Hindu Fascists and their Struggle with Christianity I

After last weeks mass conversions by Dalits in the India state of Maharashtra it's a good idea to dig a little deeper into the background of religious animus that's brewing across the Indian subcontinent. An animus directed not only against Moslems but also against the relatively small Indian Christian population and those Christian missionaries and aid workers who are working with the most impoverished and disenfranchised.
Here from Worthy News are some of the salient facts.

Increased attacks against Christians this year have grown out of a trend of violence going back to 2001. Each year from 2001 to 2005, about 200 anti-Christian attacks were reported in India. This year nearly 150 such incidents were reported by mid-September, with the annual total expected to exceed 200.

Whereas the trend began after the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in 1998, the recent campaign is rooted in the party’s attempts to recover from political loss and internal division. Then as now, most of the attacks have been led, directly or indirectly, by Hindu extremist organizations linked with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Forum or VHP) and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal.

Here are the wikipedia entires for the RSS, VHP and the Bajrang Dal. They seem to have been written from a viewpoint that is biased towards these organizations. Note the interesting (and frightelning) fact that the Economist magazine has described the RSS as "the largest non-communist organization in the world". These groups form the "street" or units in the field for the BJP, the Bharatiya Janata Party, on of India's two main political parties...

The RSS and affiliate organizations promote the ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. Though registered as a socio-cultural organization, the RSS’s leaders are officially appointed by the BJP. (But as the RSS dictates affairs within the BJP, unofficially it is the RSS that makes appointments to key party posts.)...The BJP rules in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, and it forms part of ruling coalitions in Karnataka, Bihar and Orissa states.

The states ruled directly by the BJP have a combined population of some 188 million people.
After coming to power in a state one of the first orders of business for the BJP (after banning the slaughter of cows) has been the passing of anti-religious conversion acts.
To be continued.