As this report indicates, persecution of Christians is breaking out all over India in an unprecedented way.
Hindu extremists have launched dozens of attacks against Christians and their churches since January.
GFA president K.P. Yohannan says at the root of the violence is growing concern by Hindu nationalists about Christian outreach to India's 300 million Dalits, an outcaste group whose members are often referred to as "untouchables."
Yohannan says Hindu nationalists want India to be what they would call a "pure Hindu" nation. "What they're trying to do," he explains, "is say, 'If you leave the Hindu fold or if you become Christian, we're going to treat you badly, and we are going to go after you.'" In reality, he notes, what these extremists are doing "is a kind of ethnic cleansing, [warning people to] stay away from Christians and don't become Christians."
One example of the accelerating persecution was reported here and here this week.
Police officers in northwestern India’s Rajasthan state arrested Rev. Samuel Thomas, president of Emmanuel Mission International (EMI) and son of Archbishop M.A. Thomas, EMI’s founder earlier today. Both men had gone underground after Hindu extremists accused them of distributing a controversial book in which the militants alleged that their religion and deities had been denigrated.
EMI’s orphanages, schools and a hospital have been targeted for closure by a wide array of Hindu extremists in the past few months, including some who have offered a reward of $26,000 for the heads of both Thomas and his father.
Tensions increased earlier this week when Rajasthan state’s welfare minister, Madan Dilawar, said he should be “stoned to death” if his government effort to take over EMI’s properties failed.