Narrating violence: Is Hindutva responsible for violence against India's Christians?

29 September 2020

Episodes of physical violence against Christians in India have risen noticeably while the country has been in lockdown — due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A report released in mid-July by the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) suggested that there were 135 cases of attacks against Christians, and their property until June this year. Similarly, another report from Persecution Relief noted that there were 293 cases of anti-Christian hate crimes in their half-yearly report, compared to 208 incidents last year during this time.

The period also marks the anniversary of the 2008 violence in Kandhamal, Orissa - the worst spell of anti-Christian violence seen in India in recent memory. During this period, Christians were subjected to and experienced significant harm. Between 75 and 123 people were killed, and 18,000 or more were injured. The violence which largely impacted Christian tribal and Adivasis also saw the displacement of between 25,000 and 40,000 people. This proved the low point in the long saga of violence Christians have experienced in the region. Starting on Christmas Day 2007 it continued for several days, leading to the destruction of many churches and homes. While violence subsided after just a few days communal tensions in the area remained high until the 2008 outbreak.

Though most scholarship on communal violence in India focuses on Hindu-Muslim contentions, it is essential to note that Christians in India, who constitute 2.3 per cent of the population (according to the 2011 Census), have, and continue to be, targets of violence. Academics and activists share the consensus that violence against Christians in India is primarily caused by those who subscribe to the Hindutva ideology.

The Hindutva understanding of Christianity

How are Christians presented in the Hindutva ideology? Despite contributing ideas dating back to the 1880s, the term Hindutva was first coined by V.D. Sarvarkar in his 1923 publication Hindutva: The Essentials of Hinduism which aimed to provide a conception of the Nation as a land of Hindus.

Here, Sarvarkar identifies Hindus as a people with a shared territory (Rashtra), culture (Sanskriti) and race (Jati). The common land, he suggests, runs from the Indus river to the seas which surround India. This area is considered to be the 'Fatherland' (Pitrbhoomi). The common race descends from the Vedic Saptasindhus. By common culture, he identifies shared values, festivals, literature and arts, rites and rituals, and law and jurisprudence. Given this common culture, Sarvarkar suggests that this land must also be considered the 'Holyland' (Punyabhoomi).

By these criteria, Sarvarkar includes Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs and Jains as having Hindutva. On the other hand, Sarvarkar's conception implies that Christians and Muslims are 'foreigners' or 'outsiders' even though they live in India. He states that despite sharing a common Fatherland (Pitrabhoomi), their allegiances lie elsewhere because they consider Arabia and Palestine, respectively, as their Holyland (Punyabhoomi).

In reference to Christians and Muslims, Sarvarkar has written the following:

‘their mythology and Godmen, ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently, their names and their outlook smack of a foreign origin. Their love is divided. Nay, if some of them be believing what they profess to do, then there can be no choice — they must set their Holyland above their Fatherland in their love and allegiance’

Later, M.S. Golwalkar, the second and longest-serving Sarsanghchalak (Supreme Leader) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), added two more conditions in his conception of the Nation. In We or Our Nationhood Defined, Golwalkar lists country, race, religion, culture and language as the ‘necessary and indispensable ingredients’ of the Nation. All five are necessary to create a ‘homogenous whole’, and without any of the five, the Nation will become extinct. Golwalkar, too, notes the foreign-ness of Muslims and Christians within his conception.

Golwalkar goes a step further than Sarvarkar by vilifying Christians and Muslims, and in 1939 wrote:

‘…only those movements are true 'National' that aims at re-building, re-vitalising and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Nation. Those only are nationalist patriots, who, with the aspiration to glorify the Hindu race and Nation next to their heart, are prompted into activity and strive to achieve that goal. All others are either traitors and enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots’

As such, these ‘idiots’ only deserve a diminished existence while residing within the Nation living merely as:

‘outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving of no special protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses open to the foreign elements (Christians and Muslims), either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities' problem’

The anti-national activities which Golwalkar suggests Christians perform, relate, primarily to missionary activities which are often broadly referred to as ‘conversions’ and which continue to serve as the Hindutva war-cry against Christians in India. This war-cry has been used to justify both physical and structural violence. It was most recently on display when Manohar Lal Khattar, Haryana's chief minister from the BJP, considering an anti-conversion law (ironically called Freedom of Religion Bills) for the state said:

‘While one has the right to adopt any religion, conversion by force, inducement, etc, are not tolerable. The Right to Freedom of Religion Bill will be brought in, in which there will be provisions against conversion by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, inducement, marriage, or any fraudulent means’

The accompanying audio piece, based on original research and interviews, tells the story of the 2008 Kandhamal violence — from the victims' perspective. It shows how the Hindutva ideology has previously and continues to justify violence against Christians in India.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

M. Sudhir Selvaraj is a PhD candidate at the King’s India Institute, King’s College London. Image credit: Al Jazeera English/Flickr.

Faultlines9DLSeptember 29, 2020India, Modi, BJP, Hindutva