Volume 7 Issue 25

Indian Christians on Edge Big Win for Hindu Nationalists

Two weeks ago, Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term as India’s Prime Minister. His party, the BJP, won a resounding victory in parliamentary elections.

As Indian pundits – a word that is, by the way, of Indian origin – will tell you, if Modi and the BJP were the obvious winners, their political rivals, the Congress Party, were the big losers. But there’s another potential loser in these elections, one that should especially concern American Christians, and that’s Indian Christians.

To understand why, you need to understand Hindutva, which is the BJP’s governing ideology. It literally means “Hinduness,” and defines what it means to be an Indian in religious—to be specific, Hindu—terms. Hindutva regards Christianity and Islam as foreign religions, and therefore any Indian who claims to be a Christian or a Muslim is less than truly Indian. According to this ideology, Hinduism is central to what it means to be an Indian.

While most of the world mistakenly sees India as a land of Gandhi, gurus, and nonviolence, there’s nothing peaceful or tolerant about Hindutva. For instance, the man who assassinated Gandhi was an adherent of Hindutva who felt Gandhi had betrayed the Hindu community.

In the run-up to the election, one BJP candidate called Gandhi’s assassin “a patriot.” Though Modi denounced the comments, they are consistent with the principles of Hindutva. More concerning are the many examples of Hindutva-inspired persecution of Christians in India, especially in the five years since the BJP first came to power.

In the weeks before the election, there were reports of “food deprivation, beatings, and jail” directed at Christian converts in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.

As Open Doors put it, “because radical Hindu nationalists view followers of Jesus as alien to the nation, all Christians in India are suffering persecution. Driven by a desire to cleanse their country from Islam and Christianity, nationalists do not shy away from using extensive violence to achieve their goals.”

Part of their campaign to cleanse India of Christians involves anti-conversion laws. At least six Indian states effectively prohibit conversions to Christianity. I say “effectively,” because Hindu nationalists there have found a way around the freedom of religion guaranteed in the Indian constitution. Any conversion that results from “force, allurement or fraudulent means” is illegal. Given the vagueness of these terms, Indian law empowers ideologically-driven local officials to view all conversions as guilty until proven innocent.

For all these reasons and more, India currently ranks tenth on Open Doors World Watch List—which is eleven spots higher than when the BJP first assumed power.

All of this may come as a surprise given what we often hear or read about India in mainstream media outlets. For example, a recent discussion of the Indian election on a New York Times podcast explained the threat to Indian Muslims, but made no mention of the persecution of Indian Christians.

To be fair, India does have the second-largest Muslim population in the world, and the most visible religious conflict there falls along Hindu-Muslim lines. Still, there are more than 30 million Christians in India, and there’s some reason to believe that this number may be significantly understated. Muslims aren’t the only targets of Hindu extremism. Indian Christians are rightly concerned about what Modi’s triumph means for them.

We should be concerned as well. After all, contrary to Hindutva ideology, Christianity is no European import. It existed in India before Paul reached Rome. Some churches in southern India even worship in an offshoot of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.

We must pray for our Indian brethren, asking God to preserve the faith in a subcontinent where it is every bit as native as that which seeks to drive it out.

200 Day-cares with Ties to ISIS Are Shut Down in Australia

Australian police have shut down almost 200 daycare centers after discovering the private businesses were linked to the Islamic state, motorcycle gangs and fraud schemes.

According to The Daily Mail, 114 of the nearly 200 daycares were in the suburbs of southwest Sydney. Another 49 centers were in the Canterbury-Bankstown area, 25 in Liverpool, 23 in Fairfield and 17 in Auburn.

Police also say they arrested the director of one of the daycare centers at the Sydney airport. Police have speculated that he was leaving to fight for the Islamic State.

A 28-year-old man, Hussain Dandachi, was arrested after an investigation found he was involved in a $27 million fraud scheme where the money was being funneled to the Islamic State.

Dandachi pled guilty to doctoring fake invoices of about $100,000 for children who were not at his daycare. He was sentenced to 10 months in jail.

The Daily Telegraph also reported that another daycare was being operated in a house with no electricity.

The Fairfield-based Red Roses Family Day Care company was raided by police in May. Eighteen people were arrested as part of a $4 million fraud.

Police also say they are looking for some 150 parents who allegedly sold their children’s identities to help Red Roses qualify for government subsidies.

The Australian government says it will save about $674 million because they will not be paying for those fraudulent applications for children at the centers.

“(New South Wales) is leading the nation when it comes to combating unscrupulous providers,” said Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Sarah Mitchell. “As Minister, I make no apology for being relentless in ensuring there will be consequences for providers who do not operate in the best interest of children."

The Rise Of Facial Recognition Should Scare Us All

In the last ten years, our world has been completely transformed thanks to the exponential growth of digital technology. Technological advances with computer processors and the Internet have quickly advanced our world into one that resembles some of the most well-known sci-fi films and novels.  Not a single day passes without a report on an emerging technology or new feature in an already existing product. The last ten years alone have seen rapid growth in information technology, encryption, the medical industry and 3D printing technology, just to name a few. Unfortunately, as technology is a tool, there are equally frightening developments taking place in the first two decades of the 21st century. Specifically, the ability for governments and private actors to monitor and spy on the activity of the average person has nearly become accepted as the norm. 

In fact, it has become commonplace to hear Americans respond to warnings of Orwellian futures with the timeless trope, "If you're not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to hide!" This is what makes it all the more surprising to see a surplus of recent reports examining the dangers and implications of a world where facial recognition technology is commonplace.

Here's a small sample of the current headlines related to facial recognition:

- Most Americans Trust Facial Recognition Technology - But Not At The Airport

- Terrifying AI Matches DNA to Facial Recognition Databases

- Why Is Facial Recognition Important? 3 Signs It's Too Big to Ignore Any Longer

- Facial recognition smart glasses could make public surveillance discreet and ubiquitous

Even the Washington Post published a warning titled "Don't smile for surveillance: Why airport face scans are a privacy trap."

Questions surrounding the emerging technology have reached enough of a tipping point that just this week, House Democrats questioned the Department of Homeland Security over the use of facial recognition tech on U.S. citizens. The Hill reported that more than 20 House Democrats sent a letter on Friday to the DHS over the Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) use of facial recognition technology at U.S. airports. The Border Patrol claims that they are rolling out the facial recognition program at a number of airports under a congressional mandate and with an executive order from President Donald Trump. Lawmakers say the program was supposed to focus on foreign passengers, not Americans.

The group of lawmakers wrote:

We write to express concerns about reports that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using facial recognition technology to scan American citizens under the Biometric Exit Program. The letter to DHS comes shortly after a representative with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) the House Oversight and Reform Committee said that the FBI has access to hundreds of millions of photos that are used for facial recognition searches. 

Gretta Goodwin, a representative with the GAO, said the FBI uses expansive databases of photos--including from driver's licenses, passports and mugshots--to search for potential criminals. Goodwin noted that the FBI has a database of 36 million mugshots and access to more than 600 million photos, including access to 21 state driver's license databases.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio reminded Ms. Goodwin that the FBI has access to more photos than there are people in the country. "There are only 330 million people in the country," Jordan stated. The TSA was also questioned about their use of facial recognition at airports. Austin Gould, the TSA's assistant administrator on Requirements and Capabilities Analysis, said the facial recognition program has been helpful for travelers. However, critics say the potential benefits of saved time and reducing passenger volume should not override the greater risk to privacy. 

The TSA plans to have facial recognition tech at the top 20 airports for international travelers by 2021 and at all airports by 2023. The TSA has also previously expressed their desire to scan the face of every single American who enters the airport. The push back against facial recognition--and biometric technology in general--has moved beyond words in some areas. Most recently, San Francisco became the first city to ban government use of facial recognition. Due to the success in San Francisco, California lawmakers are considering AB 1215, a bill that would extend the ban across the entire state. 

The editorial board of the Guardian also recently spoke out about the privacy threats, calling the technology "especially inaccurate and prone to bias." The editorial board also noted that a recent test of Amazon's facial recognition software by the American Civil Liberties Union found that it falsely identified 28 members of Congress as known criminals. Although the technology is currently dangerous due to its inaccuracy, the Guardian warns: It may be too late to stop the collection of this data. But the law must ensure that it is not stored and refined in ways that will harm the innocent and, as Liberty warns, slowly poison our public life.

It's clear that the debate on the benefits and threats of facial recognition technology is not going anywhere anytime soon. It's up to us as individuals to educate ourselves and inform our peers about the threats to privacy and freedom that are becoming increasingly more apparent every day.