News Archive
Battle Won in India
Posted on: 28 May 2009 at 4:00 pm
From Jeanette Windle, BCM World Editor:
Good won a battle this past month in India.
For those who haven’t been keeping close tabs on national elections in the planet’s most populous democracy, that’s understandable. Suffice it say, over seven hundred million citizens qualified to cast a vote made India’s recent elections the largest in human history. Much was at stake. Some would say India’s very claim to be called a democracy.
Battling it out for supremacy were the subcontinent’s two most powerful political parties. The ‘UPA’ or Congress party ran on a platform of a secular, democratic India with guaranteed freedom and protection for religious minorities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)‘s platform’s has been simple, unwavering and distressingly popular. ‘Hindutva’, or a forced return to Hinduism and caste rule.
A decade ago, the BJP dominated India’s federal government. In 2004 the UPA knocked them out of national power. But their control of states like Orissa led to the violence this past year that left hundreds of Orissa Christians dead, upwards of 100,000 burned out of homes, and virtually every Christian institution from churches to schools and orphanages razed to the ground (see Orissa Burning). So concerned Christians inside and outside of Orissa have been watchfully monitoring Indian elections.
And praying.
But even those with great faith and hope were stunned by the May 17th announcement of election results. In parliamentary elections, the UPA won 2-1 over BJP, giving the moderate secular party a sweeping majority. Meanwhile in Orissa itself, not a single BJP candidate won a seat at either state or national level! What is significant is that neither India’s Christian community nor its sizeable Muslim minority combined has a voting bloc large enough to determine the outcome of the elections. BJP’s sweeping defeat was only possible because India’s 80% Hindu majority voted overwhelmingly against ‘Hindutva’ extremism and for a secular state.
So today Christians—and Muslims—are breathing a little easier in India. Which doesn’t mean all concerns for continued violence are gone. Just in the last two weeks, Hindu extremists have attacked Christians within Orissa’s remaining refugee camp. Two days ago in Nepal, a Hindu monarchy declared a democratic republic just last May, a church bombing killed two and injured dozens more. Still, the decision of India’s voters at the ballot box has been a huge step forward for true democracy and freedom for all its 1.2 billion citizens.
Please continue to pray that our BCM missionary family of 43 Pastors and their families in Orissa will be encouraged as they rebuild church buildings, homes and lives effected in past persecutions. Pray for the other 250+ BCM missionaries in 16 of India’s 27 sates as they have opportunity to preach the GOSPEL in a society less governed by those opposed to Christians.
