“Please uncle, please leave me alone, I haven’t done any harm,” she begged and begged.
“Done no wrong? You stupid dog!” he roared and pushed her to the ground. “You have done no wrong? Then what about turning away from our gods and running after your so called Jesus?”
“You don’t understand,” she wept to him.
“There is nothing to understand, it’s all a pile of crap, you stupid dog”, he spat at her.
She trembled as fear gripped her body.
“You can deny your stupid Jesus and come back or die, choice is yours.”
“I’d rather die than run away from my Jesus.” she whispered.
Men surrounded her, pushing and shoving her. The punched her bruised body, stripped her down to just her underclothes, and spate at her.
“You filthy dog, where’s your God now? Isn’t he going to save you?” they roared with laughter.
She was bleeding, her face deformed, pain coursed through her body. From somewhere she saw a small spark.
“No!” she screamed with all her might.
She felt the heat on her legs and immediately fell to the ground and began rolling. Her effort was worthless. Flames climbed up her legs, engulfing her. Consciousness left and her twitching body came to a stop. Victory shouts rang through the crowd. They gathered around her and watched as flesh turned to bones and as bones became ashes. Her body was no more, the ashes swept into the light wind. But her precious soul had gone to be with Jesus.
On her visit to a nearby village, a young Indian girl converted to Christianity. Upon coming back home, all sorts of trials and persecutions knocked at her front door and entered without permission. Her conversion was not taken well as she was disowned by her own family and the villagers hated her. She became the laugh stock of the town and the street dog that everyone kicked around. Each morning she started the day on her knees with a silent prayer to fill her with courage to face hatred, persecution, and trials of fire. One day, she was burned alive, leaving behind nothing but ashes that swept into the air.
Last year, I watched this video without knowing the horrific events that occurred in many third world countries. Tears had spilled at the sight of a 16 year-old girl being tortured and burned alive. She was my age and she choose to be a Christian. I had not realized how lucky I was to be in a free nation, where religious rights were not oppressed, where violence was not tolerated. I felt ashamed. I had taken my freedom for granted. With a heavy heart I approached my Dad and asked him about my country: India. Why is there is so much religious persecution in India? A country that I thought was beautiful beyond comparison, a country that held snippets of my childhood memories. Why isn’t there anyone doing something to stop this from happening? Where is the government’s interventions to prevent persecution? So many questions arose and I was determined to find the answers. Over the last couple of months, I have been researching about the cruel reality of many Christians around the world and how their rights are being brutally oppressed due to their religion.
What is religious persecution?
Religious persecution is “The act of harassing, oppressing, or killing people because of their difference from society. Christians are persecuted because their belief in Jesus Christ as Savior does not conform to the godlessness of a sinful world.” It is an unfortunate, repeated event in the human history for individuals or groups of a society to marginalize a particular group due to different views on morality, worldview, self-image, and attitudes towards others. Often times, religious differences begin through the act of dehumanizing a particular group. Gradually, this progresses into violence and other forms of persecution. When studying the countries that are suffering from severe cases of persecution, a similarity can be identified: they have a minority religious group that are being afflicted and oppressed by the majority group. The minority soon becomes victimized and threatened by the powering upper hand. Conflicts arise between differentiating views and beliefs and the smaller portion of the population becomes marginalized. Religious persecution can be explained as the violence caused by intolerance for another’s religion. Religious persecution are prevalent in numerous countries around the world, the reasons are plenty; however, it is never acceptable.
India’s History with Religious Persecution
This brings me to the central topic of this article: religious persecution in India. Religious persecution dates back to the early 1960’s where such acts of violence started to become a concerning issue among society. Close to 80% of India’s population represents the Hindu religion. This draws a significantly small amount of 2% of Christians. As the statistic shows, Christians are a great majority in the country of India and are persecuted beyond the limits of what we imagine. Incidents of persecution are dispersed throughout India, but are common occurrences in the upper states like, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and the capital area of New Delhi.
Unheard Stories
Sitting in the safe haven of Canada, we have become deaf to the cries of those who are daily hurt, abused, and assaulted. As we are running for materialistic things, worrying about the simplest details of our life, the stories that matter are no longer heard.
On January 23, 1999 an Australian missionary, Graham Stewart Stains, and his two sons (aged 8 and 10) were burned alive in the vehicle they were sleeping in. 30 people doused their vehicle in kerosene and stood by as the vehicle blazed into flames. Graham left behind his wife and daughter.
In Kerala, a southern state of India, fundamentalists chopped of the hands of Professor T.J. Joseph. Later, in July 2010, a group of eight men forced the Professor, his sister, and his mother out of his house and attacked them with swords, knives, axes, and homemade bombs.
In the state of Agra, six Christians were walking back home from an evening prayer when they were stopped by 20 Hindu extremists and severely assaulted then handed to the local police.
In the state of Ghazipur, Hindu extremists disrupted a church session and abused 20 Christian families. The female pastor was assaulted in the presence of the congregation. Later she confronted the police with the incident; however, they refused to acknowledge any form of persecution.
Responses from the Government
In 1976, the Constitution legally began protecting the rights of all religious practises and established
equality among all religions. However, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had publicly denied that persecution is happening and refused to acknowledge any such incidents. Furthermore, India’s head of Foreign Affairs Ministry invalidated all the charges included in a report from U.S Commission of Religious Freedom. The charges were based on religious persecution which happened within India. In recent years, Hindu organizations have become more aggressive, claiming that India belongs under the governance of the Hindu religion. The silence from the government is communicating tolerance for religious persecution. During this time period of Mr. Modi’s rule, religious extremism has increased, bringing India to it’s darkest age of religious persecution. Mostly fearfully, Dharma Jagran Samiti, the chief leader of a religious extreme group, made an announcement that by 2021 India will become a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu Nation).
What can we do?
A year back, I felt incredible ashamed at my lack of knowledge regarding religious persecution around the world. The first thing we can do is to educate ourselves in the topic of religious persecution. Understanding the basics of reasoning and occurrences of such events gives us an opportunity to further develop our knowledge on religious persecution. If possible, contribute financial support. There are many organizations that are providing financial support to pastors and churches that suffer from severe persecution. A small contribution makes a big difference. Connect with those who are being persecuted. Send them letters and let them know that they are not forgotten, their stories have been heard. Most importantly, remember them in our prayers. There is so little we can do, but God who gives them strength can help them withstand the trails they face.
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References to sources I used for article:
https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/india-persecution-no-ones-talking/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/neal-samudre/5-practical-ways-to-help-_b_6791432.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_India
https://www.ucanews.com/news/anti-christian-violence-on-the-rise-in-india/79257
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9901/23/india.christian/index.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-jesus-christ-701089
https://www.definitions.net/definition/religious%20persecution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXwW7N6T9fM
https://www.britannica.com/topic/religious-persecution
References to Image:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/507006870527220683/?lp=true (Featured Image)
http://empoweringgoans.com/2018/01/23/why-india-shouldnt-forget-the-murder-of-graham-staines/ (Image 1)
https://www.ucanews.com/news/anti-christian-violence-on-the-rise-in-india/79257 (Image 2)
Dear Hefseeba,
I really enjoyed reading your feature article and thought it was very perceptive as you effectively used the story hook to lure readers into the article and to more so depict the grave note on which religious persecution remains an issue in southern Asia. Also, your categorization added to the formal structure of your article, as it clearly laid out how religious persecution connects to everyday people just like us, how it statistically remains a issue, and how we can respond to this from here.
As for improvement, I honestly think that your entire article encapsulated the severity of the issue and its public response very clearly and beautifully by ending it on a positive and hopeful note; therefore, I do not think there is much to improve. If I must, I would suggest discussing how religious persecution affects other religions in India or possibly how religious discrimination is rooted in historic times as well.
Overall, I loved reading your article and believe that it was quite effective in its entirety to get your point across by using all three points of the persuasion triangle. One final question I have as a final note, do you know if the people that fall victim to persecution know that they have international support and partial awareness to give them a sense of hope?
Sincerely,
Preet 🙂