The harsh religious quid pro quo between Christians and Hindus in Asia is nowhere near ending as this week it was reported that police of Uttar Pradesh, India has opened an investigation into an alleged case of forced conversions to Christianity in three villages of the state.
The news of the conversions, published by a local newspaper, speaks of 30 Hindu families having been converted in the last three days by some Christian missionaries whose churches have not been disclosed.
According to the paper, conversions took place in the villages of Jhalawarpur, Nevada and Bijawal. The majority of converts would belong to the disadvantaged castes and would be convinced by the supply of money, medicine and medical care.
The newspaper adds that the Khanpur police were alerted and started investigations. It also reports that the “converter” missionaries removed the statues of Hindu deities present in the homes of the families to replace them with images of Jesus and crucifixes.
AsiaNews, another distinct local paper, have, however, shot down in flames the report, calling it “fake news”.
Dr Sajan K. George, the President of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), has also gone on record, denouncing “the hysteria built around this affair, which involves Hindu families converted to Christianity with the offer of money”.
He said that with the 2019 elections mounting in India, religion is being employed to split votes to the disbenefit of Christians, who make up a minority community in the country.
“In Uttar Pradesh an evil religious and sectarian division is taking place. In view of the 2019 elections, every effort is aimed at polarising voters. The question of Ram Mandir [Ram temple in Ayodhya, ed] is exploited to mount nationalist sentiment and religious conversions are used to divide the majority against the vulnerable Christian minority.
The Christian leader complains of an escalation in violence and verbal abuse against Christians, who he said are socially outclassed.
“…intolerance and suspicion are creating problems of public order. Every day pastors are beaten and prayers interrupted. Unfortunately, all this happens in secular India where Christians are second-class citizens.”
Several reports have, of late, indicated various cases in which Hinduists threatened Christians, limiting their choices to convert or flee.
One standout incident is the story of the family of Solomon Digal who was summoned by neighbours to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop and were ordered to get on their knees to bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly coloured calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall.
Then, Mr Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbours set the items on fire.
“Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished, ” Mr Digal recalled being told, “Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.”
The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through the once quiet hamlets of India, and thousands of Christian families like the Digals are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.
Hundreds of people being killed, thousands of homes burned and Christian churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshipped.
In yet another well-documented incident, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.
The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage.
Given a chance to explain the violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.”
He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.
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