Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – An Overview of South Asia

By Justin Long
September 2006

(Editor’s Note: Our Peoples of the World section consist of three parts: an overview of a specific region of the world, a deeper look into the least-reached peoples of this area and a focus on a specific unreached people group. We hope this gives you both a macro and a micro look at specific areas of the world.)

The region defined by the United Nations as South-Central Asia—comprising the states from Bangladesh through to Kazakhstan and Iran—has the largest and fastest-growing population of any region in the world. In 1900 nearly 313 million people lived in this area; by 2025 this number is expected to climb to over two billion, one-third of which will live in urban areas. Over 525 million children (twenty-nine percent of the world total, more than any other region) are growing up here.

South-Central Asia is resource rich and has a multiplicity of cultures and religions: the Muslims of Pakistan, the Hindus of India and the Buddhists of Bhutan and Nepal being the best known. For the purposes of describing the Ethne06 global prayer campaign, we will separate Central Asia (comprising Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan) out and cover it in the October issue of Lausanne World Pulse.

There are a dizzying array of ethnic groups, particularly in India, that are split by language, culture and caste group (which still exists in practice if not formally accepted). The World Christian Database lists nearly forty “World A” (heavily unevangelized) people groups with one million or more members. In addition to these large, least-reached groups there are hundreds of smaller unreached peoples as well.

Despite its massive human-power resource, however, South-Central Asia produces only ten percent of Asia’s total Gross National Product (GNP) and three percent of the world’s GNP. Certain regions of India have benefited greatly from globalization, and Bangladesh may be next in line, but the rest have been too unconnected or undeveloped to participate much in the information age—yet. Some of the world’s largest slums—extremely poor urban regions where adequate safe water, sanitation, shelter and power are not reliably available—can be found here.

Christianity in South-Central Asia
The governments in the region are either non-Christian or based on non-Christian cultures. Most are generally opposed to mission work, especially if it is done by foreigners. India’s long-standing democracy has had religious freedom in principle, but extremists have led the charge against both Muslims and Christians and persecution has increased sharply in recent years. Whether this continues over the next twenty-five years depends on prayer and Christian activism.

Religious issues and tensions have a central role in the events and history of the region. According to tradition, Christianity was first brought to India by the Apostle Thomas.

One particularly colorful legend depicts the apostles initially throwing lots to divide the world amongst themselves, and Thomas’ lot falling to India. When he refuses to go, Christ appears in a vision to a traveling Indian merchant who is seeking a carpenter. “I have a slave who is a carpenter,” Christ tells the merchant. “I will sell him to you” (In those days the disciples often called themselves “slaves of Christ.”). The next day Christ appears in a vision to Thomas and leads him to the Indian merchant, who tells Thomas he had bought Thomas from “his master.”

Whether or not this story is true, Christianity had a very early start in Asia and likely Thomas and those who followed him had much to do with it. Today, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity all have significant numbers of adherents. Fundamentalists and liberals war with each other: mostly with words but sometimes with violence. Islam and Hinduism together form a solid majority in the region. Christianity is a distant third; as with East Asia, however, India’s small percentage translates to large numbers.