Those who came to attack Christians here early last week set their trap well, residents say.
First, they built makeshift barricades of trees and small boulders along the roads leading into this village, apparently to stop the police from intervening.
Then, villagers say, the attackers went on a rampage. Chanting “Kill these pigs” and “All Hindus are brothers,” the mob began breaking into homes that displayed posters of Jesus, stealing valuables and eventually burning the buildings. When they found residents who had not fled to the nearby jungle, they beat them with sticks or maimed them with axes and left them to die.
A local official said three people died as a result of the attack on Aug. 25. The carefully placed roadblocks accomplished their purpose; residents say a full day passed before help arrived.
One villager, Asha Lata Nayak, said, “I saw the mob carrying sticks, axes, swords, knives and small guns. They first demolished the village church and later Christian houses. Nobody came forward to help us.”
And as usual, the liberal media in the states will ignore this atrocity-after all, it was only those intolerant, hateful, homophobic Christians that were brutalized. Good for ’em. Of course, if someone even sneezes hard next to a homosexual, its front page news. Hate crime! Hate crime!
India is utterly chaotic on so many levels. Here we see the usual low/no caste vs. higher caste divide. A great deal of violence is between the lowest groups and the ones just barely above them on the social scale, with the slightly higher group most often the initiators of the trouble. What the Times passes over quickly is the almost universal feeling among Indians that “the government” is responsible for fixing all problems. This leads to a sense of entitlement and profound rage when someone appears to be doing a little better. If all the dalits convert to Buddhism or Christianity and there is nobody to do life’s dirty work, who will be left with it? The next group up, that’s who.
Can someone please explain how it’s O.K. for a Hindu to slaughter a Christian, but they can’t harm a cow? This does not seem to make any sense. Is it O.K. for Hindus to kill other Hindus?
#3 Daniel, no, it’s not really okay. However, Hinduism is a huge collection of ancient traditions, with many side branches. It is not a systematic ethical construction. Pre-Islamic India, for instance, was filled with Hindu-on-Hindu wars. But you’re right, the habits of burning widows, which used to happen sometimes and still does occasionally, and the habit of killing brides for low dowry, which is still a problem, contradict “non-killing.” There is a great deal of ignorance among the lower castes, and they are easily incited to riot.