The Congress-led Karnataka government is yet to take a clear stance on whether Dalits who have converted to Christianity or Islam should receive the same reservation benefits as Scheduled Castes (SCs). This issue has recently come under scrutiny during a two-day meeting led by the Justice K.G. Balakrishnan Commission, which was held recently in the state to gather feedback on social welfare policies. A senior official from the Social Welfare Department has disclosed that the government remains “uncommitted” regarding the extension of SC benefits to Dalit converts. The official stated, “Karnataka can refrain from taking a stand on the issue as Dalit converts already fall under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category.” This position reflects the current policy, where Dalit Christians and Muslims benefit from reservations under the OBC category. At present, Karnataka provides a 4% reservation for Dalit Christians under Category 2-B. Dalit Muslims can access benefits through 17 Muslim communities listed in Category-1 and 19 communities in Category 2-A. Christians and Jains are classified under Category 3-B. The state has been cautious about modifying these categories, noting that states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have already granted SC reservation to Dalit converts. “There is a debate at the government level

A pastor and several members of his church were beaten on Sunday as Hindu nationalists attacked a worship service in Odisha on Sunday, accusing the church of forcefully converting Hindus to Christianity. Those who conducted the attack in the city of Bhubaneswar included members of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), the self-avowed protector of the Hindu religion, and Bajrang Dal, an RSS offshoot that is prone to violent attacks on minority communities. According to reports, the church had recently rented a three-story building to conduct its worship services. After the RSS and Bajrang Dal learned that more than 100 people were attending the church’s services, they decided to attack the church and make false allegations of forced conversions. Police arrived at the church and took some people, including Christians, to the police station for questioning. Members of the two Hindu nationalist organizations surrounded the police station in protest of the Christians. The situation only calmed down after a leader of the police arrived. Anti-conversion laws are increasingly used against churches and individual Christians throughout India. Meanwhile, another large Hindu gathering, or Hindu Mahasabha, has been announced in Odisha’s Nabarangpur district. The event follows on the heels of another large gathering commemorating the 18th anniversary

According to the Times of India, Uttar Pradesh arrested 1,682 under its strict anti-conversion law and has registered 835 cases – mainly against Christians. And Uttar Pradesh is moving to tighten that law. A new bill increases the maximum penalty for fraudulent or forced conversion to 20 years with provision for life imprisonment. Some 12 states in India have now passed anti conversion laws, reflecting the rise in Hindu religious nationalism and accompanying intolerance in the country. Intolerance rising Intolerance against Christians has been growing since the election of the nationalist BJP government in 2014. The party’s re-election in June has strengthened the hand of Hindu militants, and it is BJP-governed states that are leading the anti-conversion charge. The Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) recorded a record 601 cases of persecution against Christians in India last year – a rise of 45 per cent. They say 440 pastors were arrested in 2023. And in the first six months of 2024 there were 361 attacks against Christians, according to India’s United Christian Forum (UCF). The growing Hindutva nationalist movement aims to keep India a Hindu nation and to prevent Hindus from converting to Islam or Christianity. These spreading anti-conversion laws are a one-way street.

The problem with “fascism” as a description of any modern political tendency is that the term is a weapon of mass destruction that flattens the landscapes that it wants to describe. Fascism is so freighted with historically specific meaning that using it for other times and places can seem sloppy and excessive. And yet, juxtaposing the politics of contemporary south Asia with fascism, in its Nazi variant, serves a double purpose: it connects modern Indian majoritarianism with one of its ideological ancestors and it helps us name and identify the ideological kernel of fascism that survived to fight another day. India’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is the political arm of a Hindu militia, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925, around the time Adolf Hitler began to find his political bearings in a routed, angry Germany. The RSS is a nationalist militia that defines India as a Hindu nation; only Hindus can be members. While there are many similarities between the RSS and the fascist paramilitary organisations of the prewar decades, from uniformed drills and distinctive salutes to a persistent anxiety about masculinity, at the core of both is a feral ethnic nationalism that aims to mobilise

Bengaluru: The first public consultation in Karnataka by the Justice K G Balakrishnan Commission received an overwhelming opinion on Tuesday that Scheduled Caste (SC) benefits should not be given to Dalits who convert to religions other than Indian-origin faiths of Buddhism and Sikhism. About 100 members took part in the public hearing, of which nearly 95 per cent raised their hands against reservation. Members of various Dalit associations, Banjara pontiffs, Basavamurthy Madara Chennaiah Swami of Madara Guru Peetha, Chitradurga and BJP leaders appeared before the Commission to express their views. Arguing in favour of reservation, writer and Dalit activist Cynthia Stephen said Dalit Christians must get reservation as they were seen as untouchables despite conversion. The Dalit Christian Federation, in its petition, argued that when religion was not the criteria to provide reservation, Dalit Christians should not be denied the benefit. Making his submission, Banjara Guru Peetha seer Sardar Sevalal Swami said that the Commission should not recommend in favour of those who converted to religions born outside India as these religions had no roots in Indian ethos or culture. BJP SC Morcha president and Sakleshpur MLA Cement Manjunath claimed that Christians had lured SC people to convert and they were still being ill-treated there. “This is

Indian government declared war on the Adivasi (Indigenous) people of Central and East India in the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha and the bordering regions for the past two decades first with the launching of Salwa Judum in 2005 followed by Operation Green Hunt (the most comprehensive offensive yet) in 2009 and its subsequent intensification with the operations Prahar and Samadhan and then Operation Kagar (‘Last War’) launched in 2024. Thousands of Maoist revolutionaries (most of them being Adivasis), unarmed civilian Adivasi youth, women and children have been killed, brutally tortured, women raped and thousands more imprisoned in these two decades. Hundreds of thousands of military, para-military and police personnel, and quasi-vigilante groups have been deployed in these areas to displace, dispossess the Adivasis and either drive them out of the forest or subjugate them. They have launched even air strikes with drones. The Indian government and the state governments are resorting to such brutal oppression to serve the interests of big comprador capitalists and the imperialist MNCs. These Adivasi areas are huge reservoirs of various kinds of minerals, coal etc. During this process, the governments are violating the Indian Constitution and the very laws that the Indian parliament has

A mob of far-right Hindu groups assaulted Christian community members and disrupted their prayer meeting in Nawada city of Bihar on Sunday, September 1 accusing attendees of engaging in religious conversions. According to reports, the incident took place when a group of Christians had gathered for a Sunday prayer at the residence. The agitated mob, donning saffron scarves and shirts, barged into the house and interrupted the prayer. During the disruption, the assailants confronted the Christian members and accused them of attempting to manipulate Hindus and convert them.In a viral video that has surfaced on social media, the mob is heard raising the slogan “Dharm Parivartan karna band karo ( stop religious conversion)”. This incident comes amid a series of allegations of religious conversion in the state with Hindu right-wing organisations claiming that thousands of Hindus have been lured and converted to Christianity through allurements and false promises. Such accusations have often been used to justify violence against minorities in India. The Hindu groups argue that the conversions are part of a larger conspiracy involving foreign funding and organisations.Earlier on July 5, a mob of Hindutva outfits, led by a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader, attacked Christians in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur during a prayer meeting