The 14 Bhil people imprisoned in India since January 2004 have been acquitted of all charges and released. The accused had been imprisoned for incidents surrounding Hindu attacks on Christian homes. The Supreme Court of India's decision came on May 31st after years of delayed trials, no-show witnesses and judges and difficulty getting bail for the accused. The long-awaited decision was met with joy at the Presbyterian Church's national offices. “It feels great to get this news,” said Ron Wallace, associate secretary for International Ministries. “The dismissal of the charges against the Bhil prisoners and their release from prison are an answer to the prayers of many faithful people, both in Canada and in India.”
Peace in the Bhil region ended on Jan. 16th, when Christian homes were burned and a church was damaged due to civil unrest. While Christians in Amkhut were protecting their church, a young Hindu man was killed. Thirteen members of that church community were arrested. Eight of them, including the pastor and the principal of the local Christian school, were charged with murder.
Relations between Hindus and Christians in the area have historically been peaceful, but the situation in all of India has been deteriorating since 1998. The extremist group RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or National Volunteer Corps) is believed to be the group responsible for the violence toward the Bhil people, and for the escalating unrest between Hindus, Christians and Muslims in the country.
The Presbyterian Church has been working with the Bhil people of Vindhya Satpura for more than 100 years. Canadian Presbyterian Pauline Brown lives in the Bhil region, and Presbyterian World Service & Development supports the Jobat Christian Hospital and other community health initiatives. International Ministries posts updates on its website and keeps close contact with the Church of North India. Various departments within the Presbyterian Church have sent funds to the region to help with legal expenses, to support the prisoners' families and to help re-build a church that was burned down.
Other details about the state of the region and if anyone responsible for the vandalism will be punished are unknown at this point. “There are still tensions fomented by the RSS, but there is peace in the Bhil area at the present time,” Wallace told the Record. “It will probably be some time though before the prisoners and their families are able to pick up the pieces and get back to normal lives.”
Christians form 2.4 per cent of India's population, 82 per cent of which is Hindu and 12 per cent Muslim. A 1999 report by Human Rights Watch notes that attacks against Christians throughout the country have increased significantly since the ruling Bharatiya Janata party assumed power in 1998. The agency said the Hindu organizations mainly responsible for the attacks, which include the killing of priests, rape of nuns and the destruction of Christian institutions, are the RSS, Bajrang Dal (the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and the VHP itself, an off shoot of the RSS. “Its critics call the VHP a hardline Hindu outfit with unmistakably close ties to its parent organization, the extremist RSS, whose objective to 'Hinduise' the Indian nation, it shares,” writes Rajyasri Rao, a BBC correspondent in Delhi.
Rao goes on to explain that “central to the RSS ideology has been the belief that real national unity and progress will come only when India is 'purged' of non-Hindus, or, when members of other communities subordinate themselves 'willingly' to 'Hindu superiority.'” – AM with files from International Ministries
