In India's elections, 970 million are eligible to vote, including 22.31 million Christians. Despite their numbers, Christians remain nearly invisible in electoral discussions, overshadowed by prevailing xenophobic narratives and policies under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration. With two of seven rounds of the great Indian elections over, it is a very long wait for the results on June 4, when the world will know if an election campaign based on xenophobic hate can still sway the people of an India preparing to land a man on the moon next year. But perhaps no one will be as anxious about the results as India’s estimated 200 million Muslims and 30 million Christians. The numbers remain an approximation, extrapolated from the 2011 census. The 2021 census was not held in the wake of the Covid pandemic. It is not known when the census will now be held. For the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, approximately 970 million people out of a population of 1.4 billion people are eligible to cast their vote.  Among them would be about 22.31 million Christian voters. This is seemingly a large number, but Christians are all but invisible in the election debate. Both communities, however, have borne the brunt of laws and programs

The Indian church, Catholic or Protestant, does not usually find it easy to discern which way the political wind is blowing. It is even much less adept at sensing the undercurrents. A “safety first” impulse makes Catholic prelates in Kerala and Mumbai sing high praises of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and get into his good graces. This was seen at its most embarrassing at Modi’s infamous Christmas party in New Delhi last year. It was attended by people ranging from Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai to the wealthiest gold merchants and loan sharks from Kerala. This they do, it is popularly believed, to save their educational and other institutions from the greed and the wrath of government which sees Christianity as alien, and Christians just a little less vile than Muslims, which the ruling party deems to be vermin, “deemak” or termites as Federal Home Minister Amit Shah described them once. Occasionally, as in the headquarters of a Kerala-based church, it also keeps India’s terrifyingly powerful financial and criminal investigating agencies away from the abbey door. Evangelical groups such as the Believers Eastern Church, created by the US-based Gospel for Asia’s India-born founder K P Yohannan, have gone so far out as to officially

I have just returned from a week-long visit to New Zealand and was pleasantly delighted to learn that 48.2% of the population does not identify with any religion (irreligion) or any sub-divisions that arise to divide the population into classes of hierarchy. Australia, the second nation I just visited, is characterized by a primarily Christian populace, though 38.9% of the population does not affiliate with any one religion. While China reports that 25.2% of its people do not adhere to any religious beliefs, Russia asserts that 24% of its extensive population does not affiliate with any particular religion. India, however, presents a colorful picture of its affiliations. 99.79% of the population identifies with the world’s largest religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, and others. India is a diverse country with over 4,635 ethnic groupings, where Hinduism is the major religion followed by nearly 80% of the people. Nevertheless, Hinduism is not a homogeneous entity; it is fragmented into intricate hierarchies of subgroups and subcategories based on caste. The intricate caste (Varna) system in India has its roots in the Hindu scriptures, which categorized Hinduism into four main castes: Brahmins (priests), Vaishyas (merchants), Kshatriyas (warriors), and Shudras (laborers), with the occasional inclusion

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Hitler’s propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, reportedly said. (In reality, he insisted, “Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie.”)The U.S. State Department’s latest Human Rights Report on India is the epitome of good propaganda. It is so good, in fact, that were Goebbels among us today, he would praise it as “gaslighting.”Meanwhile, its timing would put a metronome to shame: The report has been released to coincide with India’s elections, which began April 19 and will roll out in waves across the subcontinent until June 1. Reuters published a story on the State Department on April 23, as nearly a billion Indians headed to the polls. Biden’s Gift to Modi The report is Joe Biden’s gift to India Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who, shamelessly supported by India’s lapdog media, is poised to win a third term in power in what analysts have described as “the most predictable polls India has held in decades.” Christians (and Muslims) have already suffered the worst persecution in recent history under Modi, an activist in India’s extremist para-military Hindu outfit: the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose Hitler-inspired ideology asserts that India belongs to Hindus

When he began his legal career in Bombay in 1895, Mohammad Ali Jinnah became the youngest British Indian ever called to the bar after completing his examinations at Lincoln's Inn, one of the most prestigious legal institutions the world has to offer. At only 19, Jinnah was already exceptional among his peers for his eloquent and articulate legal advocacy, traits that would define his career and later his pivotal role in the formation of Pakistan. Renowned for his sharp legal mind and powerful oratory, Jinnah was recognised even then as one of colonial India's most formidable lawyers. Judges feared him; his peers wanted to be him. His vision for a secure state for India's Muslims, where he foresaw significant challenges for those opposing the idea of Pakistan, underscored his early recognition of the complex interplay of loyalty and identity in the subcontinent—predicting those against a separate Muslim state would perpetually strive to prove their allegiance to an independent India. Jinnah's career was characterised by his vigorous debates with prominent figures, including the Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, who would later be assassinated by the IRA. He strongly advocated for renaming India to 'Hindustan', a move he believed would reflect the true cultural

It is the biggest show on earth. Ever. The 2024 General Elections, which is the 18th since the Indian Republic was declared, throw up mind-boggling statistics. For the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of the Parliament, approximately 970 million people out of a population of 1.4 billion people are eligible to cast their vote, including 18 million who reached 18 years of age this year. In 12 states, there are more women voters than men. Among the registered voters are over 48,000 transgenders, identified for the first time in such an exercise. The mechanics put in place by the Election Commission of India are equally gigantic: 1.05 million polling stations, manned by 15 million personnel to supervise the polling. The votes are recorded on electronic voting machines (EVMs), which remain a source of much controversy but have been deemed legal by the Supreme Court. The results will be declared on June 4. Christians are approximately 2.3% of the population, and by simple arithmetic, they total about 22.31 million voters. A seemingly large number, the Christian voters, but their presence will remain essentially unfelt for all the impact they make on the results, or on the representation of their

Just days before Kerala votes on April 26 in the general elections, the influential Latin Church has said its bank accounts were frozen by the central government after its 2022 protests against Adani Group's Vizhinjam International Seaport, and the account freeze is still hurting it. Vizhinjam, a coastal hamlet in the state capital, had witnessed strong protests against the seaport, which also resulted in violence in November 2022. In a pastoral letter read during Sunday Mass, the Latin church said it was facing a funds crunch due to the freezing of its bank accounts by the authorities. "We are unable to receive funds even for our missionary purposes because, after the Vizhinjam protests, the authorities have frozen our bank accounts. That situation continues even now," the letter, which was read across all the Latin churches, said. The issue of the account freeze was mentioned in the letter seeking financial assistance from believers, for the various expenses of the church. -- PTI This article is originally published on https://news.rediff.com/commentary/2024/apr/22/bank-account-frozen-after-stir-against-adani-kerala-church/240493d7014d34337839bc35183516c1

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The two political parties, the CPM and BJP, in power in Kerala and at the Centre are caught in a political slugfest after the former criticised a section of Christian Church heads, even naming a few of them, for their allegiance towards the latter. In a recent editorial in the CPM’s publication,  ‘People’s Democracy’, the party accused some church leaders of compromising their stance under the relentless pressure of the BJP government. The editorial mentioned Archbishop Joseph Pamplany of the Thalassery Archdiocese, and even Cardinal George Alencherry, whose petition in the Supreme Court to quash criminal cases against him was rejected, came out in an interview stating that Modi was “a good leader” and that Christians were not insecure under BJP rule. According to the CPM, the BJP has adopted a two-pronged approach to influence the Christian community in Kerala. Firstly, it has sought to fan anti-Muslim sentiments amongst the Catholic community, particularly the Syro-Malabar Church. Secondly, the Modi government is allegedly using intimidation tactics to subdue anyone who does not fall in line with the BJP-RSS politics. The Enforcement Directorate has initiated investigations against various church leaders, including Bishop Dharma Raj, the moderator of the Church of South  India, and religious leaders

India goes to the polls this week (April 19) to elect a new government amid growing concerns about the rising persecution of Christians. Release International says a top priority must be to repeal the divisive anti-conversion laws, which are leading to an increase in violence and arrests. Intolerance is growing towards other faiths as Hindu nationalism gains ground. Latest figures show an alarming rise in attacks against Christians and churches. Violence up 45% Two new reports record a dramatic increase in acts of violence against Christians. The Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) recorded a record 601 cases of persecution against Christians in India in 2023. That’s a 45 per cent increase. And the United Christian Forum say the violence has continued into the first quarter of 2024. Their latest report documents more than 160 attacks to the middle of March.India’s six week-long elections run from April 19 through to early June. Almost a billion people are due to vote to determine the future of the world’s largest democracy. UK-based Release International, which supports the persecuted Church worldwide, warns that unless India’s government takes action to calm the violence and overturn the culture of hostility, further bloodshed will result. ‘We have

More than 15 years after Nepal officially became a secular democracy, the former Hindu monarchy may have a religious extremism problem, incited and aggravated by its closest neighbor. In an “alarming” development, Indian Hindutva ideology and politics have begun to spread throughout the country, as local experts and journalists report. This proliferation has resulted in a recent spate of attacks and restrictions on Christians reported within the country of 30 million. According to local sources, at least five separate incidents targeting Christians have been reported in March and April of this year. “The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) in Nepal is rapidly growing. Aiming to protect Hinduism, they degrade Christianity and badmouth us through social media and other sources,” said Kiran Thapa, who was arrested last month for praying for people in Kathmandu. In March, Thapa and several foreigners, all Christians, were visiting the Pashupatinath Temple, a religious World Heritage Site deeply venerated by local Hindus. When they entered the temple, they came across an elderly couple who were suffering with pain in their knees and back. The group offered to pray for them with the couple’s consent, and they subsequently reported that they were healed. More people then requested prayers from the group and reported