Seven families who left their tribal religion to become Christians were evicted from a forested village in south Odisha last month. Forced out by the tribal village council, the families are now without proper food or shelter and are facing the brunt of the heavy monsoon season in India. Although the incident occurred in June, the news only recently became public, as the village is deep in the forest areas of the district of Malkangiri in Odisha. Christian workers and pastors are providing some relief materials to the seven families. A member of one of the families recorded a small video on their phone and shared it on social media. In the video, a man shares how his family became Christians five years ago and how the non-Christian village members used to harass them to return to their tribal faith. He added that his family and the other families are in danger because of their professed faith in Christ, and he asked for prayer. In June this year, villagers beat up members of the Christian families and threw their belongings out in the rain, which destroyed them. The villagers also threatened to kill the Christians if they returned to the village. Speaking to International Christian Concern

India, the world’s largest democracy, has been hailed as a beacon of democracy in the developing world. However, in recent years, India’s democracy has come under threat, with a number of worrying trends emerging. There has been serious concern worldwide about an ominous trend of India’s backsliding democracy in the last few years. India’s Human Freedom Index has already plummeted 17 spots to 111th rank out of 162 countries, and the country was ranked 142 in the Press Freedom Index. The country has also witnessed a fall of 26 spots in the Global Economic Freedom Index along with low scores on academic freedom and internet freedom indices. All these factors hint at a steady decline of political democracy in India. Erosion of Democratic Institutions The erosion of democratic institutions has been phenomenal. One of the key indicators of a healthy democracy is the strength of its institutions. In India, however, these institutions have been under threat in recent years. The judiciary, for example, has been subject to political interference, with the appointment of judges becoming increasingly politicized. In 2018, four senior judges of the Supreme Court held a press conference to express their concerns about the functioning of the court, including the allocation

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumes his third term, the IPI global network calls on his administration to honour commitments to ruling with “true faith and allegiance to the constitution” by prioritizing freedom of the press and the safety of journalists. Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian constitution guarantees the right “to freedom of speech and expression”, which can only be restricted to a “reasonable” extent on narrow grounds. Freedom of the press is an especially vital category of protected speech; independent and pluralistic news is essential to the function of democracy. A free and independent press enables citizens to be informed and to hold the powerful to account. Today, IPI reiterates its call on the Modi government to take concrete steps to protect these rights, noting that press freedom has deteriorated dramatically under the prime minister’s previous terms. A year ago, IPI outlined steps that needed to be taken to protect press freedom in India. In the past year, little progress has been made in these key areas. We therefore once again draw attention to the following issues that are undermining press freedom and threatening journalists’ ability to carry out their work freely and safely. “Lawfare” against the press: Indian authorities have weaponized

The United Christian Forum (UCF), an ecumenical group, has expressed anguish over what it calls “saffron-tinged” ruling of the Allahabad High Court. Justice Rohit Ranjan Aggarwal, while rejecting the bail application of a person accused under Uttar Pradesh state’s anti-conversion law, stated that if unlawful conversion at religious gatherings continued the country’s majority population would become minority one day. Such religious congregations, it asserted, “should be immediately stopped where the conversion is taking place and changing religion of citizen of India.” Reacting to the July 1 court ruling, the Christian forum asks, “Are courtrooms being ‘Converted’ into majoritarian theaters?” The New Delhi-based forum, in its July 4 statement, urged the court to expunge “the sweeping allegations made against the entire Christian community” in its order. The forum asserts that Christians are “as much citizens of India as anyone else and deserve equal protection under the law.” The court, the forum says, should limit its focus to the case’s criminal law aspect rather than making “sweeping statements” swayed by “majoritarian religious considerations.” Such observations, the forum warns, could expose Christians to further persecution. The bail application was filed by a person named Kailash who was accused of taking people from Uttar Pradesh’s Hamirpur to Delhi for “conversion” to Christianity.

Church leaders have condemned an Indian court order to jail for five months a well-known social activist at the center of a 23-year-old libel suit. Medha Patkar, a renowned human rights activist, was sentenced by a metropolitan court in the national capital New Delhi on July 1 in a case filed by the current Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena in 2001. The court directed Patkar to pay 1 million Indian rupees (some US$12,000) in compensation to Saxena, a leader of the right-wing Bharatiya Janta Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose administration is known for targeting social activists, writers, students, lawyers, and journalists.“Convicting Medha Patkar is a travesty of justice,” activist priest Father Cedric Prakash told UCA News on July 2. After all, it is a 23-year-old case, Prakash noted. In 2000, Saxena, who headed an NGO in the western Indian state of Gujarat, published an advertisement against Patkar's Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA ), a movement that opposed the construction of dams over the Narmada River in western India. After the advertisement, Patkar issued a statement alleging that Saxena was “mortgaging the people of Gujarat and their resources before Bill Gates.” Subsequently, Saxena filed a libel suit against her in a Gujarat court in 2001.

The Allahabad High Court today adjourned hearing in a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) plea seeking to rename HC as the "High Court of Uttar Pradesh" in the official documents after it noted that a PIL plea, filed by the petitioner's advocate himself seeking identical reliefs, had been dismissed in 2020. A bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla categorically asked the petitioner's advocate, Ashok Pandey, as to why he didn't disclose the fact regarding the dismissal of a PIL plea filed in his name seeking similar relief (re-naming the High Court as Prayagraj High Court or Uttar Pradesh High Court). Responding to the division bench's query, Advocate Pandey said that he had forgotten about the dismissal of the PIL plea (filed in his name) and that he should have been careful to specify this fact while moving the instant PIL plea seeking identical relief. However, before the bench adjourned the hearing in the matter, Advocate Pandey contended before the Court that 19 of the Country's high courts had been named after the states where they were situated; however, the same was not the case with the other 6 High Courts. It was his primary contention before the Court that since all

A top court in a northern Indian state has called for a stop to Christian religious meetings saying they may lead to the conversion of majority Hindus to Christianity. A single bench of Allahabad High Court on July 1 told the Uttar Pradesh government to immediately stop “such religious congregations… where conversion is taking place.” Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal also said that “if this process is allowed to be carried out, the majority population of this country would be in the minority one day.” He reportedly made the observations while rejecting the bail plea of Kailash who was charged under the provisions of the state’s stringent law that criminalizes religious conversion. Police had booked Kailash, who was mentioned by a single name, for allegedly taking along an acquaintance from Hamirpur village to Delhi to attend a social gathering where many people converted to Christianity. “It has come to the notice of this court in several cases that unlawful activity of conversion of people of Scheduled Castes [Dalits or former untouchables] and Scheduled Tribes [indigenous tribal people] and other castes, including economically poor persons, to Christianity is being done at rampant pace throughout the state,” Agarwal observed during the hearing. He said that Article 25 of the

Peace is proving elusive in India’s strife-torn Manipur due to diametrically opposite demands raised by warring tribal Christians and majority Hindus. Christians belonging to the Kuki and Zo tribes want a federally-ruled region after the 15-month-old violence claimed more than 220 lives and left more than 50,000 displaced, mostly Christians. But the Meitei Hindus are against the bifurcation of the hilly state in India’s northeast, bordering civil-war-hit Myanmar. The Kuki-Zo Christians form nearly 41 percent of the state’s 3.2 million people while the Meiteis constitute nearly 53 percent. “The division between both the communities is complete and there seems to be no immediate chance of any co-existence,” a Church leader told UCA News on July 1. The indigenous communities are not allowing Meitei Hindus to enter their areas, the Church leader added. The indigenous people especially Kuki-Zo tribal Christians have been eliminated from Meitei strongholds like the capital Imphal, noted the Christian leader who sought anonymity. Thousands of people, including women and children, from the Meitei community staged a protest in Imphal on June 28 to preserve “the territorial integrity of the state of Manipur.” The protestors shouted “no separate administration,” referring to the demand raised by tribal Christians at their rallies on June 24 in five tribal

Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) has slammed what it called attempts by vested interests to divide the Christian community. A statement issued by the Bishops’ Council claimed that there are political leaders, who want to get a firm grip on Kerala society, and are attempting to divide the community. Moves by such political leaders need to be condemned, the statement added. There have been allegations open as well as subtle that the church leadership and the faithful are divided over issues. Recently BJP state president K. Surendran made some remarks that are aimed at creating the divide, the bishops added. Mr. Surendran claimed that Christians in the State did not heed the voice of church leaders and voted for the BJP, the statement said. This article is originally published on https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/kcbc-slams-bid-by-political-leaders-to-divide-christian-community/article68355353.ece