away….
All I can say is “Thank God for God and His promise to sort this all out in the end.” Meanwhile, it is not pretty. But then, we were warned up front that following the Way of Jesus would be persecution and hardships.