INDIA - Persecuting Muslims
In the northern Indian city of Haldwani, about 4,000 families faced homelessness in December after the High Court of the state, Uttarakhand, ordered their eviction from land claimed by the Indian Railways.
The incident in Haldwani, 296km (184 miles) from national capital New Delhi, captures a broader pattern of injustice masquerading as law and order that’s playing out across India under the majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules federally and in most states.
The bulldozer is central to this strategy. Muslims are the target. And unlike in Haldwani, affected people and communities only rarely get even a temporary reprieve.
The community is often targeted, especially by the Hindu right, as “illegal immigrants” and the word “Miya” is frequently used as a pejorative.
The idea behind the inhuman and violent evictions is to keep Muslims landless and impoverished: Muslims have a higher poverty rate and lower literacy rate than the national average. Research has shown that Indian Muslims have lower upward mobility than people from even those Hindu castes and tribes that have traditionally been discriminated against.
-www.aljazeera.com, 2 February 2023
Arno's Commentary
We read in Hebrews 13:3, “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.” Our thoughts and prayers are with those who suffer persecution.
We publish excerpts of this article to show that when religion usurps political power, they often become the oppressors, the persecutors. History documents how the Vatican severely persecuted those who dared to oppose their teaching.
There are many other religious movements that have usurped political power, and woe to anyone that opposes. This is self-evident in Iran, an “Islamic Republic.” In China, it’s the communist religion; namely, the government persecuting Muslims as well as Christians.
We need to be careful in our political involvement as Christians. We follow our Lord Jesus Christ, who never lifted a finger against the oppressive Roman occupational force, nor did the apostles. It was the apostle Paul who used the example of an idol dedicated “to the unknown god” to preach the Gospel. We should do likewise.
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
