New Delhi, 29 May (ENI)--Church leaders in India say they are elated at a mass conversion ceremony in Mumbai said by organizers to have gathered nearly 100 000 people at which thousands of oppressed Dalits and nomadic people embraced Buddhism.

"We are happy that the Dalits have come forward boldly to assert the freedom of religion," Bishop D. K. Sahu, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in India, a grouping of 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches, told Ecumenical News International from the council's headquarters in Nagpur. "This vindicates our stand that freedom of religion is a fundamental right."

Prakash Ambedkar, who organized the 27 May gathering, which Indian media described as the largest ever mass conversion ceremony in India since its independence in 1947, told ENI, "Our people are looking at conversion as a means of [social] liberation." Several thousand Dailts had embraced Buddhism at the gathering, said Ambedkar, who is also head of the Republican Party of India. He said the ceremony had been held to celebrate the mass conversion organized by his grandfather, Bhim Rao Ambedkar.

An architect of independent India's constitution, B. R. Ambedkar is known as the father of the Dalit movement in India. He led thousands of Dalits into Buddhism to escape the Hindu caste system during a public ceremony on 14 October 1956 at Nagpur.

"Dalit", meaning "trampled upon" in Sanskrit, refers to low castes treated as untouchables under the caste system in India which enjoins them to undertake degrading and dehumanising tasks such as scavenging and menial jobs.

Dalits accounts for more than 18 percent of India’s 1.1 billion people. Two thirds of the 26 million Christians in the world's second most populous nation are also Dalits. [298 words]

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Bangalore, India, 24 May (ENI)--Churches in Pakistan are urging the government to protect a Christian community facing threats from Islamic fundamentalists to either convert to Islam or shut their churches and migrate from their native villages in the North West Frontier Province.

"The authorities in Pakistan have responded half-heartedly to the situation, sending only one police officer to protect the community, who is stationed at the door of the church," the National Council of Churches of Pakistan, a grouping of four Protestant churches, said in a statement on 24 May.

The NCCP statement noted that hundreds of Christians in less developed parts of the country such as Charsadda and Mardan in the North West Frontier Province "are now extremely afraid and many cannot sleep. Some families have already left the area, whilst others have sent their female members to safer places." While some officials have dismissed the threats, Victor Azariah, NCCP general secretary, told Ecumenical News International: "It's a serious issue as far as Christians are concerned." He added, "The religious minorities in Pakistan often face these kinds of dangers."

Separately, in Glasgow, Scotland, a paper circulated at the 23-27 May assembly of Civicus, the world alliance for citizen participation, quoted Maulana Fazalullah, a pro-Taliban cleric, referring to non-governmental organisations and saying, "These foreign agents are against our religion. How can we allow them to work here when we know they come with an American agenda and support Israel?"

He told the Inter Press Service news agency in a telephone interview from his home in the North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, "All Pakistanis working for them [NGOs] are enemies of the country.'' The IPS report said NGOs and aid agencies have been finding it increasingly difficult in recent months to work in some of the most underdeveloped parts of Pakistan.

More than 95 percent of the 153 million people of Pakistan are Muslims, while Christians number more than three million. Hindus and others account for the rest of the population. "The constitution of Pakistan guarantees protection of religious minorities and safeguards religious freedom," the Roman Catholic Church reminded the government in a press statement on 18 May. Archbishop Lawrence Saldana of Lahore, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Pakistan, said the government was "duty bound" to uphold these "constitutional guarantees".

The Catholic Church also urged the government "to effectively ban" provocation against non-Muslims through the use of loud speakers, hate literature and the media as has happened in the North West Frontier Province, and to take measures to promote interfaith respect. "Fundamentalist groups are trying to enforce Sharia [rule by Islamic law] in the tribal areas under Taliban influence. They see Christians as a hindrance to this agenda," Archbishop Saldana told ENI. [466 words]

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Bangalore, India, 23 May (ENI)--Christian groups in India have hailed the recommendation of a federal commission that has asked the government to end discrimination against Christian and Muslim Dalits. The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities recommended to the government on 22 May that it end discrimination against Christian and Muslim Dalits as they are excluded from free education and a special job reservation limited to Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh Dalits, or low castes treated as untouchables.

Lauding the recommendation as a victory for Dalit Christians, the All India Christian Council in a statement urged the government to implement the recommendations without further delay. "We are witnessing the making of history. We hope the rights denied to us for so long will be granted now," the Rev Madhu Chandra, spokesperson for the Christian council, told Ecumenical News International on 23 May.

The job reservation and free education benefits introduced in 1950 aiming at the social uplift of Dalits were at first restricted to Hindus. They were extended to Sikh Dalits in 1956 and Buddhist Dalits in 1990. Persistent demands by the Christian community for the extension of these privileges to the Christian Dalits who account for two thirds of the 26 million Christians in India went unheeded.

Dalit (meaning "trampled upon" in Sanskrit) refers to low caste persons treated as untouchables under the caste system in India which enjoins them to continue doing degrading and dehumanising jobs such as scavenging. The Indian government set up the national commission headed by Ranganath Mishra, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court, to investigate the socio-economic circumstances of Christian and Muslim Dalits in 2005. It was responding to a Christian petition in the highest court calling for the ending of religion-based discrimination against Christian Dalits.

The Rev. Cosmon Arokiaraj, executive secretary of the Dalit' commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, described the recommendation of the commission as "a very significant development in the campaign against discrimination against Christian Dalits". Arokiaraj said, "The commission has now acknowledged that the caste system should be recognised as a general social characteristic of Indian society and that Christianity and Islam are not insulated against the caste system." [378 words]

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Edinburgh, 21 May (ENI)--Ecclesiastical history has been made in the Scottish capital with the Church of Scotland welcoming leaders of the Free Church of Scotland to its 2007 General Assembly that was officially opened by Prince Andrew, a son of British Queen Elizabeth II.

"I think this is a tremendous thing," said the new moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rev. Sheilagh Kesting, who made church unity the theme of her sermon at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. "I don't think that any of us guessed that we would be able to do such a thing but we have been meeting for a couple of years and it became clear that there were areas where we could say we have common ground."

The Church of Scotland split into two factions after what has been called "the disruption" of 1843 following years of debate among elders and ministers about the exact relationship between Church and State. Writing in Scotland's The Herald newspaper on 19 May, Jennifer Cunningham wrote: "In a historic step, the general assemblies of both churches will be asked to agree a joint statement which recognises 'the scandal of the divisions in our Presbyterian Church family'."

The Church of Scotland general assembly opened on 19 May and will close on 25 May. The 53-year-old Kesting heads the Church of Scotland's committee on ecumenical relations and was the first ordained woman appointed as the denomination's moderator when she was named in October 2006, although she is not the first female elected to the 12-month post. Alison Elliot, a church elder was appointed in 2004.

"If we live as though God had not torn down the barriers that divide people of different backgrounds and cultures, if we cannot ourselves work for the healing of the tensions that are so disabling and can find no way of respecting difference as the sign of a healthy community, we will fail to be convincing," said Kesting, who has often spoken out against sectarianism in Scotland. "We will have turned the spotlight onto ourselves and our divisions, as so often in our history, and away from Jesus, who is the only focus of our unity."

Although she will be in the job as moderator for only one year, Kesting hopes to visit New Zealand and Australia later in 2007, and may visit the Middle East. Recently published statistics showed the Church of Scotland's membership fell to 503 363 from 520 940 the previous year. Still, Kesting said, "We can get too anxious about numbers." [434 words]

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Bangalore, India, 11 May (ENI)--The National Council of Churches in India has called on the authorities to act immediately to restore the rule of law, following a number of attacks against Christians in recent weeks. The council urged state governments to clamp down on what it said were Hindu fundamentalist groups "responsible for fanning communal hatred and social tension".

The NCCI, which groups 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches, made its call in a 9 May statement that followed the beating up of two Christian evangelists the previous day in the Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state, in western India. Television footage showed a group of Hindus kicking and punching the pastors.

"I had to switch off the TV as the visuals were horrible," Bishop D. K. Sahu, the NCCI's general secretary, told Ecumenical News International from his office in Nagpur in central India. Eleven people were arrested after the attack, The Associated Press reported on 9 May.

More than 20 cases of serious attacks on church personnel have been reported in the past four weeks. The NCCI described the incidents as being of "major concern to all law-abiding Christians in the country". The Evangelical Fellowship of India, in a statement, condemned the latest attacks. The evangelists, named as pastors Ajit and Ramesh, had been conducting a baptism ceremony for seven people in a local river when they were set upon.

Their attackers accused the evangelists of forcibly converting poor Hindus, the Dailyindia.com news service reported. After the assaults, the assailants took the two pastors to a local police station, where they were charged with "unlawful religious conversions". Police initially refused to take any action against the attackers, Bishop Sahu said. [293 words]

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Bangalore, India, 9 May (ENI)--Secular activist groups have attended a "festival of just peace" organized with the support of the Interfaith Cooperation Forum of the Christian Conference of Asia held in Bangalore. More than 800 delegates and local participants attended the 5 May celebration said organizers.

"Each festival has a religious link or a political background. Our aim is to celebrate peace without any religious or political leanings," said David Selvaraj, director of the Vistar campus where the event was held and a member of the Church of South India. He noted in an interview with Ecumenical News International that people's movements have won cases against caste exploitation, stopped the giant Coca-Cola beverage company from using river water, and that the rights of indigenous peoples have been upheld due to spirited campaigns.

"These are events that have to be celebrated," said Selvaraj. "This is an experiment to bringing together the action groups to celebrate their victories." Groups representing indigenous peoples, fisher folk, women activists and village artisans and artists lent colour to the festival, running ethnic food stalls, selling traditional handicrafts and displaying paintings of people's struggles against multi-national companies and others for exploiting natural resources.

"This is a really a new experience to get together for peace," P. Sreeja, leader of the Coastal Women's Committee from neighbouring Kerala state, told ENI. "It gives us an excellent opportunity to understand the concerns of others," said Sreeja, a Hindu, who led a team of 10 women activists who regularly perform street dramas to promote social harmony and to highlight women's issues. The festival coincided with the conclusion of the second batch of the four-month long "school of peace'" being sponsored by the CCA Forum with 19 young delegates from conflict zones in eight Asian countries.

"Before coming here, I thought the only way to solve problems was to fight for our rights," said Ansary A. Diamudin from the troubled Muslim-majority Mindanao region of the Philippines. However, after four-months of various exposure programmes in India, Diamudin said: "Now I am convinced that only peace with justice can solve problems. We need to understand and respect each other for this." [370 words]

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Bangalore, India, 4 May (ENI)--The Assam state government in north-east India has after concerted Christian protests said it will drop a plan to convert a sprawling Baptist church property in the heart of the state capital, Guwahati, into a parking lot. "The government wrote to us last week saying that they do want our land," Roland G Momin, treasurer of the Council of Baptist Churches in Northeast India told Ecumenical News International on 4 May. "We are really relieved."

The five-acre (two hectare) compound houses several key centres including the Baptist church council headquarters, a 162-year old Baptist church, youth hostels and offices of several ecumenical institutions. In a phone interview from the council's headquarters, Momin said: "We were stunned when the government made this move." But he added that, "all churches stood with us and our protests have borne fruit."

Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, other churches and Christian groups had rallied behind the Baptist church after it was notified in March of the plan to take over its property. The government's notification to convert the Baptist property into a parking lot had cited an "acute shortage of parking places" in Guwahati, the biggest city in northeast India in an area that encompasses seven tiny states adjacent to Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Burma.

"We have to thank God for this," said Momin, pointing out that the Baptist council is now preparing an ecumenical thanksgiving service to take place at its headquarters. Baptists numbering nearly one million are one of the biggest Christian groups in the four Christian-majority states in the region.

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Bangalore, India, 1 May (ENI)--More than five hundred Christians and civil rights activists have marched through blazing hot streets in Jaipur, the capital of India's desert state of Rajasthan, to protest against the beating of a pastor that was televised. The protestors said they were marching in the 45 degrees Celsius heat following the 29 April attack on a pastor on by Hindu fundamentalists who had informed television crews in advance so they could film the beating administered to pastor Walter Massey in front of his wife and young daughter.

"We had faced regular harassment and attacks, but this is the first time that media people were informed in advance," Roman Catholic priest the Rev. Raymond Coelho, president of Rajasthan Christian Fellowship, told Ecumenical News International on 1 May. "This was a premeditated act." Coelho was one of the organizers of the march, along with civil rights groups, protesting against the assault on the evangelist pastor who had been earlier threatened by Hindus angered by his preaching.

Christians number less than 100 000 among the 57 million people of Rajasthan state that is ruled by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party – Indian People's Party), which is accused by its opponents of having a Hindu nationalist platform. Though police are reported to seldom act against culprits in attacks on Christians, especially in states ruled by the BJP, on 30 April the police, following protests, acted quickly and arrested five people in connection with the televised attack.

One TV news channel telecast the entire attack starting with the assailants putting on their masks beforehand and showed the bleeding face of the injured pastor after the attack carried out at his residence. "The gory images of masked murderous gangsters attacking the innocent pastor with iron rods remain a blot on the face of India," said the All India Christian Council.

The Global Council of Indian Christians in a statement expressed "serious concern" that the attack took place in the high security area of Jaipur near the residence of the chief minister of the state. Christian leaders say they have reports of more than 20 attacks against Christians carried out by Hindu fundamentalists in India during April. [380 words]

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Bangalore, India, 30 April (ENI)--A total of 1500 houses for the poor "irrespective of caste and creed" was pledged at the 90th birthday celebrations of the head of the Mar Thoma church based in southern Kerala state. A giant wooden key symbolising the houses to be built was handed to church head Metropolitan Philipose mar Chrysostom on 27 April at Thivualla, the headquarters of the church in the presence of church and political leaders.

The Indian federal state planning minister M V Rajasekharan described Metropolitan Chrysostom as "a prophet of our times". He said: "We need such inspiring leaders to uphold moral values in public life." The general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, who visited India in February, had a message read on his behalf. He said: "Your much appreciated service to the Church and humanity spanning more than half a century as a bishop … are unique and unparalleled in recent ecclesiastical and ecumenical history."

Born on 27 April, 1917, mar Chrysostom was consecrated as bishop in 1953 and was chosen as the suffragan metropolitan in 1978. He assumed the office of the head of the Mar Thoma church in 1999. Other political leaders in Kerala joined the church leaders in the celebration for Chrysostom who is the most senior church leader in the state, which has a strong Christian presence.

"We wanted this unique occasion to be remembered not by building monuments, but by serving the poor," Suffragan Metropolitan Zacharias mar Theophilus, coordinator of the programme for building the 1500 houses, told Ecumenical News International on 30 April. The 1500 houses, each costing 80 000 Indian rupees (about US$2000), are being made with money donated by church members as a "token of their love for the metropolitan". The first house was handed over on 28 April at Chengannoor, said mar Theophilus, and the work on 180 houses has been completed. [334 words]

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