Tag: Hindutva

India: Christian convert killed and left on the road, beheaded

February 22, 2019 India Anti-conversion law, BJP, Converts, Hindutva, India, Narendra Modi, Odisha

A street in a village in India. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

An Indian man who had become a Christian last year was killed and beheaded in eastern India earlier this month, reports Persecution Relief. On 11 February, Anant Ram Gand, 40, was taken from his home in the village of Raigarh Tehsil, in the district of Nabarangapur, Odisha, by three men . . . Read More

‘Situation for India’s religious minorities is at tipping point’ – report

February 12, 2019 India Anti-conversion law, BJP, Chhattisgarh, Hindutva, India, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Minorities, Narendra Modi, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh

The report shows that since Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the number of violent acts against India's religious minorities have increased (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

A report by a religious freedom watchdog shows a dramatic increase in the number of attacks on Christians and Muslims in India in the last four years and “the situation … is at a tipping point”. The number of reported incidents in the first three months of 2018 was greater . . . Read More

Ten years after arrest of their illiterate husbands, Indian wives wait for justice

October 5, 2018 India Hindutva, Kandhamal, Odisha

It was around midnight on 4 October 2008 that Durjo Sunamajhi and Munda and Sanathan Badamajhi were arrested by dozens of police in their shanty homes in India’s eastern Odisha state. Ten years on, these three illiterate Christians, from the remote Madaguda area of Kandhamal, are yet to return home. Four other Christians – . . . Read More

Anti-Christian violence in India’s Uttar Pradesh ‘part of the state machinery’

July 20, 2018 India Beef, BJP, Hindu nationalism, Hindu Yuva Vahini, Hindutva, India, RSS, Uttar Pradesh, Vishva Hindu Parishad

The northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, one of several to be ruled by the governing BJP party, is emerging as a new centre of anti-Christian violence as politicians use a fundamentalist form of Hinduism to intimidate minority communities. According to the religious freedom NGO ADF-India, Uttar Pradesh experienced the . . . Read More

India: Police slow to register case after church burnt down by suspected Hindu extremists

June 15, 2018 India BJP, Churches, Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, India, Pentecostals, Police, Puducherry, RSS, Tamil Nadu

A church in Puducherry in southern India was set ablaze recently, after upper-caste Hindu neighbours had objected to worship services in the area. Puducherry, formerly Pondicherry, was a French colonial settlement until 1954. Pastor David Santosham and members of the Bible Presbyterian church in Karaikal District left for home after . . . Read More

India: major faiths reject use of religious identity for political gain

April 9, 2018 India Beef, BJP, Goa, Hindutva, India, Maharashtra, Narendra Modi

Dressed in the saffron colour, groups such these are promoting the nationalist cause for India to be a Hindu-nation. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Leaders of six major faiths have issued a joint call condemning the use of religion for political ends, ahead of India’s 2019 general election. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Muslim and Sikh leaders met in the western state of Goa on 5 April to discuss rising communal tensions in several areas . . . Read More

Indian Christians charged with ‘hurting religious sentiments’ by handing out Easter tracts

April 5, 2018 India BJP, Churches, Easter, Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, Hyderabad, India, Police, Proselytism, RSS, Telangana, Women

Four Christians, including the wife of a church leader, have been charged with “hurting religious sentiments” after they handed out Christian tracts during an Easter procession in India’s southern Telangana state. Rayapuri Jyothi, 38, Meena Kumari, 52, Mahima Kumari, 35 and Bagadam Sudhakar, 45, were taken into custody by police . . . Read More

India’s government ‘rewriting history’ to appear more Hindu

March 22, 2018 India BJP, Education, Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, India, Minorities, Narendra Modi

The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed a committee of scholars to rewrite the history of the nation in favour of Hindus, Reuters has reported. The news agency said that minutes of a January 2017 meeting of the 14-person committee and interviews with members indicated that the . . . Read More

Pro-Hindu BJP wins over Christian voters in northeast India

March 16, 2018 India Beef, Bihar, BJP, Catholics, Elections, Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, India, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Narendra Modi, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh

Christians gather for the general assembly of the National Council of Churches in India in Shillong, capital of the Christian-majority state of Meghalaya in the north-east. (May 2008)

India’s pro-Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now the governing party in two Christian-dominated states in the northeast, following recent election successes in Nagaland and Meghalaya. But to do so, it had to betray its core values of Hindutva, according to John Dayal, former National President of the All India . . . Read More

India’s top Catholic on Hindutva attacks: ‘country being divided on basis of religious belief’

December 22, 2017 India Anti-conversion law, Catholics, Hindu nationalism, Hindutva, India, Madhya Pradesh, Minorities, Rajasthan, Religious freedom, Tripura, Vishva Hindu Parishad

The President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, has expressed a lack of trust in the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the leader of the ruling BJP – known for pursuing a Hindu nationalistic agenda. “The country is being divided on the . . . Read More

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