Christianity Today

Religiously motivated terrorism is constantly in today's headlines, and Islam has faced its share of scrutiny of late (see, for example, "Islam According to Gallup," page 38). This is not surprising, given that we are barely seven years removed from Osama bin Laden's attacks against the United States. Yet no faith has a corner on the terror market. Bloodshed darkens the ranks of every religion.

India, the world's second most populous country, has long been wracked by sectarian violence. In the six-plus decades since Indian independence, Hindu mobs have attacked Sikhs, Muslims, and other Hindus. In fact, a Hindu assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.

Christians, too, who constitute about 2.4 percent of India's 1.1 billion people, have long been easy targets for those who believe that to be Indian is to be Hindu. This summer, terrorists in Orissa launched a pogrom against the state's defenseless Christian scapegoats after Maoist rebels assassinated a prominent Hindu swami (see page 15). As local police looked the other way, dozens of Christians were murdered, hundreds of homes were destroyed, scores of churches were torched, and thousands of Christians fled to nearby forests for safety. Some faced this stark choice: Become a Hindu or be killed. The mayhem quickly spread to five more states. Pledging aid to the victims, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh—whose secular government did too little, too late—called the violence a "national shame." What an understatement that is.

An Attack Every Three Days

The real embarrassment to the world's largest democracy is not this incident. No, it is the fact that this flashpoint is not all that unusual for India. Orissa witnessed other attacks against

Christians just last Christmas. According to ...

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