Hindu vigilantes carry out wave of anti-Christian violence in India

Over two decades of practicing and proselytizing Christianity, Badinath Salam had been kicked out of his home several times and often harassed. But in December, he recalled, the vitriol turned virulent.

Leaders in his Indigenous Indian village beat drums to summon all 100 households to a clearing, he said. There, gathered villagers pummeled their Christian neighbors, who made up one-fifth of their village, and left Salam hospitalized for three days.

When the drumbeats began again a week later, on Jan. 9, Salam ran for his life. In this part of central India, he wasn't the only Christian forced to flee.

Since December, Hindu vigilantes in Chhattisgarh state in eastern India, enraged by the spread of Christianity and rallied by local political leaders, have assaulted and displaced hundreds of Christian converts in dozens of villages and left a trail of damaged churches, according to interviews with local Christians and activists and as seen during a recent trip to the area.

That visit to the remote region - a day's drive from the nearest airport - revealed the extent of the chaos and its uneasy aftermath. In villages, bruised and beaten Christian converts picked through the rubble of churches destroyed by mobs wielding sledgehammers. In dusty townships, Hindu nationalist leaders led impassioned rallies promising more action against Christian conversions.

In an empty government gym of the dusty township of Narayanpur, evicted families including Salam's sought refuge, sleeping on mats next to a few sacks of spare clothes and grain.

Salam's wife, Sonari, became the first Christian convert in their village of Remavandh 20 years ago. She was left with an infant orphan, the daughter of her dead sister, and handed her out of desperation to an Indian Christian couple in Narayanpur. The couple took the child in, Sonari recalled, and invited her to their house church.

Within three years, "everyone in the village saw how they took care of her, and they became inspired," Sonari Salam said. "One after another, they started to come."

Before long, Sonari's husband, Badinath, began proselytizing himself. During times when traveling preachers did not stop in Remavandh, he would lead sermons about the miracles of Jesus and the promise of eternal life. As his small congregation grew, to about 10 households, Badinath Salam said, so did his neighbors' resentment rise.

Still, tensions never boiled over, he said, until 2018, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - the Hindu nationalist party that controls India's central government but lags politically in Chhattisgarh - lost power in the state to the Indian National Congress party.

"Once they started losing, the troubles started," Salam said.

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