Why the hatred towards Christians by Hindus?

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Well, this is conjecture on my part, but it seems to me that it has to do with apostasy. When the deities are not being worshipped, they become angry, and bad things happen. Becoming Christian means rejecting those deities. Similarly, ministering to the lowest caste by Christians may seem like a violation of the natural order.

Like I said, that’s just a guess on my part. I’m sure there are people on this forum who could give you a much better answer.
 
I’ve read that the Hindu extremists’ main complaint is that Christians disregard the caste system, mixing with untouchables and so forth. They believe that we are ruining their culture and society.
 
QuietTimes said:
Almost every other day I read a news article of all the violence towards Christians.
jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=791585
or
speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=33&idsub=122&id=16062&t=Christians+compelled+to+attack+their+own+churches

and
catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=29017&wf=rsscol
These Hindu extremist are very dangerous.

It is so sad that they find christians so threatening.
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India was ruled by the Christian English for a long time, so the anti-Christian feeling may well have an element of anti-colonialism in it. How well were the supporters of the pro-English side treated after the American Revolution?

I suspect that is is also a way for right wing Hindu politicians to whip up nationalist sentiment; there have been anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh as well as anti-Christian incidents in India. The BJP does seem to have a “Hindu first” wing in some places.

rossum
 
Also in the mix are the Maoist terrorists who are in the forefront in fomenting anti-Christian hatred.
 
Somehow I believe it has less to do with actual religious belief and more to do with a social structure whose hierarchy is being threatened. In Indian culture, a person is defined by what he does and for untouchables “what they do” are usually the tasks/roles that no one else will touch. If conversion to Christianity removes too many people from the bottom rung, guess who might fall a peg or two? This story is as old as time: man can’t just be and let others be, he has this primal urge to dominate.
 
rossum said:
India was ruled by the Christian English for a long time, so the anti-Christian feeling may well have an element of anti-colonialism in it. How well were the supporters of the pro-English side treated after the American Revolution?

I suspect that is is also a way for right wing Hindu politicians to whip up nationalist sentiment; there have been anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh as well as anti-Christian incidents in India. The BJP does seem to have a “Hindu first” wing in some places.

rossum
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And in 1599 - a year or two before the English founded the East India Company - the Portuguese Catholics held the Synod of Diamper. Which ushered in a rather rough time for anyone in Goa & its environs who was not a Roman-Rite Catholic. I doubt it helped to foster smooth relations with Hindus (to put it mildly; Goa had the Inquisition by that time: the rest is history). 😦​

For some reason, religion brings out the very worst in people - only religion could be used as a reason for people to kill others to protect a religion. 😦
 
I’m not surprised that this group also hates Christians. Especially Catholics. People are threatened by Catholicism because of their ignorance and their fear. Fearful that if they truly check it out, they’ll find the truth of the church Christ founded.
 
In my experience with American Hindus who migrated from India (as well as several who still lived in India), they are a very peaceful people. Not anti-Christian at all. In fact, I have a close friend who is a Christian Indian-American, and he tells me that Hindus are very accepting of Indian Christians. He grew up going to Hindu schools and never had any issues.

Also, the caste system is quickly becoming a relic as the world flattens. Much has changed in that regard in the last 20 or 30 years.
 
BPW75 said:
In my experience with American Hindus who migrated from India (as well as several who still lived in India), they are a very peaceful people. Not anti-Christian at all. In fact, I have a close friend who is a Christian Indian-American, and he tells me that Hindus are very accepting of Indian Christians. He grew up going to Hindu schools and never had any issues.

Also, the caste system is quickly becoming a relic as the world flattens. Much has changed in that regard in the last 20 or 30 years.
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It all depends. Not everyone of a particular faith acts/lives in the same way. Those who migrate must surely be accepting of Christians, or at least learn to be that way because they live among us. The peace-loving, accepting, caste-disregarding attitudes don’t seem to be very evident right now in Orissa. The real test of a peace-loving nature comes when people see themselves as threatened somehow.
 
rossum said:
India was ruled by the Christian English for a long time, so the anti-Christian feeling may well have an element of anti-colonialism in it. How well were the supporters of the pro-English side treated after the American Revolution?

I suspect that is is also a way for right wing Hindu politicians to whip up nationalist sentiment; there have been anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh as well as anti-Christian incidents in India. The BJP does seem to have a “Hindu first” wing in some places.

rossum
Click to expand...
Yup. The Colonial rulers constantly bullied Indian villagers, raped and looted their homes, palaces and other sites considered holy by the Hindus.

To make matters worse, they repeatedly harassed Hindu worshipers. I remember my uncle complaining how the Colonials constrained Indians to conversion by the stratagem of having cows and pigs slaughtered and thrown into village-wells.

Of course, these days you have the Dalit (aka Untouchables) propagandists who make all sorts of ridiculous claims against those of higher caste. If such claims were true (especially against the Brahmins) then Indians wouldn’t have elected a Dalit to be their President considering he faced tough competition!
 
cathopologist said:
Of course, these days you have the Dalit (aka Untouchables) propagandists who make all sorts of ridiculous claims against those of higher caste. If such claims were true (especially against the Brahmins) then Indians wouldn’t have elected a Dalit to be their President considering he faced tough competition!
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What kind of claims are you referring to?
 
The hindu estremists hate all foriegn religions but
what the hindus do to christians is an absolute drop in the bucket compared to what they do to Muslims, the hindus hate them the most.During the partition of india millions of Hindus and Muslims massacred each other. Again after the distruction of the Babri masjid in 1991 by fanatical hindus resulted in huge inter-religious conflict with hindus massacring thousands of muslims. Hindu fascist parties like the BJP put forward a hindutva (hinduness) philosophy which emphasises that india is jsut for the hindus. Especially with muslim terrorist attacks against India animosity towards islam is still on the rise
 
seekerz said:
What kind of claims are you referring to?
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That Dalits cannot hold political power or co-own businesses or that they cannot enter Hindu temples to worship.

I have been to India several times (both to rural and urban India) and have personally stayed in a hotel co-owned by a Dalit and a Brahmin businessman. Granted some media reports are true; they are being persecuted by many upper-class (not necessarily Brahmins) Hindus but many reports are reminiscent of tabloid reports found in newspapers all over the world. Some are not even real. Such reports are meant to maim and demonize (mostly) the Brahmins. I was a former Brahmin myself. I should know. None of my family members (here in Singapore or in India) have ever indulged in any persecution of Dalits or anyone else in the lower-caste system. As a matter of fact, we have several close family friends who are in the lower-caste. Sure, my immediate family members still practise the age-old Brahminism (which includes not sharing their plates with anyone), which i personally object to, but that’s another matter…

Think about this as well; if Dalits are disallowed education (another claim), then who are the ones building Dalit-run websites? If you do an ip-check, several of them are on Indian servers. And how did prominent Dalits become Presidents? Surely they had to go through some form of local basic education first before becoming members of parliament, at least? If they didn’t have the money, who sponsored them? And on that subject; Dalit propagandists were in the past (and probably still) sponsored by other propagandists such as Lyndon LaRouche & Co. Yeah, the same nutjob who compared Jazz musicians to monkeys and made several racist and fascist comments.
 
cathopologist said:
That Dalits cannot hold political power or co-own businesses or that they cannot enter Hindu temples to worship.

I have been to India several times (both to rural and urban India) and have personally stayed in a hotel co-owned by a Dalit and a Brahmin businessman. Granted some media reports are true; they are being persecuted by many upper-class (not necessarily Brahmins) Hindus but many reports are reminiscent of tabloid reports found in newspapers all over the world. Some are not even real. Such reports are meant to maim and demonize (mostly) the Brahmins. I was a former Brahmin myself. I should know. None of my family members (here in Singapore or in India) have ever indulged in any persecution of Dalits or anyone else in the lower-caste system. As a matter of fact, we have several close family friends who are in the lower-caste. Sure, my immediate family members still practise the age-old Brahminism (which includes not sharing their plates with anyone), which i personally object to, but that’s another matter…

Think about this as well; if Dalits are disallowed education (another claim), then who are the ones building Dalit-run websites? If you do an ip-check, several of them are on Indian servers. And how did prominent Dalits become Presidents? Surely they had to go through some form of local basic education first before becoming members of parliament, at least? If they didn’t have the money, who sponsored them? And on that subject; Dalit propagandists were in the past (and probably still) sponsored by other propagandists such as Lyndon LaRouche & Co. Yeah, the same nutjob who compared Jazz musicians to monkeys and made several racist and fascist comments.
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Thanks for elaborating. I have had several Dalit friends myself (mostly college kids) as well as some upper caste ones. While I see education as a major liberating force (socially and economically) for the Dalits, there seem to be genuine challenges.

I totally could not accept the view expressed by one of the upper caste girls, who, in describing the Hindu social system to me, questioned how untouchables could expect to sit at her family table as equals when their very name indicated their inferiority! This is an environment where some of the Dalit students were materially better off than the person making this statement (so it didn’t seem to be a question of class prejudice). What made that attitude more amazing to me is that they had no problems interacting with each other on campus or even sharing a meal, but back home was a different story…

I don’t see how any enlightened person (regardless of how much education, wealth or political power they possessed) could accept to have their community viewed so negatively. Admittedly, this was only one person’s attitude, though I’m inclined to believe she was simply the only one willing to be that forthright and honest about things.
 
cathopologist said:
Of course, these days you have the Dalit (aka Untouchables) propagandists who make all sorts of ridiculous claims against those of higher caste. If such claims were true (especially against the Brahmins) then Indians wouldn’t have elected a Dalit to be their President considering he faced tough competition!
Click to expand...
And this is happenig without people like Dr. Ambedkar and M.K Gandhi?
 
All the information provided has been most intresting. Wow!!!
 
It may well be they are responding to aggressive evangelisation in their community. Before we condemn such a reaction, one should think how we might react if Muslim or Hindu extremists evangelised in ways that were aggressive and disrespectful to our cultural norms, in our own neighbourhoods and near or on church grounds. Explosive anger could easily be expected in such situations.
 
QuietTimes said:
Almost every other day I read a news article of all the violence towards Christians.
jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=791585
or
speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=33&idsub=122&id=16062&t=Christians+compelled+to+attack+their+own+churches

and
catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=29017&wf=rsscol
These Hindu extremist are very dangerous.

It is so sad that they find christians so threatening.
Click to expand...
They associate Christianity with colonialism, and they see evangelism as intrinsically imperialistic and violence. From their perspective, they are just defending their way of life from a well-orchestrated and dishonest campaign of conquest by Christianity.

Edwin
 
Zlatan said:
The hindu estremists hate all foriegn religions but
what the hindus do to christians is an absolute drop in the bucket compared to what they do to Muslims, the hindus hate them the most.During the partition of india millions of Hindus and Muslims massacred each other. Again after the distruction of the Babri masjid in 1991 by fanatical hindus resulted in huge inter-religious conflict with hindus massacring thousands of muslims. Hindu fascist parties like the BJP put forward a hindutva (hinduness) philosophy which emphasises that india is jsut for the hindus. Especially with muslim terrorist attacks against India animosity towards islam is still on the rise
Click to expand...
That’s probably because with Christians Hindus don’t have to be worried about being slaughtered for practicing their religion, quite unlike Islam.
 
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