*ARCHIVED OCTOBER 2007 // CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT DATA
India (click here to view a satellite map)
India, South Asia
Population: 1,080,264,388
Christians: 2-3%
Dominant Religion: Hinduism
Persecution Ranking: 26th
Political Leader: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Religious Freedom in Constitution: Yes
National elections in May of 2004 replaced the radical Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a Congress Party government, and a Sikh prime minister. This was in answer to diligent prayer. From 1998 until it was replaced in 2004, the BJP Party initiated and aggressively pursued an extremist form of Hindu nationalism called "Hindutva," to purge the country of its non-Hindu religious minorities. The BJP succeeded in portraying Christianity as a suspect "foreign religion," and in passing legislation to effectively limit the rights and activities of Christians in some Indian States. Under the Congress Party during its initial months in power, some of that legislation was reversed. Yet, in 2005, four additional states have proposed legislation to inhibit the constitutional rights of citizens to exercise their freedom of religion by choosing Christianity.
The Dalit community in particular (encompassing the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes), remains very responsive to the Gospel, in spite of the fact that Dalits will lose their rights to hold many government jobs allotted to them if they were to remain Hindus. In January, 2004 the government released the official religious statistics from the 2001 census, indicating India's Christian population to be approximately 2.4%. However, in January 2005, a news article appeared in a prominent nationally syndicated newspaper with an unsubstantiated report of 6.8% of the population following Christianity. Whether or not this information is correct, the fact remains that the Church continues to grow at a phenomenal rate with most of the new growth taking place in North India, a region historically referred to as the graveyard of missions.
Prayer Points
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Pray that religious tolerance in India will prevail. |
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Pray that attempts to outlaw Christian conversions in the country or to pressure Hindu converts to Christianity to convert back to Hinduism will be frustrated. |
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Pray that the Indian authorities will act responsibly and fairly toward all India's religious minority groups including the Christian community, and swiftly bring all those who perpetrate violence to justice. |
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Pray that the Church will continue its recent pattern of rapid growth and that well-equipped and mature leaders will be trained for all the new Believers. |
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Pray that Believers will continue to be bold in sharing their faith with others. |
LORD God Almighty, thank You for the wonderful way in which You are bringing thousands of Indians to Yourself. We ask You to strengthen and encourage the many Christians who are sacrificially pouring themselves out in church planting. We pray that their many creative efforts to bring health and well-being to the people of their nation through the knowledge of Jesus Christ will prosper even more. Amen |
