Christianity in Gujarat
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Christianity is professed by 0.5% of the population of the state of Gujarat in India.
Quotes[edit]
- In testimony before the NCM, Nayak notes that “Christian missionaries in the area” are converting tribals with means that are “ clearly questionable and even illegal”. ” He asserts, “They have been using a curious mix of blind faith and allurements to entice the innocent tribals into the Christian fold.” ...Nayak notes that converted tribals under the influence of preachers desecrated Hindu idols at least fifteen times in the three years preceding the Dangs violence. Converted tribals have also abused Hindu idols as “devils” and urinated on them. According to Nayak, “The ire against Christians in the area has been rising for past few years and has reached a boil now because of the provocative activities of the Christians, under the influence of their preachers”.
- Ghelubhai Nayak. Testimony before the National Commission For Minorities in Arvin Bahl, published in Gujarat after Godhra: real violence, selective outrage by Ramesh N. Rao, Koenraad Elst, 2003, Har Anand Publications. Republished in Politics By Other Means: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch Reports on India, 12 January 2004, South Asia Analysis Group
- The veteran Gandhians reveal that while the VHP and its affiliates have no worthwhile presence in Dangs, the church has imported as many as five hundred missionaries in recent years to speed up conversions. They charge that “during the last five years, nearly two dozen idols of Lord Shiva and Hanuman, revered by all tribals, have been desecrated or broken. The ancient beliefs of the tribals have been mocked at openly and every effort has been done to browbeat and harass them into submission.” Tribal resentment, they say, has long been simmering, and merely came to a boil on December 25 when Christians began stoning a Hindu Jagran Manch rally... A scrutiny of the concerted response to the Gujarat events is equally enlightening. The nation-wide chorus of condemnation against the VHP, despite contradictory reports by the local press, was a shade too organised. The Congress conducted the orchestra skilfully, playing up Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Dangs by alluding to her alleged reluctance to identify with “her community.”
