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Hindus Allege Forced Conversions
AP, 10.16/99 |
c The Associated Press
By ASHOK SHARMA
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - A Hindu fundamentalist group said Saturday that Pope John Paul II
should use his visit to India next month to remove apprehensions about what it called
forced conversions by Christian missionaries.
``Mass conversion with a set date before them is incompatible with any spiritual motive,''
Ashok Singhal, international working president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or the World
Hindu Council, told reporters in New Delhi.
Singhal claimed that more than 100,000 Christian missionaries working in India were
forcing poor Hindu villagers to convert. His group is organizing a 940-mile protest march
by Hindu nationalists that will start from Goa in southwestern India next week and reach
New Delhi on Nov. 4, the eve of the pope's arrival.
During his Nov. 5-8 visit to New Delhi, the pope will participate in a congregation of
Asian bishops, meet Indian secular and religious leaders and celebrate a Mass at Nehru
Stadium in the Indian capital.
The Roman Catholic archbishop of New Delhi, Alan de Lastic, has rejected Hindu
fundamentalists' charges of forced conversions, saying they have never produced any proof.
Christians comprise about 2.3 percent of India's nearly one billion people.
The governing Bharatiya Janata Party and its religious affiliates, including the VHP, say
that Christian missionaries who have set up schools, dispensaries and old age homes across
India are forcing poor Hindu villagers to convert.
Church leaders deny the charge and say their community has been the target of more than
100 attacks during the past year. Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young
sons were burned to death in a jeep, and Roman Catholic priest Rev. Arul Doss was shot
with arrows and beaten to death this year.
In another incident, a nun was abducted, stripped and forced to drink urine by two men who
objected to her religion. Several church buildings and Christian homes also were targeted
by Hindu fundamentalists.
The federal government says all the attacks on Christians have been investigated, and many
of them were linked to local land and property disputes.
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