By Tim Stafford | posted 04/28/2004

Tucked into an auto-rickshaw, the three-wheeled open-air taxis that
swarm Indian cities like a plague of beetles, I survey my Sunday
morning Delhi surroundings. By Indian standards the traffic is
light, but it would make Manhattan seem orderly. Cars, trucks,
pushcarts, pedestrians, scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, bicycle-
rickshaws, and bullock-carts jostle for place. And the costumes!
Business suits, sarongs, turbans, saris, burhkas, and many
variations of dress I cannot name, all paying no attention to each
other whatsoever. For stunning displays of diversity, an Indian city
street beats any place I have ever seen.

I tell my driver "St. James Church, Kashmiri Gate," and he sets off
without hesitation. It is not much direction in a sprawling city of
12 million, but he inquires of pedestrians along the way. Eventually
someone lights up. "Church?" He points, and I am deposited at the
front gate of a spacious, apparently deserted compound.
'God is really at work in India-in every part of India. Even in the
mainline churches, God is at work.'-Church of North India priest
Paul Swarup

In the center sits a domed and columned church building. Inside, I
find a small Indian congregation at worship. The sanctuary is high
Anglican, with marble and mahogany memorials for British colonels. A
sung-and-chanted liturgy begins when a robed priest and altar boys
process, accompanied by organ.

Afterward the 100 or so worshipers gather outside for tea in a
frigid fog. A friendly member explains a bit of church history: St.
James is the oldest church in Delhi. James Skinner, an Anglo-Indian
cavalry officer, built it in fulfillment of a battlefield vow. I
cannot help thinking of this place as an alien survivor, a sleepy
relic of British rule that can hardly relate to the dynamic,
hustling world outside its compound.

Next morning I return for conversation with the Rev. Paul Swarup,
who helps me see it differently. Swarup is a young man not long back
from Cambridge University, where he earned his Ph.D. in Old
Testament. "The exciting thing is," he says, "God is really at work
in India-in every part of India. In the last ten years, our
situation has definitely changed." He laughs. "Even in the mainline
churches, God is at work."

Swarup tells how home groups at St. James have recently taken form.
Members are beginning to invite their neighbors from other faiths.

"Christians don't feel cut off from their neighbors?" I ask.

"I don't think so," Swarup answers. "At the local level, I don't
think there is any animosity."

Each week, he says, two or three people seek him out wanting to
become Christians. "They don't know the gospel. They just know this
God may answer my prayer." A Hindu couple began to worship every
Sunday, even though they speak no English. "They were troubled by
evil spirits. I got them a Hindi Bible, and they began to read it.
They said they wanted to be baptized."

Students from nearby university dormitories often come to the church
to pray. Some ask for Bible study, to learn about Jesus. At
Christmas, hundreds will come for special services, and will, at
Swarup's invitation, approach the altar to receive a blessing. Even
here in North India, where Christians are few and resistance can be
fierce, boundaries are porous. Spiritual seeking leads people to St.
James Church.

As for the persecution that makes international news, St. James
experiences none. "There's complete freedom of worship here. We
experience no pressure. Hindu militants will not make a noise in the
city. If a church were burned in Delhi, it would be front-page news
in every paper."

Growth Amid Threats
A week later I worship in a very different church-a poor, rural
Pentecostal congregation outside Bangalore, in the south of India. A
new, plastered structure, almost devoid of furniture, vibrates to
earsplitting rhythms of song, accompanied only by drum. Women in
brilliant saris sit on mats and lift up their hands; men take
plastic chairs in back. The air is close with body heat and
perspiration. I am scheduled to preach-a fact I discovered upon my
arrival an hour before. No matter. I have visited rural churches in
Third World countries before. I know it pays to keep a three-point
outline handy.

After the service, I am besieged with people seeking spiritual help,
so many crowding around me that I get backed into a corner and can't
move. My translator tells me the request of each person, and I lay
hands on their heads or hold their calloused hands while I pray.
Some are sick; some need work; some want husbands to return home.
They are oppressed by spirits, worry about pending school exams, or
have family disputes. One complaint I do not immediately
understand. "She has Fitz," my translator says. "What?" I
ask. "Fitz," he says again. "You know, Fitz! Fitz!" It dawns on me:
the lady has fits. Epilepsy, perhaps. I pray for her.

Over lunch Pastor Jayakanth explains how the church came into
existence. He is a matter-of-fact young man with a handsome face.
Seven years ago, his job with the electricity utility brought him to
town. Coming from a thriving Assemblies of God congregation in the
city, he found no church of any denomination, and no Christians. The
region was known for its staunch Hindu beliefs. Local people said
they had murdered the last Christian who came to win converts.

Nevertheless Jayakanth rented a 10-by-10-foot room, recruited a
handful of believers whose work had also transferred them into the
region, and began to hold services. It took a year to make his first
convert. A breakthrough came with the local prostitutes, whom he
witnessed to on the street late at night. A congregation began to
grow. When Jayakanth's wife gave birth to premature twins, each
weighing less than two pounds, doctors predicted they could not
live. Pastor Jayakanth fasted and prayed for three days, the
children survived, and word of a miracle spread. More people came to
church and were baptized. Temple leaders began to ask why they
didn't come to temple anymore, or contribute to temple offerings.
Some of the former prostitutes' customers complained about their
changed way of life.

On Good Friday, a mob interrupted church services and forcibly
dragged Jayakanth to the temple. He estimates that a thousand people
gathered, shouting insults and cursing him. He was beaten and
threatened, then hauled to the police station. Police officers
accused him of disturbing the peace. Hadn't he come into the
district trying to convert people to his religion? They browbeat him
into signing a statement that he would no longer go out into
surrounding villages to preach.

After that, the pastor says, "We don't go to villages, but we are on
our knees, and people are coming to us." The church continued to
grow, which led to a second attack. This time Jayakanth was away
when a mob came to the church, beating up those they could catch
before taking the church's sound equipment and all its books-
including 5,000 New Testaments-and burning them.

This time, to Jayakanth's surprise, the police arrested the men who
had attacked the church. (He did not press charges.) They even
assigned seven officers to provide protection to the church-all of
whom, with their families, have since become Christians.

Opposition has vanished, Jayakanth says. One of the men who led the
mob came to the church before his wedding and gave money to help the
church obtain electricity. "Thank you for your testimony," he said.
Altogether 400 new Christians have been baptized-including ten upper-
caste Brahmin families-and seven churches have been launched in
surrounding villages. (Later in the day I visit one, 75 to 100
people jammed shoulder to shoulder in a small apartment.) Jayakanth
still works for the electric utility, using his salary for expenses,
such as rent for the outlying churches. Money is tight. But he sees
no limit to the growth of the church.

Legacies of Imperialism
India is changing fast, thanks to money. The economy opened up a
decade back. Now cell phones are ubiquitous. Every city corner
features a family restaurant. Ten years ago, the roads featured
sedate, ancient Ambassadors; now ubiquitous traffic jams include new
cars of every make. Poverty remains, but you can't miss the buzz of
fresh expectations.

Not just the economy is changing. While interviewing church leaders
and pastors throughout India, I heard again and again that the
church is growing. No reliable statistics exist, but for the first
time in generations, there is talk of general revival. Optimism
prevails. The Bible Society of India says that Bible sales have
doubled in the last five years.

At the same time, persecution in rural areas has risen to alarming
levels, and bids to grow stronger. Open-air evangelism and
literature distribution have largely ceased, especially in the
north. Four states have passed ironically named "freedom of
religion" bills, which outlaw or strictly regulate Christian
conversions. Harassment of evangelists and pastors is common, and
outright violence breaks out frequently.

The causes of persecution can be put down to three interlocking
factors. First is a general antipathy toward Christianity as
a "foreign" religion. "When you say you are a Christian," the leader
of a major relief and development agency told me, "the majority of
Indians say, 'Go home.' " Christianity came to India in the first
century, tradition says, but colonial associations stain the church.
Since most Indian Christians come from a Dalit, or untouchable,
background, Christianity is also associated with poor and ignorant
people beyond the pale of Hindu society. I asked Paul Swarup what
would happen if students in his Bible studies chose to be
baptized. "They would be put out by their families," he said without
hesitation. Converting to Christianity automatically makes you a
traitor to your family and community.

Many ordinary Indians assume that only foreign money could entrap
people into such treachery. The word conversion suggests to them
imperialistic Westerners preying on poor Indians.

News Today, "Chennai's No. 1 English evening daily since 1982,"
conducted a front-page interview with Swami Dayandanda Saraswati on
January 7, 2003, on his campaign against religious conversions,
which he called violence. Here is an excerpt:

"What is violence? When you physically hurt me it is violence. When
you do anything that can instigate physical violence, that is an act
of violence, too. And if you can hurt me emotionally, it is also
violence. If you can hurt me spiritually, that is the worst
violence, rank violence. All those are there in conversion because
it leads to physical violence. When you convert someone, you have to
criticize the person's religion, his worship, his culture; all of
these hurt. . He has to disown his parents, and their wisdom and
their culture, his ancestors and entire community; you are isolating
him, uprooting him, and all uprooted people are emotionally
unsettled."

Well-organized Hindu militancy is second among the factors that set
off persecution. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or the
Association of National Volunteers, is the key organization. An
important early theorist wrote admiringly of Hitler, and it was an
RSS extremist who assassinated Gandhi for supposedly coddling
Muslims. In the last decade, the RSS and its family of organizations
(the "Sangh Parivar") have become a potent factor in Indian life.
Dominated by well-educated Brahmins, they have mobilized and trained
thousands of volunteers. They want an India closely identified with
Hinduness, or Hindutva. "Foreign" forces like Islam or Christianity
should exist only if they accept a subservient place, according to
the RSS.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) completes the picture. As the
largest political party in the coalition governing India, the BJP
sometimes looks progressive. Certainly it has helped open India's
economy, bringing about the near euphoria of 8 percent growth and
greater opportunities for India's educated middle class. But it is
also the political wing of the RSS. The BJP rode to national power
on a wave of xenophobic Hindu feeling that the party itself stirred
up by campaigning to destroy an ancient mosque at Ayodhya and to
replace it with a temple to the Hindu god Ram. Rioters egged on by
BJP leaders tore down the mosque in December 1992. Terrible anti-
Muslim violence followed. Thus far no temple has been built, but the
BJP still claims that as its goal.

The most egregious cases of religious violence-pogroms against
Muslims, church burnings, and assaults on pastors and nuns-often
smell of political manipulation, which is the third main cause of
persecution. It's the same tactic used by segregationist politicians
in the pre-Civil Rights South: find an enemy to vilify, and unify
your base by appealing to paranoia. Given the popular antipathy
toward Christianity, evangelists fit the BJP's political need. In a
vast nation divided by religion, language, region and caste, anti-
Muslim or anti-Christian agitation can galvanize a majority.

How fervently the BJP will follow the extreme RSS line remains to be
seen. Political parties must appeal to moderate Indians, who dislike
extremist tactics. The BJP base, however, looks for a more
chauvinistic approach.

"They have poisoned the minds of the youth," says one evangelist
with 30 years of experience in an urban, middle-class area in the
South. "They have changed the spirit of India. As soon as you begin
to speak of Jesus, you get a violent reaction. Some opposition is
not political but religious: 'My religion is superior to all.' That
is understandable. Okay, we can discuss. But political poisoning-
things are much worse than five years before. There are no limits to
what they will do."

Two weeks before I went to India, newspapers were reporting the
latest anti-Christian outrage. A nine-year-old girl was assaulted
and murdered in Jhabua, a town in the state of Madhya Pradesh where
the BJP had recently come to power. The girl's killer dumped her
body in a Catholic mission school compound.

Within a day, the case had become a cause. A crowd of 500 gathered
outside the school, forcing its way into the compound, chanting anti-
Christian slogans and throwing rocks. Unable to control the mob-
including people reportedly brought in from neighboring areas-police
instead arrested the school's staff.
'I feel the persecution is exaggerated. I was beaten up a year ago,
and I am still here.'-Pastor C. B. Elijah

A few days later, police accused an itinerant laborer-not a
Christian-of the murder. Hindu leaders nevertheless continued to
stir up crowds against local Christians. A Protestant church was
burned down, as were several homes belonging to Christians. Anti-
Christian pamphlets were distributed, warning against conversion
drives sponsored by "anti-nationalist forces and missionaries," and
urging Hindus to band together and defend India as a Hindu nation.

Jhabua appears to have the same elements that Pastor Jayakanth
faced, but with this difference: the BJP's control of state
government meant anti-Christian agitators operated with a sense of
legal impunity. Local religious feeling could be stirred up into a
regional cause.

The BJP has called for national elections for April and May, and
most people expect the party to do well. Many Christians fear that,
should the BJP win an outright majority, it will pursue Hindutva
with renewed vigor. A national anti-conversion law is one distinct
possibility.

Publicizing Persecution
John Dayal is general secretary of the All India Christian Council
(AICC), an organization founded to protect Christians after the 1999
murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons. I
meet Dayal at his home, a modest apartment where he keeps an office
stuffed with computers and filing cabinets. With his full silver
beard, husky build, and commanding presence, Dayal can easily
overwhelm gentler voices.

"The repression is unprecedented," he tells me, barely bridling his
indignation. "The total space in which the church can function is
shrinking. We are recording a new case of violence every 36 hours.
Let's get out of this myth of Hindu tolerance. The more you
research, the more you find it is an extremely intolerant religion.
You must listen to them, but they don't have to listen to you. They
believe it's a Hindu country, and I am a foreigner and an alien."

The AICC has taken an approach that appeals to Americans, though
not, I discover, to many Indian Christians. The AICC loves
publicity. Whenever it receives a report of abuse, it sends out an
investigative team and, if the case seems justified, it publicizes
the offense. It fires off demands for legal intervention, issues
strong statements, and raises the stakes as high as possible.

The organization began with backing from a wide variety of churches,
but lost credibility when it helped sponsor events in which it
predicted thousands of Dalits-untouchables-would publicly convert to
Buddhism or Christianity. Few converts appeared. The AICC blamed
government interference, but several Christian leaders told me that
there never was much substance behind the claims-it was all done to
draw support from gullible Western donors.

Nevertheless the AICC (and other similar groups, such as the Global
Council of Indian Christians) keep Christian concerns in the eye of
the press, which is lively and free in India. As a tiny minority,
Christians need support from other minority communities, as well as
from advocates for the poor, for human rights, for children, and the
disabled. (Hindutva activists often criticize Christian aid to the
needy, claiming that Christians are buying conversions through their
good deeds.)
We have to forgive. Jesus taught us to forgive.-Missionary Gladys
Staines

Dayal fiercely criticizes Christians who won't find common cause
with non-Christians: "Do you want a bilateral peace? 'Please don't
rape a nun, or murder a pastor, but please feel free to murder a
Muslim.' The church is very naïve." He contends that the church
cannot seek its own protection, but rather must pursue a just and
free society for all.

When I ask Dayal what American Christians should do, he has a quick
response. "Stop funding itinerant evangelists who send you a picture
of the five black Indians [they have] converted. There's no pastoral
care. There's no social uplift."

Dayal's human-rights approach makes sense to me. Most of the Indians
I talk to, however-especially those who have suffered from
persecution-seem surprisingly uninterested. Consider the pastor I
will call C. B. Elijah. I find him in his small office above a car
repair shop-an unprepossessing setup for a man who runs two large
independent city churches, while overseeing 40 full-time pastors in
outlying churches.

"I feel the persecution is exaggerated," Elijah tells me. "A few
pastors get beaten up, mainly in the coastal belt of our state." He
shrugs his narrow shoulders. "I was beaten up a year ago, and I am
still here."

In fact, his beating put him in the hospital for several days. He
deals with violent episodes regularly. Just last week a church
prayer meeting was disrupted by a group that wanted to put up an
image of the god Ram, and tried to put bindis (colored dots) on
people's foreheads. "We are not allowed to meet in a few places,"
Elijah says, downplaying the incident. "Still, people are
responding, and the church is growing. I say to my pastors, 'If you
are afraid, you should go do something else.' "

We talk for a time about a subject that seems to interest him more:
pastors who abuse their authority. "A lot of money is dumped into
India, and I feel there is very little reality. For many, the call
of God is unemployment."

Returning to the subject of persecution, he says, "Everybody talks
about rights, but who benefits? Even Muslims [a much larger group]
never got justice. How will we? I think the response of Graham
Staines's wife, Gladys, is the best: 'Forgive them.' "

The Forgiving Widow
Gladys Staines has become the best-known Christian in India after
Mother Teresa. She and her husband-both from Australia-worked
anonymously for decades among leprosy victims in the state of
Orissa. Five years ago an anti-Christian mob set upon Graham's Jeep
while he and his two young sons were sleeping in it, parked outside
a church. The mob doused the car with fuel and set it on fire.
Graham and his sons perished in the flames.

During the trial and conviction of a charismatic Hindu activist who
led the mob, Staines was accused of converting hundreds of poor
Indians and provoking local outrage. His leprosy mission was said to
be a front for evangelism. Nevertheless, public opinion was
sympathetic to the Staines family, especially when Gladys said she
intended to remain in India and continue her husband's work. She
said she forgave his killers.

I happen to hear Gladys speak to morning chapel at Bangalore's
Southern Asia Bible College (SABC). She is a tall, middle-aged
woman, by no means a charismatic figure. Speaking slowly and
hesitantly to the 250 students who attend this Assemblies of God
training institution, she recalls events leading up to her husband's
murder. Anti-Christian riots in the state of Gujarat burned dozens
of churches just weeks before. "I said, a little blasé, 'Well,
Christians also need to forgive.' I little thought that, ten days
later, I would need to do so."

"We have to forgive," she says. "Jesus taught us to forgive."

Ivan Satyavrata, SABC's president, is a wiry man with an
expressively melancholy face. "We always get asked why India has not
turned to Christ," he says in closing the meeting. "We all know the
answer." He paraphrases something Mahatma Gandhi once said: "I would
like to be a Christian, if I could find one."

"Christians were looked at as people who made tall claims about
Christ," Satyavrata says. "There were many sermons preached,
thousands of rupees invested. But forgive was the shortest, most
eloquent, most powerful sermon India has ever heard. It has done
something for the church that our sister, through her pain, through
her tears, did what Jesus would do. I don't think it is an accident
that after that event, we have seen unprecedented numbers of people
turning to Christ."

Looking slowly over the crowd of ardent young people gathered in
SABC's chapel, Satyavrata concludes, "Some standing here may be
called on to pay the same price."

Clash of Civilizations
India is walking a knife edge. On one side is its democratic
tradition, and its openness to the global economy. Hindus, I hear
again and again, are tolerant and open-minded. "Don't forget, all of
us have many Hindu friends," Babu Verghese, a Christian editor,
tells me. "We know these guys. They are good guys. But it's their
fascist, fanatic fringe that is creating problems."

On the other side is Hindu pride, which political forces can
manipulate toward xenophobia. The insecurities of the modern world,
along with the historic divisions of Indian society, allow the RSS
to portray Hinduism as under attack, and Indian society at
risk. "Persecution will not slow down," predicts Richard Howell,
general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI). "It
has come to stay. As long as the church keeps growing, persecution
will continue."

Virtually every church leader I speak with emphasizes that
evangelists sometimes bring on their own persecution through
cultural insensitivity, making life harder for all Christians.
Leaders talk of the need to Indianize the church, so that any
offense would come from the gospel, not cultural trappings or
needless insult.

Given the independent style of many evangelists, however, offenses
are bound to continue. The larger problem lies in the current Indian
environment. Will India move toward openness and tolerance? Or will
it narrow its identity and oppress minorities?

Global attention has focused on Islamic nations and the so-called
clash of civilizations. Arguably more is at stake in India. One
billion people-a sixth of the world's population-could emerge as a
role model for a democratic, free society incorporating a variety of
cultures, languages and religions. (India has more Muslims, for
example, than any country in the world save Indonesia.) If India
continues to emerge as a world economic power, such an outcome could
have untold implications throughout Asia. It could, for example,
nudge China toward freedom. It could provide a hopeful model for
other Asian countries tempted by religious intolerance, such as
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia.

Though a tiny minority, Christians are prominently involved in
India's future. Christian activism is clashing with Hindu militancy,
and no one can say for certain where India will go. Amid much
uncertainty and opposition, Christians seem remarkably
undaunted. "The mood of the church is very optimistic," Howell
says. "It is a mood of expectancy."

Tim Stafford is a Christianity Today senior writer.
Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
May 2004, Vol. 48, No. 5, Page 28

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