NEW DELHI (UCAN) -- Some Christians in Orissa state had to spend the recent Christmas season in forest and relief camps to escape marauding mobs.

On their return, they found their homes burnt, shops destroyed and churches vandalized. At least five people reportedly were killed in the violence.

This triggered nationwide protests by Christian groups of all denominations. They accused Hindu radicals of carrying out the premeditated attacks to chase Christians from Kandhamal, a tribal-dominated district in Orissa.

Hindu radicals, on the other hand, blame Christians for causing the violence by aggressively trying to convert Hindus. They also allege that Christians tied up Maoists to create "mayhem" in Kandhamal. They now demand a national law to ban "offensive proselytization."

As both groups trade charges, media and independent observers perceive a distressing resemblance between the violence in Orissa and what began in a tribal hamlet in Gujarat during Christmas 1998. Hindu radicals went on to torch churches and Christian schools in the state's Dangs and Surat districts, and several Christians sustained injuries.

Since then, India has witnessed attacks on Christians and Muslims in several states, especially in its middle stretch. Orissa is on its eastern fringe and Gujarat its west. Violent anti-Christian incidents were also reported in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, three other states in the region.

Such violence occurred mostly in tribal-dominated areas where both rightwing Hindu groups and Christian missioners are active. The violence has paid political dividends for groups determined to create a Hindu theocratic state in India. But Christians, hardly 1 percent of the area's 225 million people, feel ever more marginalized and misunderstood.

For Hindu radicals, the systematic and concerted alienation of Christians and Muslims is necessary to gain political power over India. In their view, consolidating Hindu votes boosts this cause.

Hindus form 83 percent of the Indian population while Muslims account for 12 percent and Christians 2.3 percent. The rest are Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, followers of India-born religions.

Hindutva groups realize they can rule India only if they attract tribal and dalit people, two groups they had kept outside. Dalit, the former untouchable caste, represent 16.5 percent of India's 1.02 billion people and tribal people a little more than 8 percent.

India can never be converted into a Hindu theocratic state as long as tribal and dalit people avoid the Hindutva groups, and Hindu radicals consider Christian missioners their biggest hurdle.

When missioners entered central India's tribal region more than a century ago, Christianity attracted many tribes because it resonated with their animistic religions. Even dalit people, who shun Hindutva because upper-caste Hindus dominate it, found in the new faith an escape from the oppressive caste system.

The Church's growing acceptance among tribal and dalit people has alarmed the Hindutva groups. They also opened schools and cultural centers in remote villages where Church people work. The Hindu activists are trying to convince tribal people that they are Hindus and that Christian missioners have come to destroy their culture and divide their people.

Decades of such propaganda seem to have had an effect. Several missioners have observed growing public apathy toward anti-Christian violence.

This is the view of a Catholic nun who was beaten and dragged to a police station for conducting prayers in a Catholic home in Madhya Pradesh's Indore town. She told UCA News the lack of response by onlookers pained her far more than the physical torture. She had helped several of them in the past, but they stood watching as if agreeing with her tormentors.

The propaganda of Hindu radicals against Christians seems to have entered deeply into the Indian psyche. This is worrisome, indeed.

Church responses to these incidents have been rather awkward, apologetic and timid. The Churches cry foul only when such incidents occur. Otherwise, they stay in their own world and hardly try to counter the misinformation spread across India about Christianity.

The Church claims 2,000 years of history in India, but most Indians know very little about Christianity, and the divisions among Christians further confound them.

One positive note spawned by the latest Orissa violence is that it succeeded in uniting all Christian denominations. Hindu radicals did them a favor by not sparing any Christian denomination in Kandhamal from their attacks.

What the Church in India now needs is a leader who can encourage Christians, irrespective of denominational differences, to meet such attacks. Church theologians have to help Christians see God's plan for them as well as their countrymen in these violent incidents.

India's Christians should thank God and their Hindu brethren that, barring a few stray incidents, Christians have never been persecuted for their faith in the country. Even now, their best bet is God and the millions of Hindus who believe in secularism.

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