WCC team to visit India this month

An international ecumenical team from World Council of Churches (WCC) will pay India a solidarity visit next week in the wake of continued violence against Christians in the country.

The team comprising of church representatives from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia who will visit churches, ecumenical organizations and civil society movements in India from 21 to 27 September, WCC news release said today.

The ecumenical team known as 'Living Letters', is a small ecumenical team visiting a country to listen, learn, share approaches and to help confront challenges in order to overcome violence and promote and pray for peace. They are organized in the context of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence as a preparation for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in 2011.

The statement said the focus of the seven-day long India visit will be on the Indian churches' witness to peace with justice in a context of mass poverty, social exclusion and violence against women, Dalits and Christians. There will also be encounters with church leaders, peace activists, and representatives of interfaith peace initiatives and of Dalit movements.

The visit will bring the team of Living Letters to the country's capital city, New Delhi, and to the South Eastern states of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, the statement stated.

Violence against Christians and caste-based discrimination

The anti-Christian violence broke out in Orissa after a Hindu fundamentalist leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, was murdered in August 2008. Hindus blamed Christians for killing Saraswati even though Maoist rebels had publicly claimed responsibility for the murder.

Following the swami's death, Hindu mobs attacked Christians, burning their homes, shops, churches and orphanages. More than 30,000 Christians from Orissa were forced to take shelter in refugee camps, where the living conditions were poor, or in the jungle, where they were in danger of being attacked by wild animals.

About 4,500 Christian homes were burned and 180 churches destroyed. At least 60 Christians were killed, according to the Orissa government's report, but church leaders in Orissa report higher figures and have accused the government of intentionally undercounting the number of deaths.

WCC executive committee meeting earlier stated its concern "about the alarming trend of growing communal violence and religious intolerance in India". On 2 September 2009 the WCC central committee adopted a minute noting "a decline of religious freedom in many parts of the world and an increase of religious intolerance".

WCC central committee also condemned caste-based discrimination, saying that "it contradicts the Christian teaching that all are created equal in the image of God". At least 160 million people in India – known as Dalit, or "oppressed", "crushed" – and up to 260 million globally are considered by their own societies as "untouchable".