people to Christianity by threatening them with force, BosNewsLife learned Friday, January 6.
Ashok Singhal, who leads the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or ‘World Hindu Council’ said local people "were being terrorized into conversion by different Christian missionaries," using Naxalites, a loose term used to define groups waging a violent struggle.
Naxalites include revolutionary Communist groups claiming to fight on behalf of landless laborers and tribal people against landlords and others to create a classless society. Speaking at the beginning of a three-day VHP meeting in the area of Jamdoli near Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state, claimed that "all those who dared to obstruct them were told that they would be gunned down by Naxalites."
GANDHI CRITICIZED
He said ruling Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was also influenced by ‘Christian forces’. Singhal stressed there were only "political motives" behind a recent decision to nominate her for the Nobel Peace Price.
The comments by the VHP leader were believed to add to fear within the Christian community of more Hindu violence. Several missionaries and other church leaders have been killed in recent years.
Evangelical Christians and other church groups have denied involvement in forced conversions, saying that anyone is free to make a personal decision for Christ.
SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
VHP and other organizations have expressed concern about what they see as the spread of Christianity in India, the world’s largest Hindu nation of nearly 1.1 million people. However the VHP claimed that in 2005 "733 persons of 161 families" in the western part of Orissa state "re-converted to Hinduism this year."
2006 began with the reconversion of at least 16 Christians Sunday, January 1, back to Hinduism in a ceremony in Orissa’s Sundergarh district, said VHP official Subash Chouhan in comments obtained by the BosNewsLife Orissa Bureau.
People from four families, including men, women and children, formally announced their return to Hinduism on at the religious function at Tainda village, about 150 kilometers (about 94 miles) from the district headquarters of Sundergarh, Chouhan claimed.
