Leaders of Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party had charged that recent attacks on Christians were incited by Hindu nationalist sympathizers. New elections are set for October. This past winter, Response writer Clint Kelly was one of five professionals chosen from the Seattle area to represent Rotary International in India. The Group Study Exchange team stayed in the homes of Indian Rotarians and saw firsthand the life-changing work Rotary clubs perform among the disadvantaged. Despite the hour, swells of East Indians, oddly hushed, jam the barricades for the first glimpse of new arrivals.
Cars snarl the approach roads, madly honking in futility.
It is warm and humid and my first time on Indian soil. My heart sinks. Welcome to the world's largest democracy, I think ruefully, a sensual and complex land rich in 5,000 years of history. I was to see these things for myself over the next month as I traveled India's two southernmost states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. For the second time in two months in Orissa state, Christians have died at the hands of suspected religious fanatics who believe Christianity is a holdover of the colonial era and has no place in a largely Hindu society.