A new breed of missionary

He pauses. "It will become dangerous if conversion activity continues. It can be a big issue unless other churches don't make it clear to these people that conversion must stop."

For the Rev. Mahipul Bhuriya, a parish priest and a member of a major local tribe, the Bhils, there is danger from both the Hindu right and from the Christian evangelicals.

"I have been drawing a line between good churches that serve and bad churches that are only interested in conversion," says Father Bhuriya. "I tell people, 'I belong to a church that does not breed hatred,' and my Hindu friends are beginning to understand."

In his small Jhabua apartment, Verghese says that violence will not deter him from doing what he sees as God's work.

He adds that RSS activists burned 25 houses in the town of Ali Rajpur in retaliation for the murder of Sujata, and 14 members of his church have been jailed, blamed for the shooting death of an RSS activist.

Far from being terrorized, Verghese says his followers have been strengthened by the riots.

"There is some fear, yes, but the believers have more fear of the Word of God," he says, bouncing his 4-year-old daughter Praisey on his knee.

"There are some people who know very well that the moment Christian missionaries leave, their social development will stop. All the best schools, the best hospitals, are run by missionaries," he says, referring to schools like the Catholic Mission School, built by older, mainstream churches.

"But there are also people who know very well that when the adivasis are better educated and have better lives, they cannot be exploited anymore," Verghese says. "And that is the main reason for the violence against Christians."

Many Christians agree that the Hindu reaction against Christian missionaries is more deeply rooted in economics than in religion.

Historically, higher-caste Hindus treated tribesmen as inferior, and reinforced this in their economic relations. Most tribal people were unable to own their own land, so they farmed land owned by Hindus. As illiterate sharecroppers, tribesmen were kept subservient. As worshipers of ancestors and animals, tribal people were seen as backward.

But in recent years, the RSS and other Hindu nationalist groups have begun to reach out to adivasis, partly to prevent their conversion to other faiths, and partly to expand their political bases.

Now, RSS activists distribute Hindu idols in tribal villages and teach adivasis how to worship during Hindu festivals such as Ganpati, the festival of Ganesh. Similarly, the RSS's political ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has begun heavy recruitment of adivasis, an effort seen as crucial in winning state elections in Madhya Pradesh in December 2003.

Heavyweight political players like Narendra Modi of neighboring Gujarat state campaigned in Jhabua district, promising that a state BJP government would use Gujarat as a "Hindutva model" for its rule in Madhya Pradesh. BJP supporters say that he was referring to Modi's strong economic record.

Critics saw something darker, the use of Hindu mobs to attack religiou1s minorities, as occurred in the Gujarat riots of 2002.

Ajai Sahni says there is no short-term solution to the problem, as long as religious identity is a major tool for mobilizing Indian voters at election time, and as long as every major party uses religious fears and prejudices to organize their support.

"One measure that is needed, however, is a very harsh law to punish those who engage in communal violence," says Mr. Sahni. "Such a law has long been overdue in India."

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