Rise in attacks on Christians coincides with enactment of anti-conversion laws, petitioners tell SC
The petitioners also alleged that groups linked to the Union government are behind the communal attacks. The attacks on members of the Christian community increased after 2021 and they coincide with the enactments of anti-conversion laws in several states, petitioners told the the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Live Law reported. Anti-conversion laws have been enacted by BJP governments in nine states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. The laws require prior permission for religious conversions for marriage. The states have either passed new anti-conversion laws or updated existing ones after 2017. The new versions of the laws put in place stricter punishments and newer grounds for restricting conversions, such as conversion “by marriage” – where a person who adopts another faith to enter into a marriage would be deemed to have been forcibly converted. The Supreme Court is hearing pleas filed by Bengaluru Archbishop Peter Machado, the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellowship of India alleging an increase in attacks on Christians in India. The Centre has maintained there is no merit in the pleas. “It is a recent trend that certain organisations start planting articles and preparing self-serving reports themselves or through their associates, which
2 Indian priests arrested during raid on orphanage
St. Francis Sevadham Orphanage, located on a prime 277-acre plot of land in Madhya Pradesh, is constantly targeted Two Catholic priests have been arrested in the central Indian Madhya Pradesh state for allegedly obstructing government officials when they came for a surprise raid of a Catholic orphanage. The priests were, however, released on bail by a court on May 8, hours after they were arrested for allegedly preventing the members of the state's child rights panel during the raid on St. Francis Sevadham Orphanage in Shyampur in Sagar diocese. “We were charged with false case after we objected to the inspection team, which wanted to climb on the altar,” said Father E. P. Joshy, youth director of Sagar diocese, who was picked up by the state police along with Father Naveen B. Joshy came to the campus of the orphanage following information that a team from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, led by its chairperson Priyank Kanoongo, was conducting a flash raid. “The team besides inspecting the orphanage also searched the church, convent, presbytery, and two hostels of children,” the priest said. “Father Naveen and I tried to tell them that the altar of a church for any Catholic is divine. But they
Manipur violence portends fires in India’s tribal belt
The ruling BJP backs tribe status for the state’s Hindu Meitei but wants to deny it to tribal Christians in other states By all accounts, the violence in India’s northeastern state of Manipur has been a long time coming. If anything, the governments—both in the state and in New Delhi—led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took no steps to defuse tension or forestall violence. Manipur borders Myanmar and having a previous history of insurgencies has a heavy presence of the Indian army and paramilitary forces. It is also covered under the notorious Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA) which gives unfettered powers to the military and puts many of its actions, including the deaths of civilians at its hands, beyond the purview of the law. A conflict between two ethnic groups over constitutional status as tribes with reservations in jobs, education and elected bodies was allowed to turn anti-Christian. Christians, including Catholics, of all three or four communities in the region, the Meitei on the one hand and the Kukis, Hmars or Mizos, and Chins, on the other have been victims. The churches destroyed were creeping up towards the 100 mark as relief workers entered the troubled areas. Tens of thousands are homeless,
Justice Govind Mathur: The principles of democracy can’t be scarified at altar of majoritarianism
A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, in December 2019. | Reuters Just yesterday, my daughter asked me if “democracy” alone might not have sufficed in the topic of today’s speech. Was it necessary to include “constitutional”? I thought that was a significant question. We need to understand why we must stress on the Constitution, and why our democracy rests on the Constitution. Some days ago, in January this year, the Vice President of India [Jagdeep Dhankar] stated during a meeting attended by presiding officers of state legislatures that the judiciary was intruding into the territory of the legislature. He commented on the verdict of a case that was adjudicated by the Supreme Court 48 years ago, that settled in law that the basic structure of the Constitution could not be changed. He mentioned that if the elected representatives of the people of India in Parliament wished to change the Constitution, then that ruling of 1973, the Kesavananda Bharati case could not be cited to deny them that right. He contended that such opposition to changing the Constitution was against the principle of democracy. The judiciary, in the opinion of the Vice President, was extending its reach by ruling thus. According to the
Rubber sap may fail to bond PM Modi with Indian Christians
Narendra Modi’s visit to the southern state of Kerala may let in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh fox in the church chicken coop Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi possibly saved a few thousand rupees in aviation fuel for his high-security airplane, mixing his election campaign trip to Kerala with an official visit to launch a ferry and a metro train. But his meeting in his hotel with a bunch of heads of the different Christian denominations in the southern state may not bring him the political dividend his Malayalam-speaking assistants have promised him. Mercifully for the church delegation, the Latin Catholic Archbishop Joseph Kalathiparambil carried with him a written memorandum listing, among other issues, the concerns of the larger Indian Church outside the tiny but populous state of Kerala. Before the meeting, the media had widely reported that the bishops, largely representing the central Kerala faithful, were especially going to voice the concerns of the economically elite plantation owners and big traders. These include the demand for the federal government’s base support prices for natural rubber, which often faces international market fluctuations resulting in big losses to plantations and rubber traders in Kerala and Chennai. The other demand which has hit the headlines is for
Indian court remands 5 Christians on conversion charges
Critics say police acted on Hindu activist complaints although law says such complaints should only come from relatives A court in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state has remanded five Protestant Christians in custody, a day after police arrested 10 of them, including an 18-month-old baby, for allegedly violating a state law that criminalizes religious conversions. State police on April 23 detained several Christians attending Sunday services at two different churches in Kasimabad town in Ghazipur district following complaints from right-wing Hindu activists, who said the gatherings were attempting mass religious conversions. “The detained Christians were interrogated inside the churches. The Christians denied the accusation and asserted that the gatherings were part of routine Sunday services,” Pastor Dinanath Jaiswal, a local cleric and social worker, told UCA News on April 24. The police later took them to the police station and continued the interrogations. However, the women and children among them were released but 10 people were charged with violating the provisions of the state’s anti-conversion law. The detained — including a pastor who only goes by the name Kirubendra, his wife and their one-and-half-year-old daughter — were locked up in the police station for more than 24 hours, Jaiswal said. Later on April 24, the police
Christians to vote for change in southern Indian state
Karnataka ruled by the pro-Hindu BJP has seen a rise in attacks on Christians and their institutions Christians in the poll-bound southern Indian state of Karnataka are looking to usher in change as they say they have been left despondent living under ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “The BJP has alienated Christians with its discriminatory policies and open hatred towards us,” T Vellankanni Paul Raj, a Catholic leader based in the state capital Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), told UCA News on April 20. Christians form 1.87 percent of Karnataka’s 61 million people and the community has faced increasing harassment for years. But attacks against Christians saw a notable surge since the BJP assumed power by unseating a Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government in July 2019. A state anti-conversion law that came into effect in May 2022 led to a further uptick in violence against Christians and their institutions like schools and hospitals, he said. “We never indulge in any illegal or violent activity. Rather we work for nation-building. But still, the BJP government targeted us by enacting a stringent anti-conversion law ignoring our pleas against it,” Raj said. Discontent among Christians was aggravated further when Munirathna Naidu, the state minister for horticulture, at a public meeting in
Tribal Christians denied work, wages in central Indian state
Nine families have filed a written complaint with district's top revenue official demanding the ‘right to work’ Tribal Christians in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh are allegedly being denied livelihood opportunities in a district that witnessed violence and social boycotts against them in December last year. Nine Christian families from Garanji village on April 17 filed a complaint with the top revenue officer in Narayanpur district saying they were being denied employment as manual laborers because of their faith. In their written complaint, the families have named Gopal Dugga, head of the village council, for depriving them of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) Act 2005, a law that guarantees Indian citizens the right to work. Dugga and other influential villagers were targeting them for being Christians, the families said, and added they will be taking legal action against all those discriminating against them. The MGNREGS Act aims at enhancing the livelihood security of poor people in rural areas by guaranteeing hundred days of wage employment in a financial year. The nine Christian families alleged they were facing the brunt of an undeclared ban because of their faith and thus denied livelihood opportunities in the village. The Narayanpur district had witnessed
Indian Christians get bail four months after sectarian flare-up
Indian Christians get bail four months after sectarian flare-up Protestant church leaders were arrested in January after clashes with traditional animist believers in Chhattisgarh A top court in central India has granted bail to 10 Protestant Church leaders, who were arrested in January following sectarian violence between tribal Christians and traditional animist believers. The Bilaspur High Court, the top court in Chhattisgarh state, on April 19 granted bail to the Christian leaders, including pastors and evangelists, and asked them to cooperate with the police investigations. Lawyer Son Singh, who represented the Christian leaders, on April 20 said, “They will be out in a day or two after complying with the conditions of their bail.” The lawyer said his clients “were framed in a false case in which they had practically no role” and “their innocence will be proved" in the court. The Christian leaders were charged with rioting, being armed with deadly weapons, voluntarily causing hurt to public servants on duty, and criminal intimidation and assault. If convicted of all the charges, each of them faces punishments of up to 10 years in jail and fines. The Christian leaders were arrested in the first week of January amid violent clashes in the Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh between people
Indian Christians’ persecution claims false, govt says
Federal government tells Supreme Court that figures of attacks against Christians in their petition are incorrect Indian Christians paint a wrong image of the country by leveling false allegations of attacks against them, the federal government has claimed in the Supreme Court during the hearing of a petition seeking an end to the persecution of Christians. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the government, told a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud on April 13 that the data cited by the petitioners to prove their case is incorrect. “Petitioners claim there were some 500 incidents of attacks on Christians. We sent everything to the states… The attacks the petitioners speak of are internal fights between neighbors of which one of them would be a Christian. They have later resolved. The figures given are incorrect,” Mehta said in an affidavit submitted to the court. The petition was filed in 2021 by Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore along with the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellowship of India seeking directions from the top court to end the attacks on the community, their worship places, and other institutions. The petitioners have cited a report by the United Christian Forum, saying the country witnessed
