Free Books and Classes: Behind UP Police’s ‘Conversion’ Arrests of South Indian-Origin Social Workers

New Delhi: “Propagating religion and promoting good things about religion is not a crime,” a local court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district noted on December 14 as it granted bail to six persons, including two south Indian-origin social workers, accused of converting lower caste and marginalised members of the Hindu community to Christianity through allurements and inducements.

In the last two weeks, police in eastern UP have arrested at least four persons hailing from south Indian states on charges of allegedly trying to convert backward caste and tribal Hindus through allurements of providing them a better life and free education and health facilities.

In the first case, lodged in the backward Sonbhadra district, on the complaint of an office-bearer of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, police booked 42 persons under Sections 3 and 5 (1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. Nine persons, including a person from Andhra Pradesh and one from Tamil Nadu, were arrested. In another case, police in Sant Kabir Nagar on December 11 arrested a couple originally from Kerala on charges of allegedly alluring a woman from the backward caste Nishad community to convert and for insulting Hindu deities.

“They were creating a situation of caste conflict,” Narsingh Tripathi, the VHP activist who lodged the police complaint in Sonbhadra, told The Wire on what motivated him to file the FIR.

On November 29, an FIR was registered at Chopan police station in Sonbhadra on Tripathi’s complaint, which alleged that the accused persons were trying to convert “bholi bhali” (naïve) and deprived people living in the tribal dominated areas. They were also afflicted by superstition, Tripathi claimed.

The FIR named 42 persons including Christian social workers Jai Prabhu, Chheka Emmanuel and K Sojanya. Prabhu, 40, a teacher, hails from Chennai and has been living in Sonbhadra since 2011 after he came to a local church.  Chekka Emmanuel and his wife K. Sojanya hail from Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh but have been residents of Sonbhadra for the past few years.

Those named in the FIR include pastors Sanjay John, Chotu Ranjan, Sohanram and Sant Lal Gond, Prakash HL Marandi (a teacher of St. Joseph’s school Shaktinagar, a co-educational English Medium School, established in 1978, and managed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allahabad Education Society), sanitation workers Durgawati Devi and Parmanand, and priest Fr. Paras.

Most of the accused belong to the Dalit, OBC and tribal communities.

Tripathi accused them of helping poor tribals financially, and distributing money and other essential items among them in order to get them converted to Christianity.

They misled the “poor and illiterate people” by providing their children free education, free school uniforms, free books and do jhaad–phoonk (a style of exorcism) to cure them of ailments at changai sabhas held every Sunday, he alleged in the FIR, a copy of which is with The Wire. Tripathi also alleged that the accused provided free treatment in Christian hospitals and while doing so gave the public from the tribal areas allurements to make them believe that “Jesus Christ is the only Eshwar (lord)” and “Christian faith is the only way to kalyan (welfare).”

Through such allurements and promises, he said, “they (the people) are psychologically mesmerized towards conversion.”

Sonbhadra police ASP (headquarters) Kalu Singh said the natives of Southern states had been residing in Sonbhadra for the last few years. Nine out of the 42 had been arrested so far, he said.

Police claimed they had recovered over 100 religious items used by the accused to convert people. These included 10 copies of the Bible, 13 holy scriptures, 307 prayer pamphlets, five talking Bible audio tapes, a convention song CD and other prayer books, including one named ‘UP ke liye prarthana pushtak’ (A book of prayer for UP).

While the FIR was lodged in Chopan area, the accused were spread across the district, which is known to be mineral-rich and shares a border with Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

‘What motive?’

Tripathi claimed that he had unearthed a “web” of illegal conversion. While he told The Wire that he was an office-bearer of the VHP, he said the FIR was lodged in his individual capacity.

“What motive did they have in coming to Sonbhadra all the way from Chennai and other southern states? They didn’t come here for a job or business,” he said, when asked why he accused Jai Prabhu, Emmanuel Chekka and K. Sojanya of illegal conversion.

In their bail applications, Prabhu, Emmanuel and four others said the allegations in the FIR against them were “baseless” and “imaginary” and accused the police of misusing the anti-conversion law. They argued that the complainant Tripathi nor his family nor anyone else had been converted by them. “There is no mention of anyone who was converted. The complainant considers himself thekadar of the dharm (contractor of the Hindu faith),” the accused said.

Prabhu and Emmanuel told the court they were teachers.

Sessions judge, Sonbhadra, Ashok Kumar Yadav granted them bail, observing that at this stage it did not appear that the accused converted people by force or against their wishes. It “cannot be said with certainty” that they deceived people through inducements to leave their religion and adopt the Christian faith, judge Yadav noted.

The judge also commented on the religious material seized from the accused, saying that it was not against the law for a person who followed a religion to have in his or her possession religious material related to it.

‘Free tuition classes in a Brahminical system’

An aide of the accused persons, speaking to The Wire on condition of anonymity, said the VHP activist had no locus standi in lodging an FIR when those who were allegedly converted had not complained to the police. “By this means we have no right to even propagate our religion? People come to these sabhas on their own will. Nobody forces them.”

He said he feels the VHP targeted them because the sabhas were making SCs and STs in the area aware about their rights. “Their main problem is that people should remain the way they were, that is under control of the Brahmanical system,” he said, clarifying that those who attended these prayer meets hadn’t formally converted to Christianity and continue to follow their Hindu culture. “They follow their indigenous culture and Hindu faith but have Jesus in their hearts,” he said.

The source as well as local police said that Prabhu and Emmanuel, who Tripathi has accused as being “ringmasters” of unlawful conversion, gave free tuition lessons to underprivileged children and helped their families with free medical treatment.

SHO Chopan Vishwanath Pratap Singh said while nine persons were arrested, they were gathering more evidence against possible others of the others.  Police were recording statements of “independent witnesses” who were allegedly converted at these meetings and gathering “supporting evidence” for the allegations made by Tripathi in the FIR, Singh said. The accused had a “network in the entire district,” he said.

Satyajeet Gupta, SP of Sant Kabir Nagar, said a case had been registered at Khalilabad police station against Jose Pulluvelil and Elma Pulluvelil, who hail from Pathanamthitta district of Kerala, on the complaint of one Nirmala Nishad who alleged that the accused had assured her that she would find her son, who was missing since three years, if she converted to Christianity. Nishad also alleged that the accused used insulting language for Hindu deities, tore her kalava (religious threat worn on the wrist) and removed her mangalsutra and bichiya (toe ring). Nishad had alleged that the accused would induce people from Dalit communities to convert in the prarthna sabhas (prayer meetings) held in her village every Sunday.

Gupta said the couple was sent to judicial custody after their statements were recorded.

Textbook cases

The Sonbhadra case, though one among the hundreds of FIR lodged by the BJP government in UP under the anti-conversion law since 2020, appears to be a textbook case of what a forceful conversion is in the eye of the state. In August 2021, seven months after the state government introduced a stringent new law against unlawful conversion, it submitted an affidavit in the Allahabad high court providing two illustrations of “forced conversion” in response to petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law. One of the illustrations involved inter-faith marriages involving Hindu women. The second one was about Christian missionaries allegedly trying to convert Dalits.

It talked about a group of Christian missionaries visiting a Dalit busty to allure every member of the community with the promise that if they started believing in God or started reading the Bible, they would be provided with a free training course as a nurse and later a job in a hospital. The missionaries allure them to leave their faith based on these assurances. The Dalits leaving their faith on the basis of these assurances, amounts to a forced conversion, the state government informed the HC. The Dalits in this case did not have a freedom of choice but their choice was obtained by certain allurement, the government said.

This article is originally published on https://thewire.in/government/uttar-pradesh-police-religious-conversion-south-india