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Church says attacks are now 'more calculated'

India's Catholic Church said yesterday there had been fewer physical assaults on Christians in the country this year, but Hindu groups' campaign against the religion was now more subtle and calculated.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 00:00 December 23, 2000
  • Gulf News

India's Catholic Church said yesterday there had been fewer physical assaults on Christians in the country this year, but Hindu groups' campaign against the religion was now more subtle and calculated.

"Now it's a more calculated kind of attack, it's a more philosophical attack," Father Dominic Emmanuel, director of communication for Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, told a news conference. He said anti-Christian literature had been widely circulated in the country, where Hindus account for about 80 per cent of the billion-strong population and Christians just 2.2 per cent.

Emmanuel said there were reports that several Hindu conversion or re-conversion ceremonies were planned in the tribal district of Dangs in the western state of Gujarat, where there was a spate of Christmas-season attacks on Christians two years ago.

He also noted a call by the leader of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteers Corp, in October for Indian Christians to free themselves from foreign influence and set up nationalist churches.

Emmanuel said there had been about 100 cases of violence against Christians by mid-November this year, taking the number since mid-1997 to nearly 400. Tension between Christians and Hindus has mounted since late 1998 when prayer halls were torched in Gujarat and an Australian missionary and his two young sons were burnt to death in a remote tribal areas in the eastern state of Orissa.

Christians often blame right-wing Hindu groups for inciting violence against them. Hindus deny this, saying missionaries stir resentment by forcing tribal people and lower-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity.

Archbishop Vincent Concessao said after delivering a Christmas message to the news conference that the government could do more to ensure that communal forces behind attacks on Christians were checked.

The coalition government is led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is affiliated to the RSS and also rules the government of Gujarat. "They have provided security in some places, but they should bring to book the culprits," he said.

"How is it that even in small places people who are using violence against Christians are not caught?" he asked. "In most cases they get away scot-free. Is the police inefficient, or is it something else?"

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