Hindu Militants

Hindu Militants

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 22, 2008 ? The wave of violence against Christians in Orissa continues.  Militant Hindu nationalists affiliated with the militant, pro-Fascist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), have called for a nun who was raped by their activists to be arrested and they have reportedly sought to wipe out all traces of Christianity from Orissa. On October 21, a group of Hindu women from the Rashtra Sevika Samiti - an outfit affiliated to the Sangh Parivar (an organization under the umbrella of the RSS) - demonstrated to demand the arrest of a nun who was raped during the violence that erupted in the area in August.  ?They want to arrest the victim,? noted Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan.  ?That is offensive to anyone?s sense of decency.?  Asia News reported that the Sangh Parivar, another Hindu fundamentalist group affiliated with the RSS, ?[is] becoming more methodical. Sometimes with police assistance they prevent Christians from meeting to pray, try to murder new converts, and are trying to take over the land where churches and Christian homes once stood in order to wipe off the face of the earth any trace of Christian presence.?

Dr. Aulakh made it clear that the Council of Khalistan and the Sikh Nation support the Christians in fighting the oppression.  ?We are on your side,? he said.  ?First it was Sikhs, Muslims, Dalits, now Christians,? he said, referring to a wave of Christian oppression that has been raging since Christmas 1998.  ?The rape of any woman is shameful,? he said, ?but especially a nun.  Nuns renounce sex and are ?married to Christ.?  Raping them is an attack on the Christian religion itself,? he said.   ?They have tried to wipe out Sikhism and Buddhism.  Now the Indians are trying to wipe out Christianity.?  Dr. Aulakh?s efforts to help Christians have been praised by John Dayal, President of the All-India Christian Council.

The latest attacks in Orissa are part of an ongoing campaign of violent harassment of Christians that has been going on since Christmas 1998.  Churches have been burned, Christian schools have been attacked, and Christian prayer halls have been vandalized.  Missionary Graham Staines was murdered in 1999 in Orissa by a mob of militant Hindus chanting ?Victory to Hannuman,? (a Hindu god) while he slept in his jeep, along with his two sons.  The killers have never been punished.  Missionary Joseph Cooper was so severely beaten that he had to spend a week in an Indian hospital, then he was expelled from the country.  Many nuns have been raped and made to drink their own urine.  Priests have been murdered.  The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an organization under the umbrella of the militant, pro-Fascist, Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), justified these crimes by calling the nuns ?antinational elements.?  The RSS, the parent organization of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has published booklets on how to implicate Christians and other minorities in false criminal cases.

In April, according to Compass Direct, about 70 violent Hindu nationalists chased and threatened two Christian women from a Gospel for Asia Bible college after a Christian worship service.  They burned the church.  All the Christians escaped except the two young women.  The Hindu militants threatened, ?We will burn you like Graham Staines and his children!?  A leader of the BJP was quoted as saying that everyone who lives in India must either be a Hindu or be subservient to Hindus.

India has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, according to figures compiled by the Punjab State Magistracy and human-rights groups and reported in the book The Politics of Genocide by Inderjeet Singh Jaijee.  It has also killed over 90,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, 2,000 to 5,000 Muslims in Gujarat, more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, and thousands of Christians and Muslims elsewhere in the country, as well as tens of thousands of Assamese, Bodos, Dalits (?Untouchables,? the dark-skinned aboriginal people of South Asia), Manipuris, Tamils, and other minorities.  The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs "worse than a genocide."

According to a report by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR), 52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India without charge or trial.  Some have been in illegal custody since 1984!  Amnesty International reported that tens of thousands of other minorities are also being held as political prisoners.  We demand the immediate release of all these political prisoners.

Dr. Aulakh noted that the repression of the Sikhs has echoes in the repression of the Christians.  ?It is sad that in the name of religion, violent acts like this are carried out,? Dr. Aulakh said.  ?We strongly condemn the violence against Christians, which is sadly reminiscent of the violence that has been committed against Sikhs, Muslims, and others,? Dr. Aulakh said.  ?They murdered several priests and they murdered Staines and beat Cooper.  Similarly, the Indian government murdered Sardar Gurdev Singh Kaunke, Jathedar of the Akal Takht.  If you are a religious leader of a non-Hindu religion in India, you are in danger,? he said.  ?The burning of churches and the vandalism of prayer halls and schools is an attack on fundamental religious institutions.  These attacks on churches remind me of the Golden Temple attack.  They constitute an attack on the religion itself,? Dr. Aulakh said.  ?That is unacceptable, especially in a country that promotes itself as a secular democracy.?  He noted that India recently signed a civil nuclear agreement with the United States.  ?I call on the Bush Administration and its successors to work with India to ensure that basic human rights are enjoyed by Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Dalits, and all the people living under Indian rule,? he said.  ?We must continue to press for our God-given birthright of freedom,? he said.  ?Unfortunately, the Indian government does nothing but encourage and support this repression and violence.  Is this the face of modern Hinduism and the so-called secular India??

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Parmjit Singh Sekhon (Dakha)

President

Dal Khalsa Alliance

510-774-5909