Tribal Identity, Religious Conversion and Violence in India

A Preliminary Note


Author
Sarbeswar Sahoo Indian Institute of Technology

On 23rd December 2007, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was celebrating the electoral victory of Narendra Modi in Gujarat, a group of approximately 150 to 200 militant Hindutva activists in Kandhamal district of Orissa pulled out a pastor from the bus. He was beaten, tonsured and paraded naked.  The next day, a mob of about 3000 people, armed with tridents, axes, crude bombs and kerosene, attacked the Church of our Lady of Lourdes, burnt the altar and destroyed the Christmas decorations. 

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