In this age when ‘Two civilizations are currently clashing’, the west and Islam,  the entire media is abuzz about the “ills of Islam”, which we do not deny exists.  Islamic persecution upon Christians and other minorities is well documented throughout history. However, it is not just militant Muslims that call for persecution, Hinduism has been persecuting its low caste people for centuries resulting in the deaths of millions of untold poor.

Christ’s own disciple Thomas the Apostle, the first to call him “My Lord and My God” after His resurrection , was murdered in Ad 74 at modern day Madras, South eastern India by a Hindu mob.

Muslims constantly taunt Christians, especially those in the middle east such as the Coptics and Maronites, “Where did Jesus say He is Lord?”, well, Jesus Christ clearly accepted Thomas the Apostle’s words as “My Lord and my God”, a clear confession of the divinity of Jesus Christ that He himself did not reject. This very Thomas was killed by Hindus.

We are persecuted by Hindus. It is a fact and a way of life for many of us who live among the Pagans of India. There is a culture of apathy, and a culture of indifference to human beings in this nation. With justice that never takes place, and an environment thriving with discrimination that clearly is a paradox to it’s paper constitution of equality, we former Hindus can testify to you and to the world, and to the Christians of the middle east, Hinduism was never tolerant. It’s texts and it’s holy books have promoted hate, promoted casteism, promoted bigotry and promoted oppression of women and outsiders contrary to what the world wants you to believe.

Hindus do not base their values upon Abraham as Christians do, or to some extent Muslims do. Abrahamic values do not exist in this land. The brute force of the ancient hindu gods, and each man to himself and his karma exists here.

While the Christian West  confronts Islam, while calling Hindus their ally against Muslims, who is our ally against Hinduism’s naked brutality ? Can we ask the  Middle Eastern Christians the Coptics of Egypt and the Maronites of Lebanon to pray for us Hindu converts to Christianity ?

For our persecutors do not even value the lives of their own, let alone us.

Coptic Christians of Egypt have undergone persecution at the hands of the Islamic majority for over 1,500 years. Even today they are heavily discriminated against in Egypt, and denied many civil rights by the state not to mention the ongoing persecution and ridicule for their ancient Christian heritage. While India is not a Islamic nation, it definitely is a Hindu nation, a Pagan nation and one of the last remaining Pagan nations on earth with nearly a billion Hindus. While the Government is secular by paper and corrupt by its spirit, it is filled with those who harbor bias and bitterness towards Christianity. The Christian converts from Hinduism, most of us disowned, attacked, humiliated and oppressed join hands together to ask the living God to set the Coptics of Egypt free from oppression. To our Coptic brothers and sisters, when you get time, please remember us in your prayers, us, who are severely oppressed by Pagans and discriminated at in many aspects of our personal and professional lives in India. Remember our converts, many of them abused and disowned by their families, that your God who is our God, the one true Lord of Israel in Jesus Christ would grant us the patience, the strength that your Coptic people have had for centuries. Persecution has no religion, because all religions outside Christ are all works of darkness, masquerading as light.

Compared to Hinduism, Islam has done much good for the world in general, carrying with it the Abrahamic values and the teachings of all the major prophets of Judaism and Christianity. Muslims also honor our Lord Jesus Christ as a revered prophet. Such an accord! Jesus Himself was addressed by certain people as a “Mighty prophet in word and deed”. While the central disagreement between Islam and Christianity is over the divinity of Jesus Christ, He definitely holds a major position in Islam.

Contrast that with Hinduism, that worships 33 million gods and goddesses of sexual nature, animal instincts, magic, witchcraft and other pre-historic darkness, it has no reverence for Jesus or Abraham, it has no recognition whatsoever about the one true God.

Truly, by making Muslims and Christians fight each other the only one to gain would be Hinduism. Perhaps it is the Devil’s ultimate goal to destroy Abrahamic values from the face of this earth and bring back the idols into the vaccum?

Islam and Christianity and Judaism have all played a major role in spreading the knowledge of the one true God throughout the whole earth, while His attributes may be disagreed upon by the 3 religions,  they all refer to the Lord God that Abraham worshiped and all the prophets came in His name, God has spread His knowledge throughout the whole earth through these 3 religions, as per the prophecy  in the bible

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. [Isaiah 11:9]

We pray for our Muslim brothers and sisters, and we call upon them to join us in eventually defeating the ancient gods that have held our ancestors captive and tried to harm the prophets long ago.  We are one family in Abraham.

And we christians, confess Jesus Christ as the only Lord and the Son of the one true God.

Hinduism also talks about tolerance, yet has the age old practice of honor killings, when someone of a particular caste of Hinduism decides to marry another caste that too within the same religion or even ethnicity!

Should we remain tolerant towards this in-tolerant religion ? Perhaps it is time for an introspection.

Often the greatest annoyance comes from established christian communities within India who are comfortable in their own “bubble” of seclusion who continue to undermine Christian converts from Hinduism who pay the price with blood and excommunication. We therefore are our own unique community, and we support our own selves in Christ.

If the Nation and its cultures consider itself to be free and civilized, then do not fear what is being broadcast from here, we broadcast the feelings, lives, triumphs and victories of those faceless and silent people among the crowd, that gave their lives for Jesus Christ, Two thousand years, after the Martyrdom of Thomas the apostle, on Republic of India’s national territory. This is their story.

Over the last few months and years, credible and well documented reports have come out of India regarding the persecution of Christian believers at the hands of Hindu fundamentalists. India is known to be a democratic nation with freedom of religion enshrined in its constitution.

However, wether this constitution is put to reality or practiced by the general majority is entirely another question. The Nation’s documented Christian minority population numbers around 30 Million approximately that constitutes roughly 2% of the entire population of 1.1 Billion.

A lot of publicity has been given to the recent 2008 violence in orissa and other states against the Christian community and clergy. Lot of people has been killed and a number of lower caste Hindu to Christian converts have been targeted.

Many countries in the world are now aware of what is going on thanks to global communications and mass media that brings this news to the full awareness of everyone.

Everyone is standing up in defense of these Christians, and showering support and prayer on them and taking the needed steps to protect them as well. The work is commendable. But beneath all this reporting, there is another silent persecution taking place that many may not be aware of, and it has been going in India for a long time.

Bringing to the world here is the  plight and suffering of upper caste Hindu to Christian converts who are usually children born to upper caste and educated Hindu parents. There are countless such children who get dreams from Jesus Christ, or read the bible and convert on their own. Often many of these children are brutally ill treated in their homes, using physical and mental torture that would other wise be punishable as serious offenses in western countries.

The culture in India is “Parents are always right, obey your parents”, thus denying any sort of support or sympathy to these children and minors. Many of those who were born as Christians to Christian parents, would never understand or ever be able to fathom the suffering these children under go.

There are cases where many upper caste converts have been silenced, brutalized in the confines of their rooms, taken to psychiatrists and mental hospitals, locked up just because they are able to pray in tongues, and lot of other torture is done to them.

To whom do these upper caste converts turn to? Their plight has often been met with indifference from the Christian community who follow the Indian culture of “parent is god”.

Many upper caste children or teenagers who had converted later are driven to either suicide or even killed and made to look like an accident by relatives who fear that their conversion to Christianity can shame the entire family, rather to have them dead than to have this public. Such things are going on in India, believe it or not, and it is wide spread, in their thousands.

What can the Christian community  do for such upper caste converts? What sort of support can they give them?  When the so called culture itself is against them in every way.

This culture of denial by the Christians of India to the upper caste Hindu to Christian converts is more deadly than the Hindu persecution they endure in their homes and rooms at hands of crazed relatives. The trauma, the silent shattering of unwelcome persecution they endure, the broken steps that they take every day walking through their uncaring society is often unseen.

If it were a western nation, these children and converts could escape and seek protection from authorities, where the cases of parents abusing and killing their children are well documented, and authorities would step in and protect the children.

What about India? Where even the Indian Christian community would say “no, parents don’t do such things”. This blind following of the Indian culture has itself victimized these converts further.

People say “Such things do not happen”. Yes they do, and the killings are escalating and kept hidden. The survivors lead their lives full of scars and mistrust at the Christian community, often leading isolated lives for the remainder of their years, avoiding their own brethren in faith from their own lands, keeping their gifts and talents that the Lord Jesus may have given them, that otherwise would have enriched the already minuscule Indian Christian community.

In fact more upper caste Hindus to Christian converts (cryptic Christians) are undergoing torture in every aspect of their lives, at their  schools, universities,  workplaces and homes. It just takes place in the urban cities instead of the jungles or remote areas that is otherwise featured in the news.

Christians are free  to investigate some of the mental hospitals in some of the major cities in India, where some of the patients are actually upper caste converts confined to mental hospitals and given electric shocks or surgeries to silence them.

Many of the upper caste converts to Christianity are silent often because they don’t want to shame their families, by doing so; they won’t get any support from Christians because the “culture” says so.

A culture of death, silence and indifference that India so proudly promotes as sacred, is a culture that has set itself against God himself. For cultures are made by men, but faith comes from the very Spirit of the everlasting Christ. Cultures are of the world, faith and conversion comes from another world.

Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: [Galatians 1:4]