INDIA: Ban Christian priests from villages, Hindu group tells Indian state
Anti-Christian protest takes place days after two nuns accused of conversion and trafficking are released on bail
UCA News (11.08.2025) – An orthodox group of Hindus has called on India’s Chhattisgarh state to ban Christian pastors from indigenous villages to prevent them from converting tribal people to Christianity.
The demand by the Hindu group, Sanatan Samaj (eternal forum), was included in an Aug. 5 petition addressed to the state’s chief minister, Vishnu Deo Sai, a senior figure in the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Other demands included the government demolishing churches, allegedly built illegally in indigenous villages, and ending Christian charitable and other services in those areas, implying that Christian activities are intended to convert tribal people.
The petition was submitted to the Kanker district administrative chief after the group staged a protest march through the main streets of Bhanupratappur, the headquarters of the administrative block. Most shops were closed in support of the march.
Hindu leaders, while addressing a meeting after the rally, accused Christian priests and pastors of converting gullible, socially poor Dalit and indigenous people, luring them with social services and education.
The petition also urged the government not to allocate burial grounds for Christians, essentially calling on the state to discontinue a Christian presence and activities in indigenous villages, where Christian missionaries have provided education and health care for decades in remote areas that are even inaccessible to state authorities.
The demands and protest rally came three days after a special court handling terrorism cases granted bail to two Catholic nuns accused of human trafficking and forced religious conversion in the state.
The petition demanded “stringent punishment” for the nuns.
It also urged the police not to take any action against the activists of the Hindu group — Bajarang Dal — who stopped the nuns at Durg railway station on July 25, harassed them, and filed charges against them without any investigation or proof.
The nuns of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate, Vandana Francis and Preeti Mary, were at the railway station to take three Christian tribal women, aged between 19 and 22, to work as domestic helpers in their convents. They were accused of trying to convert the women and trafficking them.
The release of the nuns on bail, reportedly following political pressure from their home state of Kerala in southern India, has upset Hindu activists in Chhattisgarh, leading to protests, Christian leaders say.
“The government and the ruling party are now targeting a tiny Christian community, accusing it of being totally based on a false narrative of illegal or fraudulent religious conversion,” Pastor Simon Digbal Tandi, coordinator of the Progressive Christian Alliance based in the state, told UCA News Aug. 6.
“The way Christians are demonized is a serious matter as their life and properties are in danger,” Tandi said.
He said the Indian Constitution allows religious freedom and Christians do not convert or violate the provisions of the anti-conversion law.
State Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who is also the state Home Minister, told the media on Aug. 3 that the government plans to amend its anti-conversion law — the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act 1968 — to make it more stringent.
The minister also said “52 meetings” were held to discuss the changes, according to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, an English-language daily based in southern Telangana state.
Chhattisgarh is the second-worst state in India for Christian persecution after the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The state recorded 165 incidents of attacks against Christians in 2024, as against 209 in Uttar Pradesh, which is also ruled by the BJP.
Christians comprise only 2 percent of Chhattisgarh’s estimated 30 million population, who face social exclusion, including denial of basic needs and burial grounds, among other things.
Photo Credit: CSW
