This past month, a slew of atrocities have ravaged Orissa. According to the EFI, thousands of persecuted Christians are in relief camps. Between 40,000 and 50,000 fled to jungles or have been unaccounted for. The international media has barely seemed to notice. But, as a friend writes, “Worse than the faces missing in the news, worse by far, are those now missing in Orissa: the mothers and fathers who won’t come home” and the many child casualties. Persecution has also taken place in Karnataka, Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) and in Delhi. A musician friend in Bangalore tells me that many pastors in Bangalore are also in hiding. Since the persecution hasn’t been in the media very much, it seems that these believers are not as important to the world as entertainment, presidential elections, and the latest on the global economy.

According to the BBC, up to 500,000 people were stranded by the recent floods in the Indian state of Bihar. They could spend the next 6 months in temporary camps (read, “homeless”). Thousands more have been displaced in Assam and Bangladesh. And, hundreds of thousands of displaced Indians and Bangladeshis are threatened by disease and starvation. In all, more than 3 million have just become displaced by the flood (news.bbc.co.uk). This is Bihar’s worst flooding in 50 years… UNICEF has reported that there is now an outbreak of diarrhea in many relief camps. Reuters has seen fighting break out by people who fight to “lay their hands on air-dropped food”.

Earlier this month, Vogue India came under fire for using some of India’s poorest for a luxury fashion photo shoot. The August Issue’s feature used these rag-clad “models” (aka Dalits/untouchables) to display items such as a $10,000 (400,000 RS) Hermes Birkin bag, a $200 (8,000 RS) Burberry umbrella, a Fendi designer bib (on a poverty-stricken infant), and more. Vogue India’s editor defended the shoot; she was captured by the “immense beauty, innocence, and freshness” of the subject’s faces; others have called the shoot “complete callousness to genuine suffering”. P.K. Varma, author of The Great Indian Middle Class, stated that the Vogue shoot highlighted “how India’s increasingly wealthy elite enjoyed its privileges without sparing a care for the poor around them” (independent.co.uk.nytimes.com).

In 1 Corinthians 12:26, we read that if one part of the body suffers, all the other parts share its suffering. Let’s “join in the suffering” by lifting up those who suffer in our prayers.