Going after Christians in Chhattisgarh
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The arrest of two Catholic nuns from Kerala, Vandana Francis and Preethi Mary, at Durg Railway Station in Chhattisgarh has sparked widespread outrage. The members of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate were taken into custody by the Government Railway Police on 26 July, on serious charges including human trafficking and forced religious conversion. According to media reports, the arrest occurred while they were accompanying three tribal women from Narayanpur district to a convent in Agra for domestic work. When the ticket examiner became suspicious of the young women who had arrived at the railway station with Narayanpur native Sukhman Mandavi and questioned them, he was told that they were travelling with the nuns. The examiner alerted local Bajrang Dal activists, who staged a commotion at the station, prompting the police to arrest the nuns and a local man accompanying them. A case was registered under Section 143 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the trio has been remanded in custody until 8 August.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and the Syro-Malabar Church have come forward, alleging that the arrest was malicious and the case fabricated, while demanding intervention from both the Central and State governments. Members of Parliament from both the UDF and the LDF jointly submitted an adjournment motion in Parliament. In Kerala, all organisations except the Sangh Parivar condemned the unjust arrest of the nuns and urged the Central and Chhattisgarh governments to ensure their immediate release. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention in the matter. However, the Bajrang Dal has alleged that the attempt to transport the tribal women was part of a wider conspiracy to promote religious conversion and human trafficking among tribal communities. The Government Railway Police in charge stated that documents, including a diary seized from the nuns, will be subjected to detailed examination. Christian leaders have firmly denied all such allegations, and view the incident as part of the ongoing anti-Christian attacks carried out under the leadership of the Sangh Parivar in India over the past several years.
Attacks against minorities in BJP-ruled states are nothing new. Muslims and Christians have consistently been their primary targets. In states like Gujarat, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra, Christians have long been victims of attacks by Sangh Parivar organisations. One cannot forget the brutal killing of Graham Staines and his young sons who were burnt alive in Odisha, or the destruction of churches and the harassment of Christian converts in Dang, Gujarat. These atrocities were carried out by Sangh Parivar affiliates. Later, with the BJP either directly in power or offering support in these states, and with the party establishing stable control at the Centre, such attacks did not subside. On the contrary, they increased many times over. The most glaring example is Manipur. Even as Christians faced persecution across the country, Church leadership maintained continuous contact with the Central government. Even when Muslims were being systematically excluded from power and entitlements by the same government, the Modi administration took care to keep the Christian community represented, from the Union Cabinet to the National Commission for Minorities. Government emissaries regularly visited Church establishments. The BJP has displayed excessive enthusiasm, even in Kerala, in its attempts to incite conflict between Muslims and Christians, whom it sees as internal enemies. However, the friendship, feasts, and meetings between Church and government leadership did nothing to lessen the Hindutva aggressions faced by the Christian community. Despite the deeply tragic custodial death of Stan Swamy and official bans on Christmas and other religious celebrations in various places including New Delhi, the Church leadership failed to use its ties with the Modi government to improve the condition of its own community.
Most recently, the United Christian Forum has appealed to the Vatican for intervention. During the visit of Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, to India from 13 to 19 July, the organisation submitted a memorandum stating that under Modi’s rule, the number of attacks against Christians has risen from 127 in 2014 to 834 over the past decade, based on official statistics.
The Chhattisgarh government not only failed to offer any explanation for the arrest of the nuns, but also announced that the anti-conversion law would be made more stringent in light of the incident. The Hindutva regime has its own path. The future of India depends on whether patriots can come together and seek an alternative path rooted in democracy.
