a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

Another chief strategy seems to be attacks on Christian public meetings, a number
of which were pointed out by leaders during the field research. The most recent
was the attack on the Rajasthan Christian Festival 2005 organized by charismatic
Christians in Banaswara. According to many charismatic leaders, contrary to what
normally happens, a fair and neutral report of the Banaswara attack was published
in the local newspaper. 139 Furthermore, the Masih Mela organized by the
charismatic Christians of Udaipur district in 2002, and the Mela organized by the
FFCI churches in Kherwara area of Udaipur district in the year 2004, were also
attacked. In most cases the attacks were launched not by local people, but by
Hindu militants from other places. Lam Lal, a local school master and one of the
coordinators of the Kherwara Mela, says that he was amazed to see that among the
fifty odd people that came to disturb the meeting there was not a single individual
from Kherwara. 140 This seems to be a tactic by Hindu militants in general, as P.V.
Veer observes in his study on Ayodhya as discussed earlier. According to Veer,
the relative peace of the place was disturbed when a campaign was launched, not
at the initiative of the ‘local monks but by a Hindu nationalist movement with
branches all over the country.’ 141
At the same time, it seems that Christians are becoming fearful and suspect that
they are being persecuted deliberately. The example of Pastor Pal 142 who was
involved in a road accident has given rise to this suspicion. His motor bike was hit
139
The local News Paper in the Hindi language reported the incidents in detail on three
consecutive days. See for more details, Banaswara Bhaskar, 26-28 October 2005, Banaswara
edition.
140
Lam Lal (pseudonym), interview by author, Kherwara, Rajasthan, 14 May 2006.
141
Veer, Religious Nationalism, xi.
142
Pseudonym.
217