Indian tribal Christians face trouble in burying dead
It is a custom in Chhattisgarh to bury their dead in ancestral villages even after their conversion to Christianity
Updated: October 30, 2024 11:51 AM GMT
Indigenous Christians face difficulties in burying their dead because of their faith in a central Indian state, according to Church leaders.
“It is really painful to see villagers create obstacles in burying the dead,” said Protestant minister Jaldev Andhkury after he was released from jail for officiating the funeral service of one of his relatives in Bastar district in central Chhattisgarh state.
The 42-year-old Andhkury was among the seven people, including six pastors and a deacon, arrested after they joined the funeral service of Pastor Iswar Nag, his cousin, in his ancestral village in Chhindawada village.
It is a custom among villagers in Chhattisgarh to bury their dead in ancestral villages even after their conversion to Christianity.
Andhkury said their forefathers were buried in the village, but now villagers object to the burial of those who converted to Christianity.
“The villagers opposed the burial on the plea that it would bring misfortune to the village and summoned the police. But, we still buried the body in the century-old graveyard,” Andhkury told UCA News on Oct. 30, a week after being released from prison.
The police summoned seven of us who prayed over the body and arrested us after accusing us of creating law and order problems, he said.
They were released from prison on Oct. 22 after a local court accepted their bail pleas.
The villagers, along with police, wanted us to exhume the body from the graveyard, but “we refused,” he added.
The villagers have now threatened to move the court to exhume the body.
We have encountered “several such cases in Chhattisgarh,” admitted a lawyer who fights Christian cases.
Fifty-four-year-old Isvar Korram, an indigenous Christian, died on April 25, and his body was buried in his ancestral village following court intervention.
“We had to approach the courts as local villagers oppose burying our dead,” the lawyer who did not want to be named, fearing retribution,” told UCA News on Oct. 30.
“I have come across at least 25 cases where villagers refused to permit the burial of Christians,” Protestant Bishop Vijay Kumar Thobi said.
The pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi rules Chhattisgarh.
The state ranks second in the country with 127 incidents of violence against Christians in the past nine months, according to the United Christian Forum (UCF). This New Delhi-based ecumenical body records persecution against Christians in the country.
Christians make up less than 2 percent of Chhattisgarh’s 30 million people. Christians allege state patronage for the violence against them.
Nearly 18 villages in Narayanpur and 15 in Kondagaon districts were attacked by suspected right-wing Hindus in December 2022. Many people were injured during public beatings when they refused to give up their Christian faith.
A fact-finding team comprising human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists visited two affected districts and found social boycotts and violence forced hundreds of indigenous Christians to flee their homes.
