Christmas violence and arrests shake Indian Christians

There has been a surge in anti-Christian attacks following the election of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government

Story by Guardian. Click on the link to go to original post. 

The strains of Hindi carols have rung out in the Aligarh Church of Ascension every Christmas since 1858. Armed police on the grounds is a more recent tradition.

This year the officers will be out in force. On Thursday night in the north Indian city, Rahul Chauhan was playing tabla drums while the rest of his Seventh–Day Adventist choir sang Christmas songs in the home of a follower.

Outside, a small group of men had gathered. One forced his way into the room. “He kicked the musical instruments before trying to attack my brother with a knife,” said Jitesh Chauhan, a singer in the group.

He claims the men cast anti-Christian slurs and damaged the instruments. Rahul and the 30 carollers were unharmed but shaken.

A group of carol singers perform in a Christian locality in Aligarh the day after a carol group was attacked with knife by a suspected Hindu activist in Aligarh.

Days earlier in Aligarh, hardline Hindu activists distributed letters warning Christian schools in the city against involving Hindu students in Christmas activities. In nearby Mathura, seven Christians were arrested by police while praying inside a home. In Satna, Madhya Pradesh state, an entire choir was detained while going door to door.

Worries about religious persecution in India usually centre on the country’s 180 million Muslims. Lynchings of Muslim dairy and cattle traders by “cow protection” vigilantes have become increasingly frequent. Hindu groups including members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) openly lobby to stop Muslims buying property in Hindu neighbourhoods.

The series of Christmas incidents has turned the spotlight on another minority. More quietly, Indian Christians are also feeling the walls close in, says John Dayal, the secretary general of the All-India Christian Council, following a surge in attacks last year. “Anything that impacts the Muslims in a different way impacts the Christians,” he says.

In 2014, Indians elected a Hindu nationalist government in a landslide. Its leader, Narendra Modi, is a lifelong adherent of “Hindutva”, the conviction that India’s culture and institutions ought to reflect an inherent Hindu nature. Religious minorities – regarded as Hindus led astray by foreign influence – are tolerated, provided they acknowledge Hindu hegemony.

Modi has repeatedly emphasised his government will promote “complete freedom of faith”, but his elevation has been a green light for radical Hindutva groups, says Dhirendra K Jha, an author whose latest book studied these “shadow armies”.

“After Modi became prime minister, these groups started thinking they have assumed power, it is their government,” Jha says. “So they have gone amok. They don’t fear law and order or any democratic institution. They are on a rampage.”

A “perfect parallel”, he says, is the growing boldness of white nationalist groups in the US under Donald Trump.

“Modi would never come out and openly help them,” Jha says. “But he rarely criticises them. Because of his silence, the message goes to the state machinery that they don’t have to take action against them.”

One popular calumny is that Muslim men are trying to woo Hindu women as part of a “love jihad”. The fear is regularly fanned by senior BJP leaders. Two weeks ago, a Rajasthan state man, Shambhu Lal Raigar, raved about love jihad as he used a pick-axe to murder Mohammed Afzarul, a migrant labourer, in an attack filmed and posted online.

For Christians the primary charge is of “forced conversions”. “It means putting pressure on people to convert, sometimes physically,” says Dayal. “But according to [Hindutva groups] it could mean anything from praying for Jesus to heal you, to offering to put you in a Christian hospital or school, to paying a person American dollars or British pounds.”

In practice, any kind of public prayer in the presence of Hindus – particularly the downtrodden Dalits, formerly “Untouchables”, whose leaders regularly threaten to abandon Hinduism – can attract police attention.

One morning in October, a group including Hindus and Muslims arrived at the Faith Assemblies of God Church for a workshop on accessing government welfare. The crowd piqued the suspicion of neighbours, who tipped off local hardliners.

“Around 20 or 30 people of this group came into the church and started threatening people,” says Joel R George, who assists his disabled father to run the ministry.

Police arrived in their wake and detained several people including George, releasing them after it was clear no religious ceremony had taken place.

“The men made videos and interrogated people,” George says. “They asked: are they giving money to you? Are they converting you?”

The roots of Christianity on the subcontinent stretch as far back as AD52, writes the historian William Dalrymple. For centuries, western wanderers in south India returned with tales of Christians who traced their origins to the arrival of Saint Thomas in Kerala state nearly two decades after Jesus’ death.

The seeds of the contemporary backlash were sown centuries later, when British preachers fanned out across colonial India to win souls for Christ, prompting several princely states to institute laws limiting conversions.

In recent decades, Hindutva ire has focused on evangelical crusades such as the AD2000 project, which sought to flood north India with American missionaries and money, aimed especially at Dalits trying to shed the burden of their caste.

Critics such as Arun Shourie, a journalist and former BJP politician, say such efforts mostly produced “rice Christians” – shallow converts swayed by offers of food and welfare. “They join out of necessity, and when necessity compels them they will join something else,” Shourie says.

Today, at least eight Indian states prohibit conversion by force, fraud or inducement, with BJP leaders repeatedly pushing to take the bans nationwide.

India’s largest international donor, the Christian charity Compassion International, was forced to cease its Indian operations in March after the government cut off its foreign funding over concerns it was using the money for proselytisation.

In contrast, Hindutva groups freely conduct mass conversions of Muslims and Christians in ceremonies they call ghar wapsi, or “homecoming”.

In this charged atmosphere, pastors and priests in Aligarh assiduously avoid the C-word. “We don’t convert. We make disciples for Jesus,” George says.

“I haven’t converted anyone in five years,” says Rev Jonathan Lal. “People come to us, sometimes they’re non-Christians, and I pray for them.”

“People see the miracles, they see the healing,” says an elder at the Ascension Church, Vincent Joel, his voice rising. “They want to come. What should we do? Chase them away?”

However many new adherents can be persuaded to file past the police for Christmas mass on Monday, Christian numbers in India will remain small.

The faith has relatively few adherents to show for its two millennia on the subcontinent, and the millions of dollars and hours its champions have spent trying to sway Indian hearts.

“Our population in India is only 2.3%,” says Joel, in the church courtyard. “If we did so many conversions we should be increasing. But we are shrinking.”

Not so, says Dayal. Worshipping “sometimes in the dead of night”, rarely registering new converts with the state, flocks in the Indian hinterland are holding steady, he says.

“Christians will survive, even as an underground church,” he adds. “We have survived here for 2,000 years.”

Cobrapost exposes the RSS web of conversion of Christians in Assam

Although it did not make headlines, 31 poor tribal girls, all minors, from Assam brought to Delhi on June 11 last year have ended up in RSS-run schools in Gujarat and Punjab, as Cobrapost finds, which is part of a well-orchestrated conversion programme targeting children from poor minority communities to initiate them into Hinduism at a young age. Given the resources and reach the RSS and its sister organizations command, what Cobrapost investigation reveals may just be the tip of the iceberg. 

New Delhi: On June 11, 2015, 31 tribal girls deboarded the Poorvottar Sampark Kranti Express (Train No. 12501) at about 7.40 p.m. at the New Delhi Railway Station, tired and disheveled. However, no sooner had they touched down personnel from Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Crime Branch of Delhi Police, Government Railway Police (GRP) and other agencies swooped down upon them and their two women handlers, Korbi and Sandhya, both associated with Sewa Bharati, a social service organization of the RSS. The agencies had been tipped off by Child Line India Foundation, an NGO working for the protection of child rights in India since 1996, alleging that these poor girls, all minors aged between 8 and 14 years, were being trafficked. The girls were to be picked by one Ramanikbhai of Halwad in Gujarat and Bina of Patiala in Punjab, both working for the RSS, and before the authorities could establish a case of trafficking and rescue the girls from their handlers, a mob of about 200 descended on the station. Within hours the girls were handed over to their new handlers, who would take them to their respective towns, after the authorities conveniently found the reason of their movement from Assam valid: education.  The event did not make any headlines as the authorities pushed the matter under the carpet.

However, the motive of the alleged trafficking is least altruistic, as a Cobrapost investigation finds. Although some authorities and individuals involved in this case whom Cobrapost met tried to brush the allegation of trafficking aside and even claimed that the girls had been moved out of Assam for their own good, their new guardians have no qualms in admitting with a sense of pride that the girls have been brought in with the sole aim of converting them to Hinduism. In other words, it is proselytization at work, or Ghar Wapasi as the RSS and its affiliates would like to call it, disguised as social service.

The first authority to raise a stink was Sushma Vij, Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Mayur Vihar, Delhi. Apart from Sushma Vij who was, contrary to what her official report says, quite critical of the way the girls had been moved out of Assam to Gujarat and Punjab and questioned the motive behind it, Cobrapost reporter met and spoke with all the major players in this episode. He visited Halwad in Gujarat to meet Ramanikbhai at the Saraswati Shishu Mandir he runs where 20 girls out of 31 are receiving education RSS style and Patiala in Punjab where he met Bina, the caretaker of the Mata Gujari Kanya Chhatravas where the rest of the girls have been put, and Jyotika, an RSS Pracharika. Curiously enough, this girls’ hostel had already been shifted to new premises in an innocuous place and the Cobrapost reporter had a tough time locating it. In order to complete the investigation, Cobrapost reporter visited Nakheda village in Chirang district of Assam and met some of the parents who had been persuaded by the RSS workers to give away their darling daughters on the pretext of providing them free education, and, yes, as the parents claim they had been offered money as well to part ways with their daughters.

Our investigation into the alleged trafficking establishes the fact that these poor tribal girls from Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Gopalpara and Chirang areas of Assam were taken away from their homes without properly informing the appropriate authority of the state and seeking their approval. Written consent of the parents was not obtained either. The Child Welfare Committee and other such agencies of Assam, Delhi, Gujarat and Punjab, which ought to be duly informed under the child protection and anti-trafficking laws that govern the movement of children from one state to another, were bypassed. Ending up in the RSS-run shelter homes and educational institutions, these girls are being initiated into or, in other words, converted to Hinduism to serve its cause. However, what our investigation reveals may just be the tip of the iceberg as the RSS and its affiliates have been working overtime on this agenda for many decades across the country.

Pursuing a tip-off about this alleged trafficking by RSS workers, Cobrapost reporter called on CWC Chairperson Vij at her Mayur Vihar office under whose jurisdiction New Delhi Railway Station falls. In her report to her counterpart with the Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Vij alleges the GRP at the New Delhi Railway Station did not inform her office of the girls rescued by them because the officials concerned did not find it a case of trafficking as the girls were being sent to Gujarat and Punjab to receive education. The report says that Vij also spoke to her CWC counterpart at Surendra Nagar and her visit to Halwad shelter home, where 20 girls have been put, and the Saraswati Shishu Mandir where they are receiving education, satisfied her. Although her report sort of exonerates the persons involved in the alleged trafficking, it nonetheless says that the children were not produced before the child welfare body. The report alleges that the persons who had taken charge of these girls did not have written consent of their parents, as required under law, and the CWC of the concerned areas should have been informed when transfer of children takes place from one state to another.

Her report may be a tad tame but when Cobrapost spoke to her she was no less critical of the way the poor girls were taken away to an entirely different culture. At the outset, she says she should have been informed by the police: “Karna chahiye hum interview unka lete hum unka counseling karte (Yes, they [the police] must [have informed us] … we could have interviewed them … could have rendered them some counseling).” Nonetheless, Vij followed up the case and visited Halwad in Gujarat where 20 girls have been kept at a sprawling ashram run by Ramanikbhai. The girls have been admitted to Saraswati Shishu Mandir. She says that the rest of the girls were sent to Patiala, Punjab. In one breath she says there was no trafficking but in the next she questions the motive: “They are comfortable staying there but our objection is that why from Assam to Gujarat … Poora culture change karne ki kya zaroorat hai … bache abhi Boda [sic] language ke alawa kuch nahi jante unko poocho na tumhara naam kya hai toh wo nahi bol pa rahe hain toh ye mera objection ye tha ke itni door la ke rakhne ki kya zaroorat hai maa baap mein se ek maa baap toh hain na to unko Assam mein hi rakha jana chahiye bees bachiyon ko tum yahan se yahan lake unko Gujarati sikha ke poora culture unka change kar doge (Where is the need to change their culture totally … The children don’t know anything other than Bodo language. They even can’t tell their names. My objection is that where is the need to take them that far. Some have either mother or father. So, they should have been kept at Assam itself. You have brought 20 girls here and by teaching them Gujarati you will change their culture entirely), and ultimately they’re going back to Assam only.”  Nothing can be more indicting than what she says: “Jab wo wapas jayengi toh kya karengi … ya toh idhar hi settle karo yahin shadi karo … likh doh likh ke batao mere ko .. bolte nahi atharah ke baad hum toh de denge maine bola matlab kya hai unko Gujarati sikha aur Patiala wale Punjabi sikhane baith jayein toh bachiyon ke toh zindaki se khelte ho na tum toh. Assam mein reh ke unka ache se kara jaye toh unko maine bola hai ki aap pehle CWC Assam se baat karo ki unka kya vichar hai agar (What will they do when they go back home … I asked them they should help the girls settle here [in Gujarat] itself … I asked them to give me this undertaking in writing. They refused and told me that they will restore the girls back to their parents after they turn 18. I asked what they meant by it … by teaching them [these girls] Gujarati and teaching [those girls] Punjabi in Patiala, you are playing with their lives. Better give them education in Assam itself? I even advised them to seek the opinion of the Assam CWC and if) they are ready to take the children [back] immediately, [we shall] send them back …”

Our conversation with Vij made it clear that either she has not been briefed correctly by the police officers on duty that day or she has not investigated the matter in detail and leaves something to be desired.

For instance, she does not have the details of the girls staying that evening in Delhi and she did not visit the Patiala shelter home where the rest of the girls had been taken to. Piqued with the shoddy handling by the police, Vij expresses her displeasure in no uncertain terms: “Haan aisa hai ki police ne toh dekha hai ki parhne jaa rahi hai karke unhein bhej diya lekin hum jab main wahan se paper layi hoon poore bunch of paper hai mere paas usmein yahan ke CWC ne wahan transfer kiya na toh usmein ek ke chairperson ke sign nahin interstate ek ke sign nahi chalti kum se kum doh ki sign honi chahiye (Yes … the point is the police found that they were going there to study and they simply allowed them to go … but I have got papers from them … whole bunch of paper[s] and if the CWC has transferred them there, there is one chairperson’s sign on it whereas in interstate transfers [of children] it should carry signs of at least two).” Asking the Cobrapost reporter not to blow the issue out of proportion, the CWC Chairperson says that all five members of her CWC want all the girls to be sent back to Assam and restored to their parents. Says Vij: “Let them worry about the children rest of the children … and unko wapas Assam bhejna toh hum wapas bhej denge (Now let them worry about the children, rest of the children … and if need be we can send them back to Assam).” Adding further she says: “Humari icchha hai hum paanch jano ki icchha hai (We want [to send them back]. We all five members want [to send them back]).”

By now, we knew there was something more to the matter than met the eye and began our investigation in all earnest. We knew that contrary to the brief that Vij got from the officials, the girls were not sent to Gujarat or Patiala the same day. The girls were taken to a Delhi-based ashram for the night. After many visits to the Nigam Bodh Ghat, Delhi’s largest cremation ground, and scouring surrounding areas for many days, Cobrapost finally managed to locate Swami Narayan Mandir at the Majnu Ka Tila, famous for its Chang, a Tibetan brew, and met its in-charge Dalipbhai, posing as someone who runs an NGO working for the cause of Hindu faith and wants to foot the bills for the girls who had been brought from Assam and had stayed there.

It took some convincing to make Dalipbhai talking, and as he starts talking we come to know all girls brought from Assam had stayed at his ashram on the night of 11th June 2015: “Tees ladkiyan ayi thi … Assam se (Thirty girls had come from Assam).” His colleague seconds him: “Haan New Delhi station se jo leke aye the (Yes, they were brought here from New Delhi [railway] station).” Dalipbhai too confirms it again: “Haan haan wo yahan thehri thi (Yes, they stayed here overnight).” These girls were brought there at about 11–12  o’clock that night. They were taken to Gujarat the next day after morning meals. He even knows what happened at the station to say: “Assam se jog ladki ayi thi … police walon ne gher liya tha (The girls who had come from Assam … Police had captured them).” He then divulges who the man was who took the girls and to where and what he does, after making some effort to recall the name. “Ramanikbhai.”

According to Dalipbhai, Ramanikbhai raises poor girls, who are sometimes orphans, educates and marries them off when they attain adulthood, and all the expenses are borne by some rich Gujaratis there. But the real motive of this altruistic enterprise is not social service. While trying to get Cobrapost reporter in touch with Ramanikbhai over phone, we get some idea from Dalipbhai how the girls brought to them are taken care of before they are initiated into Hinduism: “Toh humare mein kya hai ye trust mein kya hai ki ladki ko parhate hain nahlate hain nashta karate hain sar mein poora saaf karate hain achi tareh karte hain poora ye log aur achi tareh kapdon ki vyavastha karte hain toh wo log badi hoke jana nahi chahti ladki … Gujarat mein aise log pade hain toh usko ladki ko god le lete hain (The trust educates the girls, washes them, feeds them, gets their heads tonsured, gets them proper clothes, so much so that the girls don’t want to leave the place … and then there are many in Gujarat who adopt them).”

The ritual that Dalipbhai is describing is what is known as shuddhikaran in Hindu religious terminology. This purification ritual is performed when a person is considered defiled, thus outcast, to bring him or her back to the community fold, and Hindu missionaries perform this ritual before admitting those who gave up Hindu religion in recent or not-so-recent past. Tribal people who in the past have converted to Christianity and Dalits who leave Hinduism for its dehumanizing caste system are the primary target of this Home Coming campaign and at times has led to violent clashes ending up in brutal murders. For instance, Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons were burnt alive by a mob led by Bajrang Dal thug Dara Singh in Orissa’s Keonjhar district on 23 January, 1999. On 23 September a year earlier, three nuns were allegedly raped in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. RSS has made it its cause calibre to bring such converts back into Hindu fold.

Meanwhile Dalipbhai has been able to get through Ramanikbhai in Surendra Nagar, Gujarat, and after preliminaries tells him about our reporter who purportedly runs an organization which wants to help the girls they have brought to their ashram in Gujarat. Our reporter also speaks with Ramanikbhai.

Our next port of call was Halwad, 60 km from district headquarters of Surendra Nagar in Gujarat, where Ramanikbhai runs an ashram and a school for children. At this Saraswati Shishu Mandir, hung on a wall is now the most familiar portrait of Mother India, holding a trishul on her left hand and a Saffron flag on her right, flanked on her right by a roaring lion, with its geographical contours including almost all corners of once undivided Hindustan of its heydays.

Here we first meet the woman caretaker, Varsha Gavande, who tells us some more about what happened in Delhi: “Do din pareshan ho gaye the. Police walon ne bahut pareshan kiya tha (For two days we had a tough time out there. The policemen troubled us a lot).” She lets our reporter into the class room where the girls brought from Assam have been put and lets us speak with them. Language is a barrier and most of the kids are not able to tell theirs and their fathers’ names, and their body language does not give you a reassuring feel that they are at home. At present, there are 100 kids at this shelter home.

Varsha tells us how the alleged trafficking was coordinated by Korbi, an RSS prachalika from Gauhati:  “Main Delhi gayi thi Assam nahi Assam se toh wo Korbi didi hai na wo Assam ko Assam se Delhi chhodne tak ayi thi … Humne kaha ki wo Delhi tak tum aa jao hum wahan pe tumhein chhod denge toh hum Delhi se lekar yahan aye the (… I had gone to Delhi, not Assam. It was Korbi from Assam who came to Delhi to drop the children there … I told her to come to Delhi from where I took over and brought them here).” According to Varsha, of the 100 girl children they have, 20 are from Assam and 15 from Surendra Nagar. Ghansyambhai and Ramanikbhai are the trustees of this school. Varsha tells us that Ramanikbhai was there in Delhi on that day along with her and her husband: “Main aur Ramanikbhai saath mein the … main aur Ramanikbhai aur mera husband hum teeno aye the (I was there and Ramanikbhai was with me … I, Ramanikbhai and my husband, we all three had been there).” They had a very tough time, especially Korbi, while satisfying the police that they were taking the girls to Gujarat with bona fide intent.

We get the names of some of the girls brought from Assam while talking to them: Sunila, Babita, Motila and Surgi. They are being tutored in Gujarati. Varsha tells that of the 31 girls they have 20, and the rest were sent to Punjab.

Varsha got our reporter in touch with Ghanshyambhai, one of the trustees of the ashram that is now home to the girls brought from Assam. We could not meet with the man as he was in Bhuj.

However, as we were talking with Varsha came in Ramanikbhai. A fertilizer seller in Halwad, Ramanikbhai also runs a booming nursery business. There are six–seven businessmen like him who support Seva Bharati’s programmes.

In fact, he has been involved in this work for the past 20 years. He corroborates the facts of the day when he was there to receive the girls brought from Assam: “Bees saal se kaam kar rahe hain toh abhi bees–pandrah ladkiyan humare yahan aur hain Gujarat ki pandrah ladkiyan hain aur bees ladkiyan wo Seva Bharati ne nahi rakha tha Delhi mein … toh hum wahan aye the (We are working for the past 20 years. Right now we have about 15 girls from Gujarat itself. Seva Bharati had brought 20 girls to Delhi … I had gone there to receive them).” He had been told that some girls were to arrive at Delhi from Assam, some of which were to be sent to Punjab. He told the Seva Bharati people to give him all the rest of the girls and he will raise them. “Ek din wo phone aya ki bees ladkiyan hain abhi toh hum chalo aate hain kab aane wale hain list de do humko leke toh wo din hum lene ke liye aaye the (One day I received a phone call telling me that they have 20 girls. I told them all right I will come there and tell me when they are coming and send me a list. So that day I had gone there to pick them).” However, the authorities got the wind and trouble broke.

What should we do with Muslims and Christian girls and boys? Asks our reporter. “Humare paas bhi hain (We too have [both Muslims and Christian girls and boys),” pat comes the reply as Ramanikbhai describes how they are initiated into Hinduism and how they have to follow all daily rituals of Hindu tradition. Talking of the girls who were then into a month learning Gujarati, Ramanikbhai says one year into this training is enough to make them proud Hindus: “Ek saal ho jayega na toh wo poora ka poora aisa barkat ho gayega Hindu hain hum garva se ho jayega … wahi hum kar rahe hain … ek baar usko dilse ho jayega hum Hindu hain bas (One year into the initiation, they will fully identify themselves as Hindus and they will begin to take pride in it … exactly this is what we are doing … once they realize from the core of their hearts they are Hindus … our job is done).”

When Cobrapost reporter asks him to help his organization work for the mission of Ghar Wapasi in the same manner as they all have been doing, Ramanikbhai reveals that Ghanshyambhai, another trustee of this school, will do whatever is required: “Apne sangathan se baat karwa denge sangathan ka kaise kaam karna hai wo sikha denge wo admi barhiya hai humara Ghanshyambhai hai na usko sabhi … wo apko iss tareh se samjha denge kaise karna hai documents mein kya karna hai wo sabhi karte hain wo … wo apko samajha denge (We will get you in touch with our organization. Our Ghanshyambhai is a fine man … he will tutor you in all aspects including preparing documents which is what he does. He will explain it to you).” When our reporter suggests that he wants to bring kids back into Hindu fold, Ramanikbhai tells us this is what they are doing: “Wahi sab chal raha hai (This is what is going on).”

In our conversation with Ramanikbhai, his comrade-in-arm Ghanshyambhai emerges as the main resource person who will fix everything related to conversion or reconversion. Here Ramanikbhai speaks highly of his fellow Hindu missionary: “Hum aapko milenge wo aapko poora poora iska dhyan denge aur kaisa karna hai kaise aage barhna hai kaise Hindustan mein Hindu ka wo danda kaisa lekar wo saksham banana ka hai wo sab wo poora dhyan wo Ghanshyambhai hai na usko barhiya bana denge … bahut barhiya admi hai wo aapko aisa sikhayenge aisa documents karna hai saisa karna hai aap kabhi bhi kahan fansne wala nahi hai (I will take you to him. He will pay you enough attention to teach how you should move and how you should be able to hold the staff of Hinduism in Hindustan, Ghanshymabhai will make you capable of that. He is a fine man and he will teach how you should prepare documents in such a manner that you will never have problem whatsoever).” So, are you running the Ghar Wapasi programme? “Haan wo chala rahe hain (Yes, we are running that),” says Ramanikbhai. You have to bring all Muslims and Christians back to Hindu fold? Ramanikbhai reaffirms what he has already revealed: “Haan hum wahi kaam kar rahe hain (Yes this is what we are doing).”

Prodding him further, Cobrapost reporter asks him how he should go about getting Muslim and Christian kids, especially girls, back to Hindu fold. Ramnikbhhai begins to tell us in detail: “Kaise shuru karna hai wo aapko wo jab hum ayenge na toh aapko kahan se shuru karna hai aur kya kya documents chahiye ki kaise karna hai wo sab (When he comes he will tell you how you have to do all that and what kind of documents you not to prepare).”

But our area is dominated by Muslims, and the Christians you know are educated, and they can create trouble? Brushing our fears aside, Ramanikbhhai reassures us: “Christian ka lete hain ladkiyan .. pata hai sab lekin aise system chalna hum dikhaa denge wo Ghanshyam poora poora power wala hai wo system poora poora laga denge aapko koi bhi kissi ki humara kuch bhi nahi kar sakta aisa aisa kar sakte (Yes we take in Christian girls … we know all that … but we will show how the system works. Ghanshyam is a powerful man. He will employ the system for you and he can do things beyond our imagination and nobody can touch you).” Our reporter tells him that we have many kids from Muzaffar Nagar who have been left orphan in the wake of Hindu–Muslim riots last year and we have to initiate them into Hinduism. Ramnikbhhai tells us: “Haan haan wo pata hai humko … wahan aisa hai Delhi mein aisa hai aisa admi ke saath apko mila denge wo admi aapko sab kuch kar denge aur aapko bas aisa humari tareh se hum kahan bhi ho kaam chalta rehta hai waisa ka denge aissa kaam karte hai … wo kaam pichhe chalega. Aap  koi bhi jageh chale jao tumhara kaam chalta rahega (Yes, we know that. We will associate you with a man in Delhi who will do everything for you in such a manner that if, like me, you are somewhere else, the work will go on. He will help you set up such a system which will work even when you are not there).”

Next, Ramanikbhai gives us an idea of the numbers he has converted or reconverted to Hinduism in the past two decades as an RSS worker. You must have reconverted at least a thousand kids to Hinduism this way? He laughs at our suggestions saying: “Arre yaar bahut … hazar kyon (Oh man, many more, why a thousand only).” How many? “Lagbhag fandrah–bees hazar (About 15000–20000).” These include both Christians and Muslims. He says with a sense of pride: “Mussalman aur Christian aur jo koi pehle Hindu the aur baad mein … parivartan jo ho gaya wahi hissab se bahut ladkiyan humne jo wahan se utha utha ke layin hai kal unko parha parha ke wo saksham kar di hum bhi Hindu hain aise aise (Muslims and Christians who were Hindus earlier … but who converted … you are right, we have picked many girls and raised and taught them to become Hindu … made them capable).”

These girls thus brainwashed into Hindu ideology join this mission upon attaining adulthood to create a domino effect. “Wo jakar wo uska jo mohalla ho uska jo gaon ho toh wahan jakar wo panrdrah-bees ko aur lekar ye … haan aisa karte rehte hain hum bhi Hindu hain aap bhi Hindu hain humare saath chalo fir bhi aise aise saksham banate hain (These girls would go to their areas or villages and bring in another 15–20 girls to us telling them we are Hindus and you too are Hindus, so join us. This is how we make them capable).”

We get a sense of reach of the network of Hindu missionaries like Ramanikbhai which can be pressed into service right in the capital city of Delhi.

There might arise some communal trouble in our area while we are working in this mission? Before we could ask if his people will help us at such times, Ramanikbhai reassures us with confidence: “Tumhari taraf hoga toh wahi sangathan hai Delhi mein ab humara … wo sangathan turant aa jayega. Wo din hua tha  na hum ladki lekar aate the toh Delhi mein jo sangathan wala tha na wo sabhi log aa gaye the wahan do sau  … do sau log aa gaye the … akar mujhe bol diya chacha aap idhar baith jao hum sab nipta lenge humne bol diya tha un logon ne … humne bol diya tha turant Railway ko bol diya tha uska ticket confirm karwa do chaubees ghante mien confirm ho gaya (If trouble occurs in your area, we have our organization in Delhi. It will come to your rescue immediately. You know what happened that day in Delhi when I was there to receive those girls. All the people from our organization reached there. About 200 workers reached there [at the railway station] and asked me to breathe easy. They will take care of everything, they told me … I asked the railway authorities to get our tickets confirmed within 24 hours and it was done).”

CWC Chairperson Sushma Vij might not have deemed it to be in order to visit Patiala and see if the girls taken there were doing well, but it was in order for Cobrapost to visit Patiala and piece together all the threads of investigation. However, locating the shelter home at 1723/5 in Ramnagar area of Patiala where the girls had been kept as per the information available to us proved to be no less daunting. For Cobrapost found locked the two-storey rented building housing the Mata Gujari Kanya Chatravas where the girls brought from Assam were supposed to have been kept. Peeping through the gates of the building, sign boards and other paraphernalia could be seen kept inside the building. It was obvious that the building had been vacated only recently and the caretakers had left the place almost without any trace. Thanks to a postal worker who took us to this address and then to a neighbour who promptly gave us the phone number of its caretaker Laxmi. The woman neighbor also gave us some idea where we could locate the hostel. Fortunately, there was a meeting of the RSS leaders in the evening that day and taking us someone coming from Delhi they opened the doors for us. Laxmi is not present. Here we meet first Bina and then Jyotika who is a RSS prachalika of Patiala.

The moment we tell Bina and Jyotika that we have come from Delhi Swami Narayan Mandir where the girls brought from Assam stayed for the night, they begin to talk. “Wo Korbi ji … (Oh that Korbi ji),” exclaims Jyotika. Bina adds: “Wo jab Delhi gaye the toh aapke yahan thahre the … hum bachon ko lene gaye the … Main aur doosri ladki gayi thi (When we had gone to Delhi to receive the children, we had stayed there [at Swami Narayan Mandir] … I and another woman colleague had gone there).”

As our conversation around the mission of Ghar Wapasi progresses, Bina confirms the events of that day: “Haan … ye mujhe pata hai wo thahre the uss raat ko jiss raat bachon ko station par pakda gaya thaw toh wahan se Sangh ke koi aye bhi the wahin se … Gujarat wahan se the Guahati se  (Yes … I know that they had stayed that night after the children had been rounded up at the station … then someone from the Sangh had come there … he was from Gujarat).” She continues: “Jiss din station pe jo hua tha na kaand … uss raat Korbi ji un bachon ko Gujarat mein dene ayi thi lekin wo Swami Narayan Mandir mein thehri thi Delhi mein (That evening when problem arose at the station at Delhi after Korbiji had brought children to send them to Gujarat, she too had stayed at the Swami Narayan Mandir).”

Jyotika is sharp and asks the Cobrapost reporter if he too is from the RSS and what responsibilities the Sangh has charged him with. Yes, I am a bird of the same flock, our reporter tells her, and working on the same mission. According to Jyotika one Vijay Sharma is working on this mission in Punjab. Here we also come to know that Korbi is a Guahati-based Pracharika of the RSS. Jyotika is heading the mission in Patiala district.

How many girls you have brought here from Assam? Bina tells us: “Humari toh aath thi apni … apni chhutti gayi thi … chaar bache aur aye the (Among them eight were from our own hostel who had gone home for vacation. Four more children have joined us).”

Catch them young is this mission’s catch phrase, and we get the feel of how they condition the young, impressionable minds when Jyoitka explains us: “Itni si jo bachi hai na usko samjhana asan hai jo iss age mein aa gayi na aath, matlab athvin lelo nauvnin lelo dasvin lelo unko samjhan mushkil hai par unko iss cheez mein lana sabse asan hai kyonki unki baat ko pehle sunana wo kkya kehna chah rehe hain fir unke baat se … (It is easier to make smaller girl children understand but when they reach at the age of, say, eighth, ninth, tenth standard it is not easy to make them understand something. But it is easy to bring them into our religion. You have to understand what they want to say and then speak to them …).” Bina chips in: “Wo bache tab set hote hain wo jab wahan se torture hote hain ye bache kai bache aise hain Christian jo ussi mission mein torture huye hain yahan aake set ho gaye (There are many children who get tortured at their Christian mission, they don’t take much time and effort to set[tle] down with us).” While Jyotika tells us many pracharikas were working on this missions under a sanchalika on national level, Bina tells how the senior pracharikas work to bring the Christian children: “Wo hain jo badi pracharika hain wo nikal ke lati hain bachon ko isai dharma ke (It is the senior pracharikas who bring Christian children to us).” These children are conditioned in such way that they follow all the rituals and the ways of the Sangh wherever they go, even if they choose to leave its fold. Jyotika puts it philosophically: “Unke andar mala ke sare manke chale gaye wo jab bhi agar wahan bhi jayenge na toh ye din time yaad zaroor karenge wahan subah uth ke kya karte the sham ko kya karte the (It is like the beads have slipped into the garland and then if they go back to their fold they will sure remember these days, the times [they have spent here], what they used to do in the morning and what they used to do in the evening).”

Now, it was pertinent for us to know who the parents were and if they knew where their daughters were. Therefore, the Cobrapost reporter visited Nakheda village in Chirang district and met the parents or relatives of Sushmita, Sunita, Surgi Mardi, Lukhi Murmo, Motila Kisko and Sunila, who the RSS workers had lured away with promise of cash and free education. Living in abject poverty, life is a hard grind for these tribals for they have to bear the brunt of the ethnic strife that has pockmarked the otherwise beautiful and bountiful landscape of Assam for the past five decades that has spawned dreaded outfits such as the ULFA and Bodoland Liberation Tigers Force.  Interacting with locals was not easy as they did not know Hindi well and our reporter could not speak Assamese or the local tongue. Someone introduced us to a young boy of about 20 years, named Sunny Murmo, who could speak Hindi and agreed to take us around in the area. During our conversation with the parents of girls, we came to know that the RSS workers had promised them money. But neither they were given any money nor were they told where their daughters are.

It has been more than four months since the RSS workers took away their daughters, yet they did not have any word about them. Says Surgi’s father Parchu Mardi: “Pata nahi hai (We don’t know [anything about them]).”

Cobrapost had managed to get photographs of some of the girls and it was in order to get them identified by their parents who in earnest brought their photographs curious as they were to know if our reporter had seen them. In their paternal eagerness they huddle around our reporter. They identify Motila Kisko and Surgi Mardi. When the reporter asks them why did not they file a complaint with police or local authorities, they fall silent. Sensing their unease, the reporter asks them about the activities of RSS and VHP, says Kisko’s father: “Zyada din toh nahi hua doh saal se aage hai thoda (They have been active here for not more than two years).” Did they get the money they were promised for giving away their daughters? “Nahi nahi … kuch nahi (No … nothing),” says Kisko Senior. “Jtina hai Gosaingaon se le gaya tha toh udhar mein thoda itna karke … doh hazar karke (They paid Rs. 2000 to those of Gosaingaon from where they took away girls).” Here not a single penny was paid to these parents. When asked who is involved in this racket, Kisko has this to say: “Idhar ka toh Devsiri ka Vishwa Hindu Parishad ka un logon ko le gaya (The Vishwa Hindu Parishad man from Devsiri took away our girls).”

Why they don’t protest? Kisko tells about the terror the Bodos have been unleashing on them and the promise of educating their children: “Kuch nahi bola khali bola toh Gujarat mein Vishwa Hindu Parishad ka parhne ke liye le jata hai hum bahut aage mein bhi le ke gaya tha fir aaker aur toh upay nahi hai jo Bodo ka gundon se hum log … khane peena ka taka paisa nahi income nahi hai … nahi nahi upay nahi hum logon ka business ka koi parhne ka bacha log parh nahi sakta (They did not tell us anything except that Vishwa Hindu Parishad people will take them to Gujarat for education. They have taken children away earlier too … No we don’t have any choice … we cannot fight the Bodo goons … No, we don’t have any choice … we don’t have any money to get two square meals … we don’t have any business … we don’t have any means to get our children educated).”

We met a young woman hardly in her thirties, who is running a small shop made of tin shed. When our reporter asks the woman if she got some money as promised by those who took away her daughter, she says “Nahi (no).” After our reporter asks her a couple of times if she knew her daughter’s whereabouts, the woman replies: “Pataye nahi hai (I don’t know).” But after she is shown the photographs of some of the girls, she identifies her daughter with the curiosity and promptness of a mother. “Yeh hai (Yes this is [my daughter]).” She has a name: Sunita. A look at her somber face is enough to know the helplessness of a mother who does not know about the fate of her child, and how tragic a tale life has become for tribals like her. Talking in monosyllables, Sunita’s mother understands that parents like her have been taken for a ride but is unable to express her anguish. She simply gazes at the earth pensively, with pain writ large on her face.

At the same shop is sitting her brother-in-law Bhim Toppo, who upon a little goading comes forth. In our conversation with the parents or local tribals, we found them reticent while talking to us which shows that they are living with fear. In fact, it took a lot of prodding to get them talking to us. So, logically our reporter asks Bhim Toppo why you all tribal people so terrified? Is that because of Bodo militants? Bhim simply confirms what we have observed: “Bodo ke dar se (We are afraid of Bodos).” The reason is obvious as the Bodos are armed to teeth and it is their writ which runs far and wide in this area. “Hum log khali haath hoga un log ke hathiyar hoga … issiliye thoda dikkat hota hai (We don’t have any arms whereas they are armed … that is why we have tough times).”

Sunny Murmo, our guide, turned out to be an RSS worker who has studied at the Kanhaiya Lal Saraswari Shishu Mandir of Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh. It is Sunny who tells us that his uncle Shiv Charan Varma is Devsiri RSS head, who is also involved in trafficking tribal children to convert and initiate them into Hinduism. When Cobrapost reporter asks him if his uncle knows about how children are being trafficked from this area, he says: “Haan, jante hain (Yes he knows about it).” Is he involved in this racket, wonders our reporter. “Haan (yes),” replies Sunny. The young RSS worker also tells us the Bodo militants kill the tribals. “Haan adivasiyon ko marte hain (Yes, they kill the tribals),” he says, corroborating what Bhim Toko tells us about the reign of terror that Bodos have on this area.

Kisko’s words of utter helplessness “Nahi nahi upay nahi (No, we don’t have any choice)” sum up the fate of a community caught between insurmountable poverty and the ethnic and communal strife since the 1970s that began with All Assam Students’ Union movement against the outsiders. With the emergence of dreaded terrorist outfits such as ULFA and Bodoland Liberation Tigers Force, the spate of violence continued unabated. More often than not, poor minority communities such as Christian tribals, Dalits and Muslims bear the brunt of this violence. Natural disasters like floods, coupled with this violence, only accentuate the existential crisis for vulnerable sections of population, particularly children, leaving them open for manipulation by human traffickers. There is no surprise then if more than 4754 children, including 2753 girls, have disappeared since 2012 according to a report that the Assam Crime Investigation Department had released in October last year. There is no surprise then if under such circumstances, poor parents have to make such compromises as giving away their children to RSS pracharaks for their own good, as claimed by authorities, little realizing that they have sacrificed their children at the altar of Hindu faith.

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AIPF Fact-Finding Team Visit To Bastar finds violence against Christian minorities and other startling facts

Several Cases of Fake Encounters, Rapes, Arbitrary Arrests, Fake Surrenders Exposed

Raipur, 12 June 2016

An 8-member fact-finding team of All India People’s Forum visited four districts of Bastar, Chhattisgarh between 8-11 June 2016. The fact-finding team found several incidents of communal violence against Christians; as well as fake encounters; rapes; fake cases and arbitrary arrests; and fake surrenders.

The AIPF team comprised former Madhya Pradesh MLA Dr Sunilam of Samajwadi Samagam, former Jharkhand MLA and CPIML Central Committee member Vinod Singh, Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of All India Progressive Women’s Association, Brijendra Tiwari of AICCTU, Amlan Bhatacharya, State Secretary of PUCL West Bengal, Advocate Aradhana Bhargava of Chhindwara, Advocate Ajoy Dutta of Kolkata and Amlendu Choudhury. Bela Bhatia and Soni Sori also accompanied the team.       

Communal Violence Against Christian Minorities

1.       At several villages in Bastar district – including Karmari, Bade Thegli, Sirisguda and Belar – resolutions adopted under Section 129 (g) of Chhattisgarh Gram Panchayat Act have been wrongly invoked in violation of the spirit of the law to restrict non-Hindus from residing or building places of worship, even though the High Court has quashed such gram sabha resolutions in Karmari and Sirisguda. 

2.       In Bhadhisgaon (Tokapal Panchayat) in Bastar district, Pastor Pilaram Kawde was given a written notice by the Gram Panchayat denying permission to him to construct a place of worship on his own land. The written notice cited Sections 55 (1) and (2) Chhattisgarh Gram Panchayat Act 1993 and said that Pastor Pileman cannot construct a place of worship because “People of big-big castes and religions live in this village, and every Dussehra even the Roopshila Devi Ma joins the celebrations.”

3.       Christians are being prevented from using burial grounds in several villages. In Bhadisgaon, an elderly Christian lady Saradi Bai died on 25.5.2016, but Hindu villagers provoked by the Bajrang Dal stopped Christians from burying her. Eventually, after negotiations conducted by the police, she was buried in a casket but without the cross – but the Hindu villagers warned that no future Christian burial would be allowed. Accordingly, the 200 Christians of the village gave applications to the SDM, Tehsildar, police and Sarpanch asking that burial grounds be allotted separately for Christians, since they were being prevented from using the common burial grounds.

4.       Saradi Bai’s husband Sukhdev Netam passed away on 6.6.2016, and Hindu villagers prevented Christians from carrying out his last rites and burying him, threatening to kill them if they tried to bury him. Eventually after police arrived, he was buried but again, the villagers and Sarpanch warned that in future, they will call Bajrang Dal if there is any attempt by Christians in the village to use the burial grounds.

5.       At Ara village, Bario Chowki, Jeypore thana, District Ambikapur, on last Sunday, 5 June 2016, a Bajrang Dal mob of 25 people led by Chhotu Jaiswal, Sonu Gupta, Bipin Gupta, Chhotu Gupta and others attacked the church during Sunday prayers; vandalized the church; and beat up the pastor, his wife and three others. They made a video of the thrashing and made it ‘viral’ – we have a copy of this video. They dragged off the Pastor, his wife and three others to the Bario Chowki where they were kept till night. No FIR was registered against the assailtants – instead a case under Section 295 A has been registered against the Pastor who is yet to get bail.

6.       In village Sirisguda, rations were denied to Christian believers, and Food Department authorities were beaten up along with Christians; the ambulance was not allowed to enter the village; injured Christians were not allowed to get proper treatment in the district hospital. After great efforts a case was registered but the statements of the injured are yet to be taken in Court. VHP, Bajrang Dal people prevent Christians from filling water in the village. At a meeting called by the DM, the VHP and Bajrang Dal said that Christians must do ghar wapsi, or else we will evict them from the village invoking Section 129 (g) of the Panchayat Act.

Repression and Intimidation of Villagers Resisting Violations of Forest Rights for Raoghat Mines 

1.       Ramkumar Darro of village Kohche, thana Antahgarh in Kanker district said that 25 hectares of land have been acquired for Raoghat Mines without informing the villagers, gram panchayat, or gram sabha. (Officially the Raoghat Mines, as well as adjoining dam and railway lines are for Bhilai Steel Plant but a consortium of private companies will be involved with the mining project). Trees have been cut, adivasis’ forest land that they have had for the last 50 years is being grabbed; several places of worship of adivasis are being destroyed and even the burial grounds have been taken over by the company. CRPF camps have come up densely at every kilometer in the area. Ramkumar Darro had spoken to an earlier fact-finding team in May, after which he was threatened by a SDOP that he would be jailed as a Maoist.  

2.       Dukra Singh’s daughter was raped by an SPO and even had a baby by him. No case of rape could be registered, the SPO promised to pay Rs 50000 as compensation but has only paid Rs 25000.

Fake Encounters

1.       Nagalguda, thana Gadiras, Kuakonda Tehsil, District Dantewada: Four women – Rame, Pandi, Sunno and Mase - were killed here in a fake encounter at 7 am on 21.11.2015, and Badru, one former Maoist who surrendered and became a ‘Pradhan Arakshak’ and had accompanied the force, raped Mase before killing her. 22 DRG jawans were decorated and promoted for this ‘encounter,’ in spite of the fact that rewarding jawans for encounters is against NHRC guidelines and Supreme Court guidelines for encounters.

2.       Arlampalli, Dornapal Tehsil, district Sukma: Here, villagers told the team that on 3 November 2015, three village boys – Dudhi Bhima ( age 23), Sodhi Muya (age 21) and Vetti Lacchu (age 19) were killed by the police. The three boys left the village in the morning o 3 November on two cycles to get a drink of the local alcoholic drink (made out of date palm fruits). After getting their drink, they were going to the Polampalli Bazaar, where Bhima’s mother was waiting for them. Near the ‘nala’ close to the village, one youth Vetti Lacchu got down from the cycle while the other two went ahead. Security forces were in the area for a combing operation, and caught the two boys on cycles and began beating them up. The third youth, Vetti Lacchu, seeing this, began to run away – and was shot dead by the police. The other two youth were asked to carry the body of their friend to the Polampalli thana but on the way, they too were shot dead. No FIR has been registered as yet.

3.       Palamagdu, Dornapal Tehsil, district Sukma: Police claimed that two women Maoists were killed after an hour-long gun battle on 31 January 2016. In a local newspaper, the police is quoted as saying that the two women Naxalites were wearing saris and could not run and therefore fell into a ditch and were killed. The team found that in fact, the police had killed two small girls in cold blood. The mother of Siriyam Pojje (age 14) said that her daughter along with Manjam Shanti (age 13) had gone to feed the hens and was going to have a bath in the river and return home. On the way the police shot dead both the girls. Manjam Shanti’s father also said that both girls lived in the village and had no connection with Maoists.

4.       Kadenar village, Bijapur district: The police claimed that on 21.5.2016, an encounter took place with 30-35 armed Maoists, in which a husband and wife – Manoj Hapka and his wife Pandi Hapka/Pandi Tanti were killed. On reaching Kadenar village Pandi Hapka’s mother and brother told the team that at 8 pm at night on 21 May, police came to the house where the family was eating dinner. They took Manoj and Pandi away, along with their clothes, other belongings and Rs 13000 that they had earned by harvesting chillies in Andhra Pradesh. We were told that Manoj and Pandi had been with Maoists for a year, but five years ago, the couple left the Maoists and came back to the village where they did farming. Pandi has had TB for the past five years and has been very ill.

Fake Cases and Arbitrary Arrests                         

In Padiya village, Gadiras Thana, Sukma district, on 21 May 2016, at 9 am, a force of 200-300 police came and picked up villagers working on a water body, saying they were involved in the breaking of a Essar pipeline on 19 May 2016. Police took away 11 adivasis, left two of them later, and 8 remain in jail. The night before our team reached the village, the police forced sarpanch Madkam Hadma to wear police uniform and move with the force, arresting four people. Thus the police conspired to make the sarpanch look like a police agent, making him vulnerable to attacks by Maoists.

In the same village, a small 12-year-old boy Joga had been picked up by police on 12 May. The fact finding team met Joga and learned that Joga’s father and brothers had been arrested and detained illegally in the thana for seven days, where they were made to clean utensils and do other cleaning work in the thana. They were later released. The night before our team arrived in the village, Joga’s father had been taken into police custody with three others. The SHO of Gadiras thana said that repeated arrests are done because Joga’s sister is a Maoist ‘Mahila Commander’, whereas more than 150 villagers told the team that this is not true and the girl lives in the village. The team is apprehensive for the safety of Joga’s sister – she may be killed in a fake encounter claiming she is a Maoist. The sarpanch also is in danger of being killed.                

Rape of minor girl by CRPF Jawan

On 8 June 2016, a girl aged 14 years from Podum village, thana Dantewada was shutting her kirana shop when a CRPF jawan came and raped her throughout the night in the shop. She told her brother in law, who complained in the thana and was sent for medical examination last night (11 June 2016) – a process facilitated by the team and by Soni Sori. The CRPF jawan had given a name – RR Netam – and number in writing to the girl but this appears to be false since the TI says that no jawan of this name is there in the Jarum CRPF camp near Podum village.          

Fake Surrenders   

There have been 50 surrenders in the Chintalnar area. The team visited Chintalnar village where we were told of several staged surrenders. One small trader told us that he was called to the Polampalli thana by an SPO saying there is a warrant against him. He went there where he and 25 others were told that either they must agree to ‘surrender’ or they will be booked in a case of killing Nagesh, an SPO who was killed 2 years ago. He is 55 years old and he said that the other 25 cases were also not genuine surrenders. They all were given Ra 10000 each on the spot. Several others also testified to fake surrenders but are afraid of reprisals from the Maoists. We were told that the sarpanch, Kosa, is also under threat from Maoists for having facilitated the fake surrenders.

Conditions in the Village

Two AIPF teams covered 1650 kilometres in their journey, where they encountered more than 60 police and CRPF camps. But in the 25 villages that the teams visited, the villagers were insecure and suspicious of each other. In these 4 districts, political groups and other organizations are rather inactive, suggesting that the scope for democracy has shrunk there. Most of the villages visited by the teams were without electricity, without roads, and lacking in education and health facilities. In Ketulnar, two baby girls died after drinking milk provided by the anganwadi. We found that the village had 8 mitanin who did not even have medicines to treat diarrhea and vomiting and the hospital is 10 kilometres away because of which the little girls could not be treated. Now after the death of the girls, medicines have been provided but a case of culpable homicide is yet to be registered against the milk provider.

Signed

Dr Sunilam

 (9425109770)

Kavita Krishnan

(09560756628)

Brijendra Tiwari

(9926146022)

               

on behalf of AIPF

Why Mamata’s Trinamool Congress is silent about a VHP ‘ghar wapsi’ ceremony in Bengal

West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is making unprecedented inroads in the state, are sworn enemies. Yet the Trinamool has been surprisingly quiet about a controversial ceremony in which the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which is affiliated to the BJP, tried to convert Christian tribals to Hinduism.

In a video clip (at the end of this article) of the ceremony, which took place on January 28 in Birbhum district, a local VHP functionary, Churka Tudu, claims that about a hundred Christians had undergone “shuddhikaran”, or purification, to become Hindus. Local television channels and newspapers covered the ceremony, which is part of a larger contentious campaign of “ghar wapsi”, or reconversion, that the VHP has launched countrywide after the BJP came to power at the Centre in May 2014.

A Trinamool Congress member filed a first information report on the same day against VHP general secretary Jugal Kishore for making a hate speech at the ceremony and against president Praveen Togadia for making one at a nearby venue on the same day.

Two weeks later, on February 12, Mamata Banerjee addressed a public rally at Rampurhat, near the village where the ceremony took place. There, she said her government would not tolerate forced conversions and that those involved would be brought to book. But the police have still made no arrests.

Municipal elections are due in Rampurhat in April and the BJP has more support there than the Trinamool, going by their vote shares in the general election last year.

If the police had arrested the VHP functionaries, it would have sent a clear signal to the group not to play the Hindutva card in the district. That it has not done so suggests that the Trinamool is anxious about lack of support in the region.

Poll calculations

Officials down the line are trying to play down the incident. “I don’t know the details. I have heard that some people were forcibly converted, but I cannot confirm it,” was all Anarul Hossain, a local Trinamool Congress leader would say.

“Our officials went to the spot and submitted a report to the state government,” said a senior bureaucrat in the district administration who did not wish to be named. “There has been no conversion.”

The Trinamool chief minister Mamata Banerjee has in the past vociferously condemned the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, but she now has other pressures. Her party swept to power in 2011, dislodging a coalition led by the Communist Part of India-Marxist, which had ruled the state for 34 years in a row. But over the past two years, members of her party have become embroiled in a huge chit fund scam involving the Saradha group of companies.

These are the same two years during which the BJP has been on a roll across the country, and is trying to put down roots in West Bengal as well.

Rising tension

Ethnic and religious tension has been growing in the Rampurhat area over the past year.

Hindus are in a majority in the area in the Rampurhat municipal area but it has a large minority of Muslims, who form about a third of the population, and Christians.

The Rampurhat 1 block, which contains 34 tribal villages, has a population of 90,000 people. Of these, about 50,000 tribals follow the Sarna religion, an indigenous tradition, while about 30,000 are Christians, those whose ancestors began converting in the mid-19th century after missionaries began settling in the area, said Sunil Soren from the non-profit group Birbhum Adivasi Unnayan Gaonta. About 10,000 tribals are Hindus, although Soren explained that their practices overlap with the Sarna tradition.

The Trinamool has been assiduously wooing Muslims in this area, yet is worried about further polarising communities, and votes, on religious grounds, said a party member, who did not wish to be named.

Forced conversion?

Unlike Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal does not have an anti-conversion law, but legal action can be taken against forced conversions, although it is often hard to define coercion and even harder to prove it.

VHP leaders said about 3,000 villagers attended the event. But 10 days after the ceremony, when Scroll visited the villages from which the participants came, such as Khormadanga, where the ceremony itself took place, and Boropahari, Khurbona, Narayanpur and Taloan, none of them admitted to attending the programme, suggesting there is fear in the air.

“I was at my in-law’s place,” said one villager. “I had gone to work in the fields,” said another. It was impossible to talk to the tribals without their Hindu neighbours insisting on listening in.

But two families in Loripahari village, which is located in neighbouring Jharkhand state and borders the village where the ceremony took place, admitted that they have been converted to Hinduism. Pani Murmu and Srimati Tudu, said their families had converted to Christianity, the only ones in the villages to do so, and had taken part in the VHP ceremony.

Pani Murmu at her Loripahari homePhoto: Swati Sengupta

“We were Hindus earlier,” said Pani Murmu as she boiled rice in a pot and stirred a broth made from leaves in another vessel, both set on earthen ovens in the courtyard. “But my family members fell ill. Nothing was going well for us. So we converted to Christianity, in search of peace,” Her toddler stood by munching on maize soaked in a cup of water.

The family is among the poorest of the poor in the village. Pani’s husband, who did not want to reveal his name, is already drunk at 10 in the morning. He says he wants money to buy liquor in return for talking about the ceremony. He wants to know why people are interested in what happened. “We will adopt any religion we like,” he said aggressively. “They [the Christians] never built us a house or gave us anything else. So why can’t we opt for a different religion” Then he left the house.

After the police lodged the FIR, the VHP began denying that the ceremony had been a ghar wapsi event. “The police were present at the event, so if conversion had taken place, why didn’t they arrest anybody?” asked Amiya Sarkar, the VHP’s vice president in Birbhum.

Dhanapati Hansda, one of the priests who performed the yagna, the ceremony, also denied it had to do with conversion. “It was simply a bhumi shuddhikaran [purifying the land] for a plot donated by a family to the VHP, where a students’ hostel, meditation hall, goshala [cow shed], temple and a school will be built.”

Dhanapati HansdaPhoto: Swati Sengupta

The VHP might be trying to hush up the event because arrests could backfire. At the same time, it plans to continue with its agenda. “Through our meetings, we have been able to put a check on the conversion of Hindus to Christianity and Islam. In the coming days, the result of our meetings and appeals to people will show,” said VHP’s Amiya Sarkar.

In this video clip, Churka Tudu, a VHP member from Birbhum district in West Bengal, talks to local journalists. The exchange has been translated from Bengali.


Video: Kanchan Dey

How many are Christians here and how many have "come back”?
About a hundred.

What is happening here?
A land that will have goshala, Shiva temple, students’ hostel, playground, etc -- things that will attract people to this place.

What is happening as part of the ghar wapsi and shuddhikaran?
Whatever the rituals are. To clean up the place and people [words unclear here], yajna, all those things that are part of the Hindu shastra for those who are coming back.

Which religion are they "coming back” from?
Christianity.

Why did they adopt Christianity?
They had been lured with promises for education, etc. Now they are coming back on their own.

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