• Ram Puniyani

The main objective of the propaganda against Christian missionaries is their activities in tribal areas, where they are empowering the tribal through treatment of their sick and their education. This is unacceptable to the organizations like ‘VHP’and ‘Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram’.

In its recently released report, the ‘Freedom House’ has reduced India’s status from ‘Free’ (Independent) to ‘Partly Free’ (Partly Independent). The reason for this is the atmosphere of intolerance prevailing in India and the state’s dealings with journalists, protestors and minorities. The incident at Jhansi railway station on 19 March reflects this situation. On that day, two nuns of the Sacred Heart Congregation, going from Delhi to Odisha with two girls, were forced to get off the train.

In fact, some activists of organizations like Bajrang Dal and ABVP alleged that the nuns were involved in proselytism (conversion of one’s religion).They asked the nuns to produce the documents of identification of those girls and, also, enquired about the religion of the two. From the videos of the incidents, it is clear, that the manner of speaking of the activists was extremely aggressive and insulting.

The girls said that they are both Christians and want to become nuns. Then, Police was called, who took the four of them into custody. They were allowed to continue their journey the next day. The Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement saying that both the nuns were detained and humiliated without cause. Since both the nuns were from Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah expressing his deprecation and demanded an inquiry into the entire matter.

Bajrang Dal and ABVP activists were intimidating women, citing the Uttar Pradesh’s Unlawful Conversion of Religion Prohibition Act. Such acts by activists of right-wing organizations have increased rapidly in the last few years. This has happened for two reasons. The first is that they are well-aware that nothing would happen to them due to dealing in such acts. Secondly, they also know that by doing such acts, they can steal all the limelight and can be fairly rewarded by the top leaders of the BJP.

The incident may not be widely discussed in the media, but it is a fact that Christian clergy have been facing such situations for a long time. According to the Persecution Relief Report-2019, the incidences of attacks on Christian congregations have increased, especially on Sunday morning prayer meetings and religious ceremonies in homes. Pastors and devotees are beaten and, in many cases, have been crippled. Even churches are vandalized. Instead of delivering justice to the victims and taking legal action against their attackers, the police arrest the victims themselves on the charge that they are proselytizing (trying to convert Hindus into Christians). Hundreds of Christians have been arrested up till now after being falsely accused of this wicked practice.

The Freedom House report discusses the attacks on Muslims prominently. The incidents of attacks on Muslims have been gaining more prominence, whereas attacks on Christians are not discussed as much. Violence against Christians in India began in the 1990s and from the beginning, its nature was somewhat different from attacks on Muslims. The first major incident of attack on Christians was the burning alive of Pastor Graham Staines in 1999 with his two minor children. Dara Singh (Rajendra Pal) of the Bajrang Dal had encouraged the people to behave ruthlessly with the pastor on the pretext that he was converting Hindus in the name of serving leprosy affected patients.

The country was ruled by the NDA at that time. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and LK Advani held the post of Home Minister. At that time, Advani had said that he knew the Bajrang Dal workers very well and the workers could not do such an act. The incident was so horrific that the then President KR Narayanan had called it ‘another entry in the world’s list of most heinous crimes’. The NDA government had formed a high-level committee of ministers to investigate the incident, forced by extensive discussion at the national and international levels.

The committee consisted of Murali Manohar Joshi, George Fernandes and Naveen Patnaik. The committee drew the conclusion that the incident was part of an international conspiracy to destabilize the NDA government. Advani had also appointed the Wadhwa Commission to investigate the incident. The Wadhwa Commission concluded that the Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh, used to participate in the activities of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Vishwa Hindu Parishad etc. The Commission had also found that there was no increase in the population of Christians in the area where Pastor Staines worked.

After this incident, anti-Christian violence became common in different areas of the country. Such incidents occurred in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, Dang in Gujarat and several areas of Odisha. Every year around Christmas, incidents of attacks on Christians began to increase. The violence against Christians touched heights when a violent incident took place in Kandhamal in Odisha in August 2008, in which around a hundred Christians were killed, hundreds of churches were either damaged or burnt to ashes and thousands of Christians had to flee.

The National People’s Tribunal, constituted under the chairmanship of Former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court A.P. Shah, came to the conclusion that ‘Whatever happened in Kandhamal was a matter of national shame and has been a blot on the face of humanity. Victims are still being intimidated, are not being provided security and are being denied justice. ‘

It becomes a pre-conceived notion in areas wherever anti-Christian violence is taking place in the country, that Christian missionaries are receiving huge amount of money from abroad and they are converting Hindus to Christianity by luring them. It may be true that the missionaries of some sects of Christians aim to convert people’s Faith and religion, but the only goal of most of them is not to convert people to Christianity - at least not by allurement and fraud.

Christianity came to India about two thousand years ago. It is said that St. Thomas had reached the Malabar coast in 52 CE and had established churches there. Since then, Christian missionaries have been working in many parts of the country, ranging from remote rural areas to major cities. Their main focus is on education and health. Now here, we also cannot forget that many Hindutva mega-stars including Advani and Jaitley have studied in these Christian missionary schools themselves.

The main objective of the propaganda against the Christian missionaries is to stall obstacles in the way of their activities in the tribal areas. They are providing relief to the sick in tribal areas and empowering tribal through education. Since the 1980s, the main focus of the VHP and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram is on tribal areas. Their masters remain busy working there, few of whom are - Aseemanand in Dang, Gujarat, Laxmananda in Odisha and AsaramBapu in Jhabua.

‘Shabri’ and ‘Hanuman’ are being called the Gods of the tribal and are being related Hinduism. This propaganda is at the root of the violence against them and, as a result of this propaganda, incidents like that of Jhansi are taking place.

The author is a former professor of biomedical engineering and former senior medical officer affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.