being expelled from their villages because of their faith in Christ, several Indian Christians and investigators told BosNewsLife.
Since last week followers of the Bodo tribal religion in India’s north eastern state of Assam forced nine families from their homes for converting to Christianity, the All India Christian Council (AICC), a major advocacy group said. The villagers reportedly destroyed six
of the nine families’ homes, forcing the Christians to take shelter in a primary school.
The nine families live in four villages in the Kokrajhar district of Assam. Their ordeal apparently began last Monday November 13 when a Pentecostal meeting held in Haldibari village infuriated the Bodo tribal people, who organized their own religious gathering.
At their meeting tribal people of Haldibari, including militants of the radical Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), decided to expel the Christian villagers, local sources said.
EVACUATION RESOLUTION
"On November 14 in the morning some members of Bodo Religious Bathou of Haldibari assembled at the village council hall and made a resolution to evacuate Christian members from the village,” said Benjaligar Machahary, the director of the Bodo Radio program aired in the region.
Soon after the houses of three Bodo tribal Christian families in Haldibari and four other families in the surrounding villages of Moflabari, Jamduguri and Basdari were destroyed, the AICC said, citing its own investigation. In total, "members of nine Bodo tribal Christian families were forced to leave their villages," the group added.
In a statement obtained by BosNewsLife, Bishop K. Basumatary of Bodo Evangelical Lutheran Church said that “Hindu fanatic leaders used Bodo tribal communities to provoke hatred and disharmony among different faith and religions among Bodo communities. In many of the cases, the RSS Hindu religious fanatic influences Bodo tribal communities to hate Bodo tribal Christians."
HINDU OBJECTIONS
The RSS did not immediately react to the latest developments, but it has openly objected to the spread of Christianity among tribals and other impoverished groups including Dalits, seen as the ‘lowest’ caste in India’s ancient system of Hinduism. Assam is not the only state where villagers have been evicted in recent days, human rights investigators say.
In a statement to BosNewsLife, the Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) with website www.persecution.org said it has learned that villagers in Madhya Pradesh state’s Anuppur district have been "ostracizing four members of a poor family, who were earlier attacked with axes for not moving out of the village after their conversion to Christ."
Pooran Lal, his wife and their two sons are the only Christians in Miriya village, situated in Pushparajgarh Block of the north-eastern district of Anuppur, formerly known as Shahdol, ICC said. It quoted a pastor from a nearby village as saying that although there is a government hand-pump to draw water from the ground and a well hardly a few stones throw away from
their house, "the ostracized Christians have to fetch water from the Narmada River, about two kilometers (1.3 miles) away.
Lal, a farmer, had earlier been asked by the villagers to leave Christianity or the village. The villagers had also warned him that he would be poisoned if he did not move out of the village, ICC added. When the Christian family refused to leave, a group of villagers armed with axes allegedly attacked them in June.
ATTACKING CHRISTIANS
"They hit all the four members on their heads causing deep wounds," ICC said, quoting its sources in the region. Some villagers apparently took them to a hospital, where they received stitches.
Local police have so far refused to take serous action and the suspects of the attack are still roaming around, said the pastor on condition of anonymity, apparently for fear of revenge attacks. "The police do not investigate and ask for bribe, which the poor family cannot pay. But the attackers are wealthy and powerful who can grease the hands of the policemen," he said in remarks distributed by ICC.
The suspected attackers, backed by local police, even filed counter-complaint against the victims alleging they beat them up, the pastor added. "The family has to attend the hearing in the court twice a month for which they have to walk quite a distance. And each time they go for the hearing, they are stopped on the way and threatened," he explained.
Although there is no violence any longer, "there is a deep sense of insecurity among the family members, who await justice and continue to believe in Christ despite severe opposition," ICC quoted the pastor is saying. The reported incidents against the villages are the latest in a series of recent attacks against devoted Christians in India, a predominantly Hindu nation.
