Extremist Hindu groups have reportedly offered rewards or bounties on killing Christians in India. There has been a sharp increase in attacks on Christians in India. This controversy has sprung up in England after the government refused to bar entry to members of such groups as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), despite their allegedly offering such bounties as $250 for killing a pastor and other such rewards.
A spokesman for the All-India Christian Council said: “People are being offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene.”
At least 67 Christians have been killed in recent months, according to the Roman Catholic Church, with thousands of burned homes and churches.
Christians have fled to refugee camps. In Kandhamal, one such camp holds over 11,000.
The latest violence was triggered in August by the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, a leader in the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). While Maoist claimed responsibility, the Hindu extremists blamed Christians. Lakshmanananda was viewed as an anti-Christian extremist.
English officials, however, insist that it would not bar members of the groups since India had not classified them as terrorist organizations.
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@Pandu – how about the Hindus oppressing their low caste for centuries ? Christianity and Islam came to India peacefully through missionaries not through invaders. The invaders you talk about, attacked not because of religious reasons but political and to control resources. How about the Hindus eradicating out Buddhists from their country ? read the history of Buddhists in India who were driven out by Hindu extrimists. How about the women being burnt ?
ALL ABOUT MORALS AND ETHICS THIS!
F_ck those bastards.
Bob,
Correction noted and agreed with, India wins no prizes in the religious tolerance Olympics.
Pandu,
While I sympathize greatly with the fact that Hindu’s, people of one of the world’s oldest and greatest religions, have been oppressed by outsiders for centuries murder of innocents in the name of the God/Gods of any religion is not justified.
Considering that Hindus have been under Muslim and Christian rule for most of the past thousand years, and how much it has degraded their religion and culture, it’s no surprise that they’re fed up.
We are all one.
Killing in self-defense or the defense of others is one thing. Killing in the name of my (insert your deity of choice here) is better than your (insert your opponent’s deity of choice) makes about as much sense as killing because my Sharp Cheddar is better than your Colby Cheddar.
You are killing over a brand name. Hindus should know this since, if anything, Hinduism is henotheistic.
So let’s be clear.
No one killing in the name of any “good” divine being is killing another human for any reason but their own stupid Pleistocene monkey-brained reasons. Duality exists, but either you follow creation gods or destroyer gods – your inner light or your inner shadow (to stick with Jung). The 8 Fold Path or the Path to Suffering. Jesus (God is Love) or Satan (God is Ego). Ganesh or Kali. The Force or The Dark Side.
Pick and choose, win or loose, play the game realizing that you don’t kill by divine will or mandate. Gods don’t literally speak to anyone but the mentally disturbed and then it’s not really God but their pathology. You kill by your choice in path or you have a psychological disorder. Maybe both. But you aren’t killing in the name of any “goodness”.
Either from your chosen path or dysfunction the reason you are killing is all in your head.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are killed or threatened with death in the name of God. It is enough to turn a Catholic into an atheist.
Mike Spindell,
I couldn’t agree more.
However, I was referring more to the tendency to portray India as a country of saints and Pakistan as a country of savages.
Believe it or not, I find the atrocities committed by the Indians in the Kashmir region to be far more imaginatively & intently atrocious than those of the Pakistanis.
I guess Jung was right; we all need a shadow.
Nor me Bob. Religious extremism (fundamentalism)leads to this despite the religious. As someone who has always admired Zen Buddhism I was “shocked” to learn of the various “wars” that have broken out between Zen leaders in years past. That was the last straw in being shocked by bad behavior on the part of seemingly religious people. It’s never about the religion. It’s always about peoples egotistical drive for power and the use of the materials at hand (i.e. religion) to achieve it and wield it.
This doesn’t shock me.