India Christians protest Hindu attacks: Will Obama say
something during his visit to India in November?
"The matter of concern for human rights organizations is that Indian authorities, instead of giving rights to minorities, have put their leaderships behind bars. ... When he visits India next month, will the president of the lone superpower ask India to end Hindu extremist terrorism, or will he give preference to making economic gains at the expense of the murder of people in his own religious community?"
U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle will visit India in early November. Obama conveyed the news to Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna at a reception at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Obama added that his wife Michelle is excited about the trip. For obvious reasons, India's leadership waits anxiously to welcome the global power's president. But victims of the Hindu’s holocaust are waiting to see if the global power's head of state has the courage to ask Indian leadership to end Hindutve terror [Hindu nationalist terror]. Obama's curiosity has its own reasons: it's his wife’s first visit to the so-called secular state. Responsible American staff should arrange factual briefings for them, so as to reflect the genuine Indian face.
The U.S. couple must be told that so far, Indian troops have killed over 3.2 to 3.4 million Sikhs; more than 120,000 Muslims of the occupied "Internationally Disputed Areas of Jammu and Kashmir"; more than 500,000 Muslims; more than 312,500 Christians; over 15,000 Tamils; more than 15,000 civilians of the Seven Sisters of Assam; hundreds of thousand Dalits [equivalent to the lowest cast in India]; hundreds thousand of Adivasis or Moolnivasis. These Sikhs, Muslims, non-Hindus and non-Brahmins minorities were killed because they were neither Brahmin nor Hindus. Since August 15, 1947, the Brahmin-Hindu politician/lawmakers and the armed forces have needed one another to protect their own skins,.
The matter of concern for human rights monitoring organizations is that Indian authorities, instead of giving rights to minorities, have put their leaderships behind bars. A Maoist’s leader, with the promise of anonymity, e-mailed me to say that he's been in jail for years and is thrashed and tortured on a regular basis. September 2010 was the first time he had ever had access to the Internet. He hasn't been allowed to end or receive text messages for three months. He went on to say that just like all Kashmiries, his phone has been barred from this type of contact.
Parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [National Patriotism Organization] and Shiv Sena [Army of Shivaji], under the leadership Hindu radicals like Ball Thakara have always motivated and supported extremist Hindus against Christians, Sikhs and Muslims.
It's worth mentioning here that for a number of years, the Indian government, with the help of Hindu terrorists, have been deliberately attempting the diminishing of minority populations in Karnataka, Kashmir, Gujarat, Amritsar, Manipur and Orissa states. On October 13, Compass Direct News mentioned that Chintamani in the Kolar district of Karnataka state, which is known for turning on Christians, police suspect two alleged Hindu nationalists beat four pastors and struck one of their wives in the stomach, killing her unborn child. The report suggests that the suspects were indirectly supported by local authorities and police. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians, the attack took place at a gathering at a private Christian school to celebrate the birth of Mahatma Gandhi on Oct. 2.
During the concluding prayer, about 40 people barged into New Public School and began selectively beating pastors and Kejiya Fernandes, the wife of Pastor Fernandes. The attack continued despite the arrival of Chintamani police. When it ended at noon, instead of arresting the attackers, police took custody of the Christians. On top of all this, the poor Christians were denied medical attention. The injured Christians were released at 7:30 pm - and only after Kejiya Fernandes began to bleed profusely. According to Global Council of Indian Christians, she and her husband later obtained hospital treatment, where she lost her fourth-moth old fetus.
The attack was reportedly carried out to avenge an alleged insult said to have been made to the Hindu gods at the Christian gathering. According to Father Cedric Prakash, who visited the area and the Christian victims this week, the accused Hindus filed their own police complaint. But the complaint against the Christians was for “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feeling or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.” (Section 295-a), and strangely, Section 324 for, “voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means,” among other charges. The Christians weren't arrested and a court granted them bail.
According to the report, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was friendly with Christian missionaries during British rule and taught religious tolerance. The acclaimed Hindu, India’s greatest political and spiritual leader, was killed in 1948 by Nathuram Godse, who was allegedly influenced by the extremist Hindu ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It's rather alarming that for the last three years, Karnataka has been regarded as the hub of Christian persecution in India. Of the over 152 attacks on India Christians in 2009, 86 were reported in Karnataka, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India. This year as well, Karnataka is forecast to have the most anti-Christian attacks. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians, at least 47 attacks on Christians have been reported in the state as of Sept. 26. Persecution of Christians in Karnataka sharply rose after anti-Christian mayhem in eastern Orissa state in August 2008, when Maoists killed a leader of the Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which Hindu extremists wrongly blamed on local Christians.
Attacks in Orissa’s Kandhamal District killed over 100 people and left 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions burned to the ground. While Hindu nationalists had targeted Karnataka for close to two decades, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party became India's governing party for the first time in history in May 2008. Prior to that, for 20 months, the BJP had ruled in coalition with a local secular party, the Janata Dal.
It's believed that the BJP victory led to the violence in Orissa, which is now ruled by a coalition that includes the BJP, a party comprised of emboldened Hindu extremists who now enjoy greater impunity due to its incumbency. Despite the high incidence of persecution of minorities in Karnataka, BJP leaders deny it, alleging that complaints are a result of a political conspiracy mounted by opposition parties. There are a little over a million Christians in Karnataka, where the total population is more than 52 million, mostly Hindus.
Thus, in this connection, we can say that the worries of minorities are rising by the day and continuing gross violation of human rights in wider India is further aggravating the situation. Interestingly, during the administration of the British Empire in the19th to 20th centuries, no Sikh and/or Muslim Lieutenant-Generals were ever court marshaled. This is a reflection that only the "Brahmins-Hindus" in the Indian armed forces are corrupt and criminal. The state of minorities in India is so pathetic that they aren't even allowed to openly perform their religious obligations. Local news channels have been banned in Kashmir and surrounding affected areas. The overall situation in Maoist, Nagaland, Orissa and Kashmir are similarly dreadful.
Indian Chief of Army Staff, General V.K. Singh, has failed to hinder his troops to stop the brutality being committed against minorities. He's too busy threatening and interfering in the internal affairs of neighboring countries. In this regard, on October 15, 2010, he said that China and Pakistan are major irritants to India's security and he discussed the possibility of a nuclear war scenario, saying that both nations are "jingoistic" and "unwise." While rejecting the comments, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said in a statement: "The government of Pakistan takes serious exception to the reported statement of the Indian Army chief and his perception of a threat from Pakistan. War under a nuclear scenario is uncalled for. These are gratuitous comments about Pakistan's internal affairs."
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
In fact, General Singh's sprinkling venom around about China and Pakistan is by design, due to the upcoming Obama visit. He is also trying to divert international attention, particularly on the part of the Americans, from the brutality of Hindu extremists against Christians. He is probably aware that Global Council of Indian Christians and others minorities plan to protest Indian brutality on President Obama's arrival.
The Global Council of Indian Christians is also asking the Obama Administration to pressure India to halt Hindu extremism against Christians. But the question arises: will the president of the lone superpower ask India to end Hindutva Terror, or will he give preference to making economic gains at the expense of the murder of people in his own religious community?
[Editor's Note: In regard to India, the U.S. State Department 2009 Human Rights Report says in part: Several human rights and religious freedom NGOs continued to express concern about sporadic anti-Christian violence in some states governed by the BJP and claimed some attackers had affiliations with the Hindu extremist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Muslims in some Hindu-dominated areas continued to experience discrimination and reported poor government response to their concerns, which limited their access to work, residency, and education.]
