Hindu Nationalism and Indian Christian Response!

Indian democracy is fast recast as Hindu nationalism which neither honors the country’s constitutional secularity nor upholds its tradition of diversity (religious, cultural, and linguistic), inclusivity, and pluralism. The forged uniformity avowedly seeks to construct the “one” India - one religion (Hindu), one culture (Hindu), and one language (Hindi). Falsely representing a Hinduism under attack from ‘invader’ religions, nationalist ideologues arouse the base emotions of the unsuspecting majoritarian community and stoke their fears against the minorities, particularly Christians. Conscientious challenging of such imposed homogeneity is met with charges of sedition and profiling as anti-national foreign stooge. At this critical juncture, various historical, theological, and contextual factors necessitate Indian Church’s political response through representation in parliament and state legislatures and entering the bureaucracy, not just to counter the systemic spread of the hegemonic ideology but also to safeguard her identity, particularity, rights, and freedom

Caste War and the Indian Church

The violent and persistent caste discrimination in India is nothing short of caste war. As destructive to the lives of those in the lowest caste, the Dalits, as international war, caste discrimination must be mediated through peace-making. Peace-making is a necessary step that Christianity can offer to the realities of caste division in India. Acknowledging that Christianity itself has been wrapped up in colonization and caste distinction, this paper ultimately argues that Christians are still called to be an agent for change in India