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The heat is now on Christians in Northeast India
Opinion | Articles | John Dayal | 08-Jan-2025
India’s bishops, as much as its civil society, possibly missed an ominous warning in a report in the Kathmandu-based portal Himal Southasian about the growing support within tribal communities in the northeastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh for stripping those among them who converted to Christianity of their Scheduled Tribe status. In India, indigenous people are classed as scheduled tribes, which comes with special protections and quotas in educational institutions, legislative bodies, and employment in state-run institutions.
The report becomes important with the news that the government of Arunachal Pradesh — once called the NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency) as it borders Bhutan, Myanmar and China through Tibet — will soon enforce the anti-conversion law it passed in 1978 to stop the growth of Christianity in the state. Also likely to be raised is the political demand that those already converted to Christianity be stripped of all privileges given to the members of the scores of big and small tribes inhabiting this Himalayan redoubt. Stripping tribal people, also called Adivasis in North and Central India, of their scheduled status is an important national project of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to contain the growth of Christianity among tribal people and Dalits.
The Presidential Order of 1950 became the biggest anti-conversion law of the newly independent India, with converts penalized by being denied reservations in government jobs, legislatures, and educational institutions. Tribal people, till now, could retain such rights even if they became Christians, and very rarely, Muslims. These rights were the fuse that lit the conflagration in Kandhamal in eastern Orissa state in 2008, which saw 56,000 people displaced from their homes and seeking safety, first in the nearby forests, and then in government refugee camps for up to a year. Many women, including a Catholic nun, were raped, more than 400 churches and 4,000 houses were burnt, while 400 villages were cleansed of a Christian presence. The subtext was that converts to Christianity should not be given Scheduled Tribe benefits.
This was also one of the subtexts of the violence in Manipur which began on May 7, 2023, and continues with the toll mounting every day. Over 70,000 people, mostly tribal people of the Kuki-Zo group, are now homeless. They have also forced Meitei Christians to return to the older Sanamahi faith by making them sign conversion affidavits and burning their bibles in what they described as acts of ghar wapsi, or homecoming — the preferred BJP term for the re-conversion to Hinduism of Indian Christians and Muslims.
As in Kandhamal, over 400 churches are reported destroyed. The majority Meitei, who are not tribal people, want the same scheduled status. This would in effect make everyone in the state equal and give the Meitei egress into the hill districts which have mineral deposits, and allegedly now grow contraband poppy, from which many opiate derivatives find their way to the billion-dollar international drug trade in which reportedly politicians are also complicit.
Arunachal Pradesh is home to 26 major tribes and over 100 sub-tribes, collectively 68.78 percent of the 1.3 million population per the 2011 national census. The first church in Arunachal was set up in 1957 in Rayang village in the present-day district of East Siang, close to the Assam border. Christians now constitute just over 30 percent, with Hindus close behind at 29.0 percent, the Donyi-Polo at 26.2 percent, and Buddhism, both Theravada and Mahayana, at 11.8 percent. The many indigenous tribal religions, many nature or ancestor worshiping communities, total some 3 percent. The strength of the Hindu population may be significantly more as the Donyi Polo often also so identify themselves. Many of their social, political and religious leaders are also members of the RSS.
In such a mixed population, English is a link language, but also Hindi, which many people in the state speak fluently as it was taught in Vivekanand schools, run by an RSS affiliate organization. Hindi also makes it easy for Hindutva activists to emphasize its connectedness with the Hindu-majority Indian mainland. The other tribal states of the northeast region use English as their link language.
Over the last three decades which saw Christian evangelization, the RSS was working with equal zeal radicalizing Hindu tribal groups, and ones following various indigenous faiths. The RSS and its affiliates view the state’s indigenous faiths as part of Sanatana Dharma, or Hindu religion. This has now effectively pitted them against the proselytized Christians. The RSS, not working exactly under the radar, set up an education network that parallels the one by Christian missionaries, matching it in expanse and facilities. These Ekal Vidyalayas, or single-teacher schools, are similar to the ones that impart Hindu nationalist philosophy to tribal children from Orissa in the south and Rajasthan in the west. Demonizing Christians is part of the extra-curricular activity.
The anti-conversion law was not passed by a BJP government in the state or New Delhi. It was enacted in 1978 when Arunachal was not even a state but a Union Territory administered directly by the federal government. It remained in cold storage till 2024 when a series of steps became harbingers of a toughening of stance against the Church. As with other similar laws in a dozen central and north Indian states, it too does not name Christianity or Islam, while prohibiting conversion “by use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means.” Many states have now weaponized this law and punishment can range up to 10 years for the pastor engaged in proselytizing, or a Muslim man marrying a Hindu woman and converting her to Islam.
Every act of conversion is to be reported to the deputy commissioner of the district concerned. The law was contested even before it received presidential assent. The Christian community formed the Arunachal Christian Forum to ensure the law remained in abeyance all these decades. Forum president Tarh Miri calls it an “anti-Christian law” and continues to lead the push against it. “If the law is enforced, there are chances of it being misused by the district administration or police,” Miri said. The number of Christians in the state has grown rapidly over the years, making Christianity the largest religion in the state, even if by a whisker.
In 2018, Chief Minister Pema Khandu told a meeting of the Arunachal Pradesh Catholic Association that the state government was considering repealing the Act. But, as in Manipur, the call to stop conversions was routed through a public interest litigation in 2022 by a lawyer, Tambo Tamin, who appealed for judicial intervention over the “failure” of the state government to frame rules for the Act. On Sept. 30, 2024, the state government told the court that draft rules had been framed and would be finalized in six months. That would mean the law could be enforced by March-end or early April.
Preparations apparently had begun last year when the government strengthened the existing Inner Line Permit system that makes it mandatory for non-residents, including foreigners, to apply for a permit to enter the state. Such permits are also required for some other northeastern states, including Manipur. The entry permit system gives the state powers through its police to check any evangelist entering the state. However, the Church in Arunachal no longer needs people from outer areas to reach out to various remote areas to preach. Unlike in the northern Indian states, or even in Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west of the country, where the Christian population is small, Arunachal Pradesh now has a sizeable community that can take care of itself if the state itself does not turn on the people. And so, the RSS-BJP may possibly have met its match in this state.
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The Author is a Sr. Journalists, Right activist, and Spokesperson of the All India Catholic Union. Views expressed this article are those of the author
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