Right Tilt

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India and the BJP

On January 23, 1999, an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two young sons were burned to death by Hindu extremists as they slept in their car in a rural Indian village.

This incident, which shocked Indians throughout the world, was but one in a series of recent attacks on India's tiny Christian population. Allegations of forced conversions of Hindus by Christian missionaries have led many right-wing Hindu extremist groups to attack churches, missions, affiliated schools, and prayer halls. Just before the Staines' murder, a new government had taken power in India: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), an organization long affiliated with Hindu extremism. Among the partners in the BJP's parliamentary coalition was the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) party, a traditional bastion of Hindu extremism and the party out of which the BJP originally grew. Whether or not this government's rise to power and the increase in religious extremism are linked is debatable. Since mid-1999, perhaps spurred by outrage at the Staines murder, the anti-Christian violence has declined. The BJP and …