A new book reportedly talks about what Christians in India suffer for their Faith and is said to be a timely publication with "India's rapid decline in religious freedom."
The book "Anti-Christian Violence In India" by Butler University Religion Professor Chad Bauman, as per International Christian Concern (ICC), highlights the history of India's predominantly Hindu country that has seen the increase in Christian persecution since 2014.
Published by Cornell University Press, the book's description says that it presents how religion causes conflict and gives particular emphasis to Christian-Hindu relations in India that focuses on the Kandhamal, Odisha riots that took place in 2007-2008.
Bauman "examines religious violence and how it pertains to broader aspects of humanity" by integrating anti-Christian violence theories in economics, globalization, politics, and proselytization. He points out that "resistance to secular modernities" is "an important but often overlooked reason behind Hindu attacks on Christians."
The ICC reported that the increase of persecution on Christians began in 2014 when Prime Minister Modi was elected. The "anti-Christian and anti-Muslim rhetoric" of Modi encouraged the persecution and expansion of anti-forced conversion laws in India.
In addition, the ICC revealed that India's rapid decline in religious freedom was so alarming that it was recommended by the United States Commission on International Freedom that India be designated as a Country of Particular Concern by the Department of State. However, former President Donald Trump's Administration did not carry out India's designation.
"Religious freedom conditions in India are taking a drastic turn downward, with national and various state governments tolerating widespread harassment and violence against religious minorities," the United States Commission International Religious Freedom website said on India.
"The BJP-led government enacted the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which provides a fast track to Indian citizenship only for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan already residing in India," it added. "This potentially exposes millions of Muslims to detention, deportation and statelessness when the government completes its planned nationwide National Register of Citizens."
The United States Commission International Religious Freedom said that under President Joe Biden's Administration it continues to prioritize countries when it comes to religious freedom in its effort to formulate broader human rights policy and condemns, as well as prevents, freedom violations around the globe.
Although the constitution of India ensures religious freedom is given to all, said ICC, the actual practice of it in the country shows otherwise as widespread anti-religious minority measures are implemented across its states such as those that enforce anti-conversion laws.
The ICC explains that there is such a thing as the Hinduva ideology, as mentioned in Bauman's book, whose primary aim is to strip India of all other religions except that of Hindu. This rhetoric, the ICC emphasized has "continually vilified religious minorities as others" making them unwelcome in India as pushed by several of its BJP leaders or lawmakers.
In a September 2020 blog posted at the Cornell University Press website and promoted in the University's Twitter account, Bauman said that there have been "roughly 200-300 incidents of anti-Christian violence in India annually" over the last decade, which he called "certainly troubling" in a country that has 1.2 billion in population.
Bauman is also the author of two other books on India: "Christian Identity and Dalit Religion In Hindu India, 1868-1947" published by Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co. and "Pentecostals, Proselytization, and Anti-Christian Violence In Contemporary India (Global Pentecostalism and Charismatic Christianity)" published by Oxford University Press.
