Christian Minorities Religious Persecution immune to COVID-19
Dr. John Dayal
Dec 2021
Anti-minority sentiment is being peddled by State and non-State actors in order to polarize society for political gains. The State has often been seen to be complicit with non-state actors in targeted violence against the Christian community.
Violence against Christians by non-state actors in India stems from an environment targeted hate. The translation of the hate into violence is sparked by a sense of impunity generated in India’s administrative apparatus.
COVID-19, which has severely impacted data collection, grassroots investigations and even a measure of solidarity with victims in distant villages, seems to have given the police a ruse not to register cases – police have generally been loath to register cases. Access to courts for relief was restricted too. The violence was also facilitated by the absence of civil society on the streets as activists were unable to travel because of lockdowns restrictions and because of the collapse of the media.
The consummately organized hate campaign against the Muslim population, beginning mid¬ December 2019, and erupting in mid-February 2020 in the Northeastern suburbs of Delhi has raised structural questions on the security of all religious minorities in the country, especially in extraordinary situations of social isolation as under the COVID curfew, with the Christian community questioning how safe they are if the Muslims are so brutally targeted. This is borne out by the fact that a lynching, community ostracization and concerted efforts to stop worship and gospel¬ sharing, mark the cases registered by the Christian agencies such as the Religious Liberties Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, whose pan-India grassroots connect makes its information is the most comprehensive. It is, admittedly, not anywhere near what must be taking place in remote villages and townships where the police do not record many, and the frightened victims themselves fear they will be assaulted even more if they go to the authorities. Political excoriation, police impunity, and vigilante groups on their trail, marked the experience of many Christian communities in several parts of the country at the height of the COVID-19 spread.
In the 327 cases recorded the EFI Religious Liberty Commission and other Christian agencies including a national Helpline co-founded by the EFI five years ago, at least five people lost their lives, at least six Churches were burnt or demolished, and 26 incidents of social boycott were recorded. This is by no means an exhaustive list of incidents.
The religious freedom situation has to be seen in the context of an unbridled push for a majoritarian political framework in the country with laws tweaked against minorities in various ways. Social scientists, political scholars and activists have written “Federalism has ceased to exist, and the last vestige of trust has been exterminated. The space for free speech has been drastically curtailed: dissent has been rechristened as anti- nationalism and sedition, and dozens of academics, social workers, students, activists, and journalists have been incarcerated for being critical of the government. Hate speech laws are being applied selectively, sending a clear signal that remarks against a particular community will attract no punishment.” Some popular TV channels amplifying this targeted hate were, in fact, fined 20,000 pounds by the UK watchdog late in 2020.
The most alarming development has been the expansion and scope of the notorious Freedom of Religion Acts, which are popularly known as the anti-conversion laws, earlier enforced in 7 states, to many more states ruled by the Bhartiya Janata Party. Once targeting only Christians, they are now armed also against Muslims in the guise of curbing ‘Love Jihad’. This is an Islamophobic term coined some years ago to demonize marriages between Muslim men and non-Muslim women, particularly those belonging to the Hindu upper castes. The laws ostensibly punish forced or fraudulent religious conversions. But in practice, they are used to criminalize all conversions, especially in non-urban settings.
On 31 October 2000 Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh announced that a law to curb ‘Love Jihad’ would be passed by his government. With no legislative discussion, it became law by an ordinance passed by the state Governor, Mrs. Anandiben Patel. In December, Madhya Pradesh approved an anti-conversion bill like the Uttar Pradesh one. Madhya Pradesh already has an anti-conversion law. By end of 2020, BJP-ruled states, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Karnataka have designed to prevent “forcible conversions” through marriage. Punishment can be as long as ten years in prison.
With the passing of the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, Uttar Pradesh has become the eighth state in India to enforce an anti-conversion law. Similar laws are in force in the states of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand. The states of Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan have passed anti-conversion laws that are not in force for various reasons, and Tamil Nadu has passed and repealed its anti- conversion law.
Since the law came into effect in the Uttar Pradesh state, as per media reports, till the end of the year, the police in the state have registered 14 cases and made 51 arrests, of whom 49 are in jail. Out of this the ‘victim’ has filed a complaint in only two cases. The rest of the cases were filed by others including relatives. Two cases, under the new law, have been registered against Christians in Uttar Pradesh: one in Gautam Buddha Nagar and the other in Azamgarh. Responding. To several writ petitions, the Supreme Court of India has agreed to examine the constitutional validity of laws enacted by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand but has said they need to be first challenged in the respective high courts.
Christian activists fear that the expanding footprint of the anti-conversion laws bring a step closer the BJP’s manifesto promising a nation-wide law to check evangelization by “missionaries”, a term designed to impute western conspiracy to Christianize Dalits, Tribals and others in rural areas, small towns and urban slums. This, together with the accusation of Islamic population explosion because of the high birth rate, feeds the orchestrated rhetoric that the Hindu population will become a minority which underpins electoral propaganda in India.
As a result of the anti-conversion laws, religious minorities can now be targeted by just about anyone, especially vigilante groups many of whom are complicit in the mob violence of earlier years in campaigns against beef and the slaughter of cows. Moreover, this law places the burden of proof on the person who has been accused of conversion. Former Delhi High Court judge and former chairman of the National Law Commission, Justice AP Shah commented on this law and noted that it, “reflects the philosophy of a khap panchayat, with the objective essentially being to subjugate women.” He said that the law strikes “at the very root of right to life and liberty guaranteed under the constitution”. “In any criminal case (where) conversion is presumed to be illegal, the burden of proof is usually on the prosecution. In this ordinance, every religious conversion is presumed to be illegal. The burden of proof lies on the person accused of illegal conversion to prove that it is not illegal. So, there is a presumption of guilt. The offence is cognizable. It is non-bailable, and the police can arrest anyone,” Justice Shah observed. Uttar Pradesh once again heads the list of regions where the Christian minority has been targeted the most. RLC registered 95 incidents against the Christian community in the state in 2020. It is followed by Chhattisgarh with 55 incidents, most taking place in the tribal region of Bastar, now saturated by volunteers from Hindu right-wing organizations posted to “counter Christian influence. In fact, there is a well-planned political campaign by these groups to ‘Hindutvaize’ tribal society. In Chhattisgarh, as in contiguous tribal regions, these groups face almost no political challenge. The Church has been present in the state and in the region for the last 200 years.
The push of the Hindu Right wing in Jharkhand is ominously similar to that of Chhattisgarh and has resulted in violence and social boycott of the Christians. Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh registered 28 and 25 incidents, respectively. Tamil Nadu in south India had 23 incidents. The state had the second largest number of cases in 2019, registering 60 incidents of some sort of violent action against the Christian community. It is the fifth highest in 2020.
The most horrendous case of lynching and dismembering of the victim’s body was reported from Odisha’s Kenduguda village in Malkangiri district on 4 June, where a 14¬year¬old Christian boy was allegedly crushed to death with a stone by a group of people who then chopped the body into pieces and buried in several places. In the FIR, the police noted that the victim and his family including his father had adopted Christianity three years ago. Since then, a few of the villagers have been harassing them. Christians in this village have been facing many threats and are being harassed by religious fanatics, Pastor Kosha Mosaki said. “He was earlier attacked in February this year. I have made 4 complaints at the Malkangiri police Station regarding these attacks.” On 31 May 2020 in Budhakaman village, West Singhbhum district, Jharkhand, in a follow-up of the 10 May incident, a group of tribals returned and set the church building cross on fire. Pastor Sudarshan Sinku’s wife Suman Sinku reported that the police later summoned both parties to the Jagannathpur police station. Village chief Vignesh Tiriya again told the Christians to produce certificates to prove their Christian faith.
On 22 and 23 September 2020 in Kakdabeda, Singanpur, and Tiliyabeda villages of Kondagaon district, Chhattisgarh, around 16 houses were completely razed by villagers under the influence of Hindutva extremists. A largescale social boycott and attacks were launched against the unsuspecting Christians. They were called to a village council meeting before the attacks, told to denounce their Christian beliefs or opt to leave the village. The Christian men fled from their homes leaving their families behind since and are in hiding. Though a complaint was lodged at the Kondagaon police station, no concrete action was taken against the vandals. Christians registered three complaints – one with Kondagaon police on Sept. 20 based on signs of impending danger, the other with the superintendent of police’s office in Kondagaon on Sept. 22 and the third with the district collector on Thursday (Sept. 24). Instead, the police and administration sought to solve the matter through negotiation.
The most bizarre incident which caught the eyes of the international media took place on 19 March 2021 in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, when four nuns from the Delhi Province of the Sacred Heart Society (SH) were arrested while on their way to Odisha from Delhi. The incident occurred while the train in which they were traveling stopped at 6.30 pm at Jhansi railway station. A group of religious extremists, who were returning from a pilgrimage, unjustifiably accused them of religious conversion and caused trouble. They challenged the faith of the women and raised religious slogans. Subsequently police arrived at the spot and arrested the women without paying any heed to their side of the story. Around 150 religious radicals accompanied the women in procession to the police station. The terrified nuns were released at 11.30 pm after the intervention from advocacy groups convinced police that the nuns were innocent and had credible documents to prove their story.
Dr John Dayal is a researcher, writer, and occasional documentary filmmaker. He is the co-founder and Secretary-General of the All-India Christian Council and two-term National President of All India Catholic Union Spokesman of the United Christian Forum.
