Convert Or We Will Kill You, Hindu Lynch Mobs Tell Fleeing Christians

[SaRpAnCh]

Hundreds of Christians in the Indian state of Orissa have been forced to renounce their religion and become Hindus after lynch mobs issued them with a stark ultimatum: convert or die.

The wave of forced conversions marks a dramatic escalation in a two-month orgy of sectarian violence which has left at least 59 people dead, 50,000 homeless and thousands of houses and churches burnt to the ground. As neighbour has turned on neighbour, thousands more Christians have sought sanctuary in refugee camps, unable to return to the wreckage of their homes unless they, too, agree to abandon their faith.

Last week, in the worst-affected Kandhamal district, The Observer encountered compelling evidence of the scale of the violence employed in a conversion programme apparently sanctioned by members of one of the most powerful Hindu groups in India, the 6.8-million member Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) - the World Hindu Council.

Standing in the ashes of her neighbour's house in the village of Sarangagada, Jaspina Naik, 32, spoke nervously, glancing towards a group of Hindu men watching her suspiciously. 'My neighbours said, "If you go on being Christians, we will burn your houses and your children in front of you, so make up your minds quickly",' she said. 'I was scared. Christians have no place in this area now.'

On her forehead, she wore a gash of vermilion denoting a married Hindu woman, placed there by the priest at the conversion ceremony she had been obliged to attend a day earlier, along with her husband and three young children. 'I'm totally broken,' she said. 'I have always been a Christian. Inside I am still praying for Jesus to give me peace and to take me out of this situation.'

She and her neighbour, Kumari Naik, 35, gazed forlornly at the charred remains of the house. The mob that arrived one evening in the first week of the violence, armed with swords and axes, had looted what they wanted before dousing the building with petrol and setting it alight. Kumari had fled into the nearby forest with her husband, Umesh, and 14-year-old son Santosh. A smoke-damaged child's drawing of Mickey Mouse pinned to one wall was all that remained of their former lives. Shattered roof tiles crunched underfoot as the women moved through the blackened rooms.

The priest had given them cow dung to eat during the ceremony, they said, telling them it would purify them. 'We were doing that, but we were crying,' Jaspina said.

The roads between the villages are rough and potholed, adding to the difficulties in accessing what is already a remote region, a six-hour drive from the state capital, Bhubaneshwar. The remoteness has undoubtedly played a part in the continuation of the violence, making it harder for police to move about quickly, even if they were minded to do so. Christian leaders, though, have accused the authorities of dragging their feet, claiming they are reluctant to antagonise the majority Hindu community in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year.

Sumani Naik Sumani Naik, 18, stands beneath a torn Christian poster in her fire-damaged house in Kandhamal district after being forced to convert. Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain

Relations between the Hindu and Christian communities were already at a low ebb when the killing of VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on 23 August provided the trigger for the current wave of violence. The VHP blamed Christians and the mobs descended on the homes of neighbours and friends. Those who were too slow to get away were killed. Amid the savagery, two incidents stood out: a young Hindu woman working in a Christian orphanage was burnt alive and a nun was gang-raped.

Yet the VHP is unrepentant and appears to be involved, at least at grassroots level, with the campaign of forced conversions. One priest who converted 18 Christians in the village of Sankarakhole last week told The Observer that he had been approached by local VHP representatives to carry out the ceremony.

'The VHP people came with letters that said they wanted to be converted, so I converted them,' said Preti Singh Patra, who is the brother of a senior VHP official. Crouching on the ground in front of his temple, set in a small walled garden beneath a huge banyan tree, he ran through the details of the ceremony: first some fruit to eat, followed by a mixture of cow dung and urine mixed with milk and curd, a dip in water from the Ganges, an hour of prayers and then the painting of a bindi on the forehead.

Some local men stepped forward to speak to him. 'Don't say too much,' they warned. The priest seemed unconcerned. The 18 had been the only Christians in the village, he said. They were happy to convert.

Around the village, the countryside is a sea of green, a beautiful lush vista that offers, at a distance, no clues to the turmoil. Yet up close it is a landscape scarred by the ugly remains of homes and churches which lie shattered between other houses still inhabited and unscathed, those belonging to Kandhamal's Hindus.

A few miles down the road from Sankarakhole, in the village of Minia, Sujata Digal, 38, stood outside her own burnt-out home. The mob had arrived at 3am, she said. She and her husband Hari hid in the forest and watched the house burn. When they came out of the forest, the mob returned and told them to convert, and it was not a hard decision.

'They said, 'If you don't become Hindu, we'll burn your houses too and start killing you',' said Ashish Digal, the former Christian pastor. 'I've been forced to convert. Everyone is being converted. They beat us in the fields. I went to the temple. We had to say that we belonged to the Hindu state of Orissa, and that from this day we are Hindus.'

Orissa police Soldiers guarding Christian refugees at a camp in Kandamal district. Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain

Before the violence started, Christians outnumbered Hindus in Minia: now 115 have converted, roughly half of their original number. The rest have fled.

Burn your Bibles, the men told Ashish Digal. He told them he had, but hid them instead. Every couple of days people come to his house to search, hoping to catch him out. Those people are not strangers; they are his neighbours.

They had been sitting idly in the main road when The Observer's car pulled up. Now the young driver, Sudhir, was rushing down the path that led to what remained of Sujata Digal's house, holding his head, visibly shaken. 'We must leave now,' he said.

He had been standing by the car when the men closed in around him. They left the talking to Prashant Digal, a teacher and organiser for the local VHP youth wing. 'Why did you bring these people here?', he demanded, punching Sudhir in the head. 'Take the vehicle and go. Leave them here for us.' They surrounded him, a young Hindu, and slapped him around again. No one came to his aid. 'If you stay, we will burn you with them in the car. You will all be killed. Just leave them,' they told him. But he did not, which was a decent thing for a frightened boy to do. He drove a little way down the road and parked around a corner, out of sight, and came back to raise the alarm.

Back on the main road, the men were waiting. 'Put your notebook and your cameras away. You will take no pictures and record nothing,' the VHP man said. 'You want to know what is happening? Now I will tell you why this is happening.' He blamed the Christians for taking the jobs of Hindus, for the murder of the Swami. The only solution was for Christians to convert, he said. 'This is a Hindu community. Everyone can stay here, as long as they are part of that community. And now you should go.'

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/1...ianity-hinduism

ADD YOUR VIEWS TO THIS....AND TELL OTHERS

[jassa]

Good ... Christians convert giving lalach ... hindus convert giving dar ... sikhs cant convert we cant convert even our kids and 80 % mona and patit youth back to sikhi ...

Full support to VHP at least they have guts to save their religion ...

[Matheen]

They are no better than the Musilms during the Mughal era. Wish there was some way we could help.

Jassa - are you serious?

[jassa]

yes i m serious ... if christians come to punjab and convert they are bad ... if hindus convert back they are bad ... if sikhs cant convert others they are bad ...

everyone has right to convert and everyone has right to save his religion ....

are we not converting sauda premis in punjab villages forcefully ??? same thing is going in punjab were premis are threatened to take siropas from gurudwara granthis ...

onlt difference is sikhs are afraid of government ... but vhp has full support ... if govt had supported us same thing we would have done in punjab to different deras ...

if we feel sikhs are being traped by sauda ashutosh etc ... whats wrong if hindus feel same for christians ????

they have converted back only those hindus who were converted by christians ...

how can we justify our stand on converting back sauda guys forcefully then ???

everyone wants quality no one wants quantity ... kissi nu rab te bhrosa nahi saab politics karan nu ... abuse karan nu aa ...

i just need 1 honest answer from each one of u ...

if they come to punjab and convert 10000 sikhs in one day giving them lalch ... what would you do ??? support them or raise voice against them ???

[Raju]

what a rubbish excuse for atrocities on minorities.

who has prevented you from giving lalach for keeping folks in Sikh or Hindu community

If Christian evangelists give lalach then you give reverse lalach. Has anyone tied your hands ehh ?

there are a lot of hindu jokers sitting in western countries skimming off the cream with well-paid jobs. I say that is also lalach

[SaRpAnCh]

Good ... Christians convert giving lalach ... hindus convert giving dar ... sikhs cant convert we cant convert even our kids and 80 % mona and patit youth back to sikhi ...

Full support to VHP at least they have guts to save their religion ...

:6 Have some shamee !!!! Your pathetic ,you sick person what the hell does ' Full support to VHP mean?' How dare you!No wonder why they see us as part of them as people like you give ' full support' when they go on their rampagaes of loot rape arson sexual abuse and ethnic cleansing,what VHP are doing is an act of terrorism sponsored by the state in the form of a genocide through loot , arson, rape and a genocide of the non Hindus of that area.Had you been in a European nation Jassa you would have been supportiing and act of terrorism.I suppose you will say 9/11 a horrific terrorist attack was Muslims 'saving' their religion?I guess not as you have the double standard Indian Citizen thinking and as you are proud Hindustani you will see 9/11 for what it was a terrorist attack not because it was but as your Hindustani thinking makes you think everything done by Muslims is an act of terror and whenever you get the chance to blame the ISI of Pakistan you will do so.(NOTE: I fully believe 9/11 was terror attack by cowards not an act of saving ones faith ,just pointing out some facts)

You have the nerve to come here and make comments of support,to a group such as VHP a group which wants to form a Hindutva superstate!By the killing of non Hindu minorities and the absorbtion of religious minorities like Sikhs.So obviously you fully endorse these human rights abuses and mass kiliing by this terrorist group.I wonder what you would say if they cme down to your Buddha Dal Panth and burned it all down while doing the same as in Orissa,or maybe even worse a new 1984 and Destroyed all of Panjab and raped our women murdered our Singhs and burned down our Gurdwareh. I just cant get to grips with how you can support such a thing,and mods dont get me wrong im not doing a personal attack but look at it from the view point of us Western Sikhs if this pathetic person had said this in Washington DC or Central London what would they think of us ?What would these Westren Christian Nations see when you have people like him aying ' I give full support'.Jassa your lucky your not living here for number of reasons which I will not mention on a public forum use your mind,for a Sikh of your tyep supporting VHP here would be very dangerous, in a number of ways.Go give your full support along with your fellow Hindustani Sikhs who are in 'integral part' of the Indian Nation and will do anything to keep it together like KPS Gill and your own Santa did and all them other traitor Sikhs,who were and are blind to what is wrong and right

DEATH TO THE TERRORIST HINDUTVA GROUPS :v1: MAY THEY BURN AND DIE PAINFUL DEATHS FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO MINORITIES THROUGH THEIR SELECTIVE TARGETING EVERY 5 YEARS OF EITHER SIKHS,MUSLIMS,CHRISTAINS AND OTHERS

[proactive]

edited

[SaRpAnCh]

Killed or hounded out – just for being Christian

http://news.scotsman.com/world/Killed-or-h...out-.4611121.jp

Published Date: 21 October 2008

By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN

in Kandhamal district, Orissa

IT WAS about 5:30pm last Monday when Sushil Kumar Naik heard knocking at what remained of his front door.

He peered through the holes left by the axes that the mob had used to batter their way in two weeks earlier. Outside stood a group of his Hindu neighbours, holding guns. The 43-year-old Indian air force officer was not surprised: he had been expecting them.

Like thousands of other Christians, Mr Naik has been living in fear since a wave of violence swept through the Kandhamal district of India's eastern state of Orissa two months ago. At least 59 people have died and thousands of homes and churches have been burned down.

Simmering tensions between the area's Hindu majority and their Christian neighbours were ignited by the murder of a hardline Hindu leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, on 23 August.

The initial Hindu backlash drove as many as 50,000 Christians from their homes. Now a new threat has emerged, and hundreds have been forced to renounce their faith and convert to Hinduism on threat of death.

The men who called on Mr Naik at his home in the village of Gadaguda last week were not in the mood for small talk.

"You'd better convert," they told him. "If you don't convert to Hinduism, you must leave this place."

They did not say what would happen if he stayed, but Mr Naik did not really need to be told.

The men outside were the same ones who had turned up in the middle of the night two weeks earlier, smashed their way in and set his home on fire. At the time, Mr Naik had been on duty at his air force base more than 1,000 miles away in Nicobar. The only people who were at home were his wife, Binita, 36, and his 70-year-old mother, Brundavati.

"We were sleeping at the time," his mother said, "And then people came from everywhere. We heard them shouting slogans and we ran to the school."

She started to cry, wiping her eyes on her yellow sari. "They were firing guns in the air. They burned most of our possessions. We only got out with the clothes we are standing in."

The slogans the mob had been shouting were those of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – or World Hindu Council – the hardline Hindu organisation that has been blamed for encouraging Hindus to seek revenge for the killing of the swami. The VHP blames Christians for the murder, though Maoist guerrillas have claimed responsibility.

Those slogans were enough to alert Binita and Brundavati to the danger in time. But for their neighbours, Lalia and Mandikini Naik, there was to be no escape. The couple were in their 70s; they were simply too slow to get away.

"The men barged into their house. He couldn't move fast and they cut his throat with an axe," Binita said. "His wife was also cut."

The couple were taken to hospital, where Mr Naik died two days later. His wife remains seriously ill.

Sushil Naik's family were lucky; the police arrived within a few minutes, before the fire could consume the whole house. Even so, most of their possessions have been destroyed.

But they know it is only a matter of time before the men come back, and next time they might not be so lucky.

What makes it harder to bear is that they knew the people who attacked their home. Their family has been in Gadaguda for more than 100 years; the faces of the mob were those of their neighbours, people they had lived alongside and chatted to every day.

"If it was outsiders, they would not have known which house to attack," Mr Naik said.

When police officers eventually started to look for the culprits, some of the Hindu men took to the forests. From there, they appear to be able to venture forth at will to threaten those Christians who have remained in the area.

The Christians do not believe the police really want to help find the men responsible. They point out that smoke from the Hindus' cooking fires rises above the trees every night, but no-one goes after them.

"They were able to come to my house and threaten that we have to convert to Hinduism or stay away," Mr Naik said. "I don't understand what is happening. Even if we become Hindu, what guarantee is there that they will leave us in peace?"

It is a question many of Orissa's Christians are asking: many have concluded that their only option is to convert.

Last week, in the village of Sankarakhole, a little way down the road from Gadaguda, a total of 18 people converted. They were the only four Christian families in the village. Preti Singh Patra, the priest who carried out the ceremony, said the VHP had brought him letters from the families asking to convert. They had been happy to embrace Hinduism, he claimed.

Christians who have converted say nothing could be further from the truth.

In the village of Sarangagada, 32-year-old Jaspina Naik said she and her husband had been forced to take their three children to the temple to convert. "My neighbours said, 'If you go on being Christians, we will burn your houses and your children in front of you, so make up your minds quickly'," she said.

The VHP counters that many of those who are switching to Hinduism are recent converts from Christianity who had been attracted by the economic benefits that went with abandoning their low-caste status as Hindus. The VHP's leaders claim that many of those converts were so repulsed by the killing of the swami that they have been eager to rejoin the fold.

"They saw what happened to the swami – of course they want to come back, what's wrong with that?" said Gouri Prasad Rath, the VHP general secretary in Orissa.

He told The Scotsman the Christians had only themselves to blame for trying to entice Hindus to convert.

"If there is a problem today, I feel it is because the Hindus have lost patience," he said.

"Christians are giving Bibles to uneducated people who have nothing to eat and nothing to wear. They don't even know how to read it," he said. "If you go to their houses, they have a Bible and a photo of Jesus and, by keeping all these things, they think they have turned western.

"But you look at them and they still look like everyone else, and so what's the use of having such a religion when you have the same society as Hindus?"

Few of the 800 people crammed into tents in the Rudangia refugee camp a few hundred yards back along the road from Sushil Naik's home would see it that way.

For them, the idea that they can return to live alongside the people who turned on them so brutally seems little more than fantasy.

Rajma Naik, 45, fled to the camp after a mob chased her out of her home in Gonjugra village. The Hindus had been mocking them for their religion, she said. People were running everywhere, desperate to escape. In front of her, a woman stumbled as she tried to shepherd her eight-year-old son to safety.

"She was killed in front of me," she said. "She was running with her child. She was hit and she fell and they slashed her throat and then they got the child."

There was no way she could live alongside those people again, she said, not as a Christian, not as a Hindu.

"The Hindus say they will kill us," she said.

"In my village, we've been told that if we don't become Hindus, we will be killed. But I will never become a Hindu, even if I have to die."

The full article contains 1319 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.

I see striking similarities to 1984 here and the similar attack on Sikhs ie : a serving army officeer defending India,while he does that his family are attacked.

Their own neighbours who have lived with them for generations all of a sudden turning on them, ie: Delhi ,Kanpur Genocides Nov 1984

The idea of 'what is the need for 'that' religion or a different thinking if we all live in a 'Hindu Society'.RSS use this Hindu Society agenda on us as well by saying we are a part of the Hindu Nation.

Unreliable Police - Delhi 84

There is also similarities to the Gujarat Genocide in the way that mobs were organised at certain times to come and abuse Families and the ultimatums are the same as well.

Overall the same pattern has been done here as in 84,and 2002

[Raju]

I don't usually agree with Jassa but on this one he is right. Why are we getting so many sob stories about Christians getting killed and forcibly converted to Hinduism when the Christians have done the same for thousands of years. The previous Pope had declared this century as the century when Christianity will try and convert as many people in Asia as possible. Evangelical Christians are everywhere using their money and nefarious techniques to convert not just non-Christians to their religion but even poor Catholics. Sikhs are already within their sights and they are using terms such as 'Masihi Satsang' and 'Satguru Yeshu' in order to entice Sikhs in believing they are just another Baba type cult. They are doing the same amongst Tribals in Orissa and hence the Hindu reaction. We can all shed tears over the 'innocent' Christians being killed but the VHP know how to defend their religion and what are our leaders doing with the Christian mischief in Punjab? Nothing.

then go after the pope lol

do you think people in Italy or France or Spain (they are catholics) condone every word of what he says. Do you think they even care. For all purposes a pope is a political appointee and he speaks whatever is politically convenient for him and his interests.

how are common people concerned by what some joker far away has said ?

Fact of the matter is that in India, like everywhere else, it is the majority that always has its way.

Raj Thackeray creating ruckus in mumbai is handled with kidgloves.

bajrang dal killing and murduring in Orissa is just bunch of goons.

Shiv Sena/MNS attacking biharis is all ok, nothing wrong there, just

two groups fighting for jobs.

Christians sitting in Churches defending themselves from Bajrang Dal are attacked by police. They are assaulted and imprisoned.

Who cares ?

WHERE IS JUSTICE IN INDIA ??

[AK47 JATHA LION]

i just have 1 question, and its for jassa.

Jassa, are u Hindu?