Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

I was drafting an article for Mercator about the most dangerous place to be a Christian today. My pick was going to be North Korea. The Kim dynasty’s Hermit Kingdom has dealt with its Christian problem in a very straightforward way – it eliminated them. Pyongyang was once known as the “Jerusalem of the Orient” because there were so many Christians. Nowadays, there are none, apart from a few braindead puppets who boast that North Korea has exemplary freedom of religion.

And then an Indian Muslim friend put me straight.

At this very moment, the most dangerous place for Christians is probably the villages of Bishrampur, Ganeshpur, and Jhanakpur in the land-locked state of Chhattisgarh in central India. For years, Chhattisgarh has been a flash point for persecution of minority religions, especially of Christians.

The terrors faced by Christians include violence, forced conversions, and social ostracism. In November last year, a mob attacked 14 Christians in Chhattisgarh while police watched. In December, Christians in eight villages were banned from their communities after defying orders to abandon their faith. Christians have been forbidden to bury their loved ones in local cemeteries.

However, these are minor disturbances compared to blood-curdling genocidal threats by radical Hindu extremists.

Rape and Murder

On 8 January, a social media star in the Hindu extremist galaxy, Aadesh Soni, told a Hindu “parliament” that he wanted to attack these three villages on 1 March – next Saturday!

In a rant which can only be described as demonic, he declared that his followers ought to “kill all Christians, play with the honour of their daughter and daughters-in-law, to do obscene acts with them, to forcibly enter Christian homes and not to spare anyone but corrupt them all.”

“I have got the support of the administration, this is enough for me,” he claimed.

Another extremist, Shankaracharya Shri Avimukteshwaranad, also declared that Hindus need to kill all Christians. At the same event, he called for 1,000 Hindus to come out and “slay those who slay our mother cow. Do not ask for the death penalty of cow slayers. Kill them and ask for the death penalty for yourselves. Do not wait for the law to act.”

This sounds so demented that a Western reader would assume that it must be fake news. And, in fact, it may be just bluster, the bellowing of a papier-mâché Shiva the Destroyer. But the poor Christians of Bishrampur, Ganeshpur, and Jhanakpur must be terrified. India has an appalling history of sectarian violence, and threats must be taken seriously. In 1999, “cow defenders” burned alive an Australian evangelical missionary, Graham Staines, and his two sons, aged 6 and 10.

The extremists are enraged that Christians have allegedly been eating beef and seeking converts.

A group called the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum has released a video with a transcript of Soni’s speech in Hindi and English. It is hate speech at its most appalling:

Wherever you see Christian people, enter their houses and kill everyone. No one should be able to escape. These Christians have slaughtered cow which we hold as our mother. Now in the same way we will slaughter their mothers and children.

Cow protection is our holy duty. The most revered Jagadguru Shankaracharya Shri Avimukteshwaranand Ji Maharaj has said that we will kill those people and ask for death penalty for ourselves. The cooperation of all of you is necessary. At least 50,000 people will be required, only then our plan will succeed. Anything can happen. We have to take their lives, but we should also have to be prepared to give our lives. I will try to ensure that we get protection from the police administration.

Aadesh Soni may turn out to be all mouth and no trousers when it comes to carrying out his threats. There could be consequences for him – the ringleader of the mob which murdered Graham Staines was jailed for life.

Government Complicity

But up to now, no one in the state or national government has lifted a finger to stop him. On the contrary, the police have threatened to arrest the speaker featured in the video made by the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, Dr Arun Pannalal.

Appeals to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to end the violence seem to have fallen on deaf ears:

INDIA🇮🇳: The world renowned Christian social reformer @Mangalwadi_V has released the following open letter to India’s Prime Minister, Narenda Modi (@narendramodi).

Re: Massacre of Christians Planned for March 1, 2025

Honourable Sri Narendra Modi
Prime Minister, Government of… pic.twitter.com/6KbppV44U6

— Christian Solidarity International (CSI) (@CSI_humanrights) February 19, 2025

Since Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in 2014, there has been a notable increase in reports of violence and discrimination against religious minorities, including Christians. Hindu extremists have become emboldened.

Nearly 400 Christian leaders and 30 church groups wrote a letter to Modi in December calling for urgent action to protect Christians. According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India, there had been more than 720 incidents targeting them up to mid-December.

“It pains my heart when there are attempts to spread violence and cause disruption in society. It is essential that we come together to fight such challenges,” Modi told Christians just before Christmas.

But these fine words may not mean that he will protect Christians against mob violence. John Dayal, an outspoken Indian Catholic journalist, pointed out that:

“After expressing his ‘pain’ over incidents of violence, Modi did not mention a single incident from daily two cases of targeted hate violence in 2024 in the country. Instead, he cited the bloody Christmas market attack in Germany as an example. This is duplicity and this is what encourages the belligerent Hindu fundamentalists.”

Prime Minister Modi visited President Donald Trump earlier this month. “The friendship between the United States and India is the strongest I believe it’s ever been,” Trump declared at their joint press conference. At least in public, the American president did not discuss religious persecution and minority rights with his Indian counterpart.

He should have done so. In its 2024 Annual Report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that India be designated a “Country of Particular Concern,” for engaging in “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom”.

It can’t help that Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is a Hindu with strong links to the BJP.

If there is a genocide on Saturday, the leaders of both nations will have blood on their hands.

___

Republished with thanks to Mercator.
Image: Aadesh Soni addressing the Hindu “parliament” at Prayagraj in January.