Christian Persecution in India

It is well known that India is a Hindu dominated nation—with between 80 and 90% of the population Hindu. The two largest minority religions would be Christian and Muslim-about 5% each. What is not well known to people (and Christians) around the world (and virtually never mentioned in the mainline media) is that severe persecution of Christians has broken out across India—persecution which is being stirred up and implemented by Fundamentalist Hindus.

These Fundamentalist Hindus (in many ways similar to the Fundamentalist Muslims, except that they follow many different gods) hate Christians and have vowed to wipe out all Christians and their “religion” from India and to make India 100% Hindu. In recent years, many Christian churches have been burned down, pastors beaten, imprisoned or killed, and Bibles burned.

Much of the persecution was in Northern India for a number of years, but under the government of Prime Minister Narenda Modi (a fundamentalist Hindu who has vowed to wipe out all vestiges of Christianity in India by 2021) the persecution has gone nationwide and is now exploding. (Modi was the leader who launched the disastrous cashless experiment in India in late 2016).

Modi and his government have passed new laws in recent months (which are now being implemented across the country) making it a prisonable crime to convert from Hinduism to Christianity, or to propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ (what Christians would call “witnessing”, “evangelizing”, or sharing their faith in Jesus). Bibles are now being seized and burned across India, churches closed or burned down, and most Christian orphanages are being closed down.

It should be understood that India’s caste system still dominates the country, although many in the upper caste (the Brahmins—the ruling class) would deny that. Most of the children in orphanages (Christian or non-Christian) are from the lowest (poorest) caste—the Dalits or Untouchables. The Hindu leaders do not want to see these children educated or Christianized (although they would deny that to the outside world). The Untouchables (who are considered to be very inferior and only suited for the lowest and most menial of tasks) make up over 200 million Indians (one sixth of the total population) and are indeed the poorest of the poor.

This writer has been involved with Christian orphanages in India for over 15 years and has seen the growing government harassment, persecution, and forced shutdowns of many of these children’s homes in recent years. But now this Hindu government war against these Christian orphanages has gone into high gear—with most of these homes either having been forcibly shut down, or on the verge of being closed by the Modi government.

One such home in southern India (with several hundred children) this writer knows very well is now being threatened with closure. They have been harassed non-stop by several different government agencies—where insiders in those agencies have admitted that when their government agency shuts down a home, the agents get bonuses for their efforts. Government agents regularly descend on the home (usually unannounced), searching for any irregularities they can find, searching for Bibles, and interrogating the children—like a common criminal is interrogated by the police.

Young children are subjected to harsh questioning such as: “Are you a Christian”; “Did they make you convert?”; “Do they make you read the Bible?” “Do they make you pray to their God”? “Are you a follower of Jesus?” and more. Many of these children have become Christians and answer truthfully—although in many cases with great wisdom and caution. The leaders of the home are being threatened with imprisonment for the crime of “converting” these children from Hinduism to Christianity.

In one children’s home we know in neighboring Nepal (also a Fundamentalist Hindu dominated nation whose leaders are very much under the influence of India Prime Minister Modi), the home was invaded by government agents looking for Bibles. They found a Bible, imprisoned the Christian leaders, closed the orphanage and scattered the children to the wind. This is happening all over Hindu dominated India and Nepal today.

And what happens to the children when these homes are closed? Some are placed by the government into Hindu children’s homes, which are the equivalent of a Nazi or Japanese concentration camp—or at best, a prison. Many will become child slaves in factories—locked up and working 16 hours a day, six or 7 days a week. Yes, there are millions of such child slaves in India—in spite of government and upper caste denials of this great evil. Some of the young girls (as young as 10, 11, 12, or 13) are forced to marry older Hindu men. We have seen this over and over.

Many of the girls will be sex trafficked—something that happens to hundreds of thousands of young girls each year in India and Nepal. (The total of young girls who are sex trafficked across Asia is about 2 million per year). Again, the government and upper castes (some of whom actually profit from this evil practice) deny that this even exists in India. But it does!

Some (many) of the children from these closed orphanages will end up as street children—begging for a living, starving on the streets of India cities, or being seized and dismembered by the horrific body parts (organ transplant) trade—an evil multi-billion dollar criminal trade which is much more profitable than drugs or even the lucrative sex trafficking trade.

The home we know in Southern India was invaded recently by government agents who gave the home leaders a list of over a dozen demands—which are virtually all impossible to comply with—and told them if not complied with immediately they will shut down the home and disperse the children—with a strong possibility of the staff being imprisoned. This home is in desperate need of prayer from serious Christians all over the world.

The rapidly growing persecution of Christians in India is similar to the persecution of Christians in Middle Eastern Islamic countries (except not yet as brutal) and in Communist China, where persecution of Christians is again rising sharply. (It is not as bad as North Korea—at least not yet). Jesus said to expect times like this and it is now happening—even if most Christians in the West remain clueless that it is happening.

The children’s home we described above and their staff and children are in imminent danger and desperately need our prayers. Thousands of Christians are already praying for them—but we need millions. They need a strategy for survival, they need people from the government, legal community, and abroad to support or intervene for them. And they need direct divine intervention from the God of the Bible in this battle of good versus evil, of God versus Satan. Will you join us in praying for them, for their survival and deliverance from this great evil. Thank you!

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