ABSTRACT
The increased global flow of peoples and ideas brings religious people more regularly into contact with people who adhere to religions other than their own. Interreligious violence might in many cases be better described as ethnic violence, or as majority-minority violence. Anti-Christian violence in India has been increasing since the late 1990s, and after 1998, for a brief period, at least, Christians began to rival Muslims as the primary targets of anti-minority activists associated with the Sangh Parivar. Many reports on the Orissa riots in district Kandhamal begin with an attack, by Christians, on the car of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, a regionally popular and well-known Hindu reformer and anti-conversion activist. As a result of the violence, around 3,000 Christians entered refugee camps established by the government. The reduction of Hindu numbers is particularly concerning to many Hindu nationalists because of the rather widespread belief that Hinduism is a non-proselytising religion with no exact equivalent of a conversion ceremony.
