The strengthening of hard-line Hinduism under the Bharatiya Janata Party has increased opposition to the gospel. Churches are invaded by angry mobs and missionaries are harassed, threatened, beaten, and sometimes even killed. The burning to death of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, aged 7 and 9, in 1999, shocked the world.

Cyclones and floods strike Bangladesh and eastern India annually. Provisions supplied by Christian Aid gifts help local missionaries reach out to poor villages.

Since then mission groups native to India have adapted to the situation. While traditional churches are still being planted, house and cell churches multiply by the thousands. One ministry has planted 20,000 such clusters of Christians in 14 states of North India. Ministries also are quick to meet the practical needs of people with feeding programs, schooling, rehabilitation, medical clinics and other social outreaches.

Millions of Dalits (“untouchables”), fed up with their maltreatment under Hinduism, are seeking to change their religious affiliation. Programs are underway in some states to disciple tens of thousands. Numbers are not publicized to refrain from inflaming the opposition.

When Nepal opened to foreigners in the 1950s, Christianity was identified with the foreigners who entered. About that time, Prem Pradhan, a Nepali serving in the Indian army, was converted through a street preacher discipled by Bakht Singh. Prem began taking the gospel to his own people, taking care not to mix foreign tradition with the truth of the Scripture.

Resham Raj, a former Hindu priest, likewise traveled over most of Nepal preaching the gospel and began a Bible correspondence course that has so far enrolled 400,000 students. These disciples in turn have started hundreds of groups of believers.

It is estimated there are now more than 500,000 Nepali believers brought to faith almost exclusively by indigenous ministries.