The chief of India’s leading Hindu fundamentalist group RSS (National Volunteer Corps) publicly proposed in October that Christians in India submit to a “China model” that includes state control, church registration, and severed ties to foreign missions groups.
Christian leaders throughout India scorned the proposal, which further soured relations between India’s Hindu majority and the nation’s 38 million Christians.
Earlier this year, there was hope of dialogue between top Hindu and Christian leaders. But efforts to schedule meetings between the groups broke down into finger-pointing and mutual suspicion.
“We feel there is now a greater need for dialogue, as it would give us an opportunity to clarify our stand and highlight our contribution, not merely as Christians, but as citizens of the country,” says Dominic Emmanuel of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India.
Emmanuel believes RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan’s call to expel missionaries threatens minorities. “Faith is not bound by the national boundaries,” he says.
Hindus accuse Christian leaders of withdrawing from the talks, but Emmanuel says, “We believe in the basic Christian teaching of loving one another and everyone.” He wants reconciliation talks to include more than Hindus and Christians. (India includes sizable Muslim and Buddhist populations.)
“There was no question of withdrawal from the [meeting] as no one approached us,” says Bishop Karam Masih of Dehli.
Masih, of the Church of North India, supports talks that would exclude politically motivated Hindu nationalist groups. He favors inviting only spiritual and religious leaders to the discussions.
Stopping conversions
Hindu nationalists want India to become officially Hindu. Some resist efforts by India’s secular government to ensure constitutionally protected religious freedoms for all citizens, including the right to change faiths.
Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, president of the nationalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), says any dialogue between Hindus and Christians hinges on the issue of religious conversion. “Talks will yield no results if Christians don’t stop converting people. There is no other issue than conversions.”
“Conversion can’t be an issue of discussion,” responds John Dayal of the All India Christian Council. “Freedom of religion is a constitutional right. The dialogue should be held with a view to strengthen the constitution, its secular fabric, and not to weaken it.”
“I am in my own country, on my own soil, and will not allow conversions by force and fraudulent means,” VHP senior leader Acharaya Giriraj Kishore said in an interview with Christianity Today.
“Foreign missionaries should withdraw from the country. Indian Christians are quite capable of carrying their mission. Foreign missionaries are fomenting terrorism in the northeastern Indian states.”
Hindu leaders accuse missionaries of circulating literature that mocks their deities or depicts them as horrible figures. “The missionaries are spreading shocking literature that distorts Hindu religion,” Acharaya Giriraj says. “We are always prepared for talks, but church leaders have no courage to confront us across the table as they always blame us but have no proof.”
Dayal says that holding talks is not a new thing. “Informal dialogue in the form of seminars and symposiums continues to take place. We invite Mr. Sudarshan for a talk too,” he says. “Talks should be held [without] an intention of confrontation.
“We are ready to talk to anybody with a clean and open mind, and a clean heart, to discuss the issues,” Dayal says. “The hate campaign and violence against Christians should be condemned.”
Christian groups in India have now organized demonstrations against the call by RSS for a state-controlled church. The All India Christian People’s Forum, a Christian action group, staged numerous sit-in demonstrations in late October.
In a statement to India’s federal president, K. R. Narayanan, the Christian forum urged the federal president to stop “the anti-minority campaign” of the RSS.
President Narayanan is widely seen as nonpartisan and concerned about religious extremism, but his constitutional powers to intervene are limited.
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