Hindu groups in India are planning to launch a nationwide campaign to curb religious conversion, which they claim is a form of violence and a crime.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) say religious conversion is rampant in tribal-dominated areas and they plan to bring those converted back to the Hindu fold.
But their claims brought a swift rebuttal from Christian leaders.
“The Catholic Church in India does not promote or propagate religious conversion and, as the RSS and VHP claim that it does, then let them prove it,” Father Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ Commission for Tribal Affairs, told.
“From time to time, those groups blame us for conversion, but there is no record of any religious conversion where the Church is involved, so there is no question of reconversion.
“Everybody knows that the Church is engaged in many charitable works. Our main concern is that any charitable work can be construed as allure-ment to conversions, but it is not true. We should do our work and should not give heed to RSS and VHP propaganda.”

Christian families in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh had their houses vandalized after refusing to follow the local Sarna religion.
A mob attacked houses in five villages in Kondagaon district of Bastar division on Sept. 22-23, PTI news agency reported.
“There was an incident of clashes between tribal groups and tribal Christians as the villagers wanted the Christian group to follow the traditional tribal Sarna religion of worshiping nature, which the Christian groups refused to do,” Bishop Joseph Kollamparampil of Jagdalpur told.
“The situation was quite tense as some vested interest people were trying to give it a communal color, but the administration was very alert and the situation is under control now.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has introduced a bill in India’s parliament to tighten the rules of overseas funding in a move that could adversely affect thou-sands of social workers including Catholic organizations. The government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sept. 20 proposed certain amendments to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FRCA), which critics say aims to help the government tightly monitor organizations and silence criticism.
The amendment proposes to decrease an organization’s administrative expenses from foreign funding to 20% from 50%. It also proposes to link leaders of all organizations to their biometric identity cards called Aadhaar.
The proposal also wants to empower the government to stop the utilization of foreign funds by an organization by ordering a “summary enquiry.”
Opposition lawmakers and social workers see the move as a major step to crush dissent and give government unbridled powers to harass certain voluntary organizations in a country where religious minorities continue to complain of being sidelined.
The amendments are expected to sail through parliament because of the BJP’s majority in the house. But it aims to “crush dissent,” opposition Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in the lower house of parliament.
His party colleagues and another opposition member belonging to Trinamool (Grassroots) Congress supported him.
“This is an example of big brother watching — that is, the central government keeping an eye on all those receiving foreign contributions. It is mainly directed at minority organizations or institutions,” said Saugata Roy of Trinamool Congress.

As a missionary, I had always expressed my willingness for the mission “Ad Extra” (towards the outside). I had almost given up the hope when on my 50th birthday the Lord gifted me the mission of Algeria, the largest Muslim country in North Africa, surrounded by the Mediterranean coast. Our God is a God of surprises and reveals Himself in a thousand ways to those open to His presence and action in the world.
On August 27, 2014, I arrived in Oran, one of the four dioceses in Algeria. Along with Sisters Serena De Stefani and Marta Arosio, we started a community in Mascara, a town some 390 km northwest of the national capital of Alger.
We are part of a centre called “El Amel” (the hope) run by an elderly French priest.
I am a nurse by profession and we have a small dispensary where the elderly and women prefer to frequent. This has helped me to develop relationships that gave me easy access to families.
Sr Lucy D’Mello MSII had the opportunity to assist Miloud, Meriam, Kaddur, Zuleika and many others in their sickness who now have gone to their heavenly abode. But my relationship with the family continues as a member. Many are very happy to invite us to participate in celebrations of marriage, new birth and anniversaries. We also visit them in painful moments of sickness or loss of a dear one in the family.
The people are hospitable, warm-hearted, and generous and the religious culture is very visible. Some of the expressions like ‘Inch-Allah’ (if God wants it), ‘Hamou-Allah’ (praise be to God) are frequently used by the majority of the people. The call for prayer five times a day helps me to raise my heart and mind to God, the Father of us all.

Indian farmers are bracing for another major showdown with the federal government after accusing its new farm laws of ignoring their interests and promoting multinational firms.
A church-backed body has joined farmers’ unions in asking the government to withdraw two laws that parliament passed on Sept. 20.
The government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, are measures to reform the farm sector.
But “the new laws are a real threat to the farm sector and the farmers,” said Father Joseph Ottaplackal, chairman of the Indian Farmers Movement (INFAM), a church-backed body based in southern India’s Kerala State.
More than 70% of India’s 1.3 billion people directly or indirectly depend on farming for their sustenance. But some 80% of them – over 700 million – are marginal farmers with less than two hectares of land.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader has alleged that Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines, who was murder-ed along with his two sons in Odisha in 1999, was involved in conversion activities among tribal people.
During his submission on the debate on the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, Satya Pal Singh told parliament that Staines’ organization, the Evangelist Missionary Society, was converting tribal people to Christianity.
“There was uproar over Graham Staines. What happened to him and his two children was wrong,” the BJP leader from the northern State of Uttar Pradesh said on Sept. 21.
“But agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigations, Odisha Crime Branch and the Justice D.P. Wadhwa Commission con-cluded that tribals were being converted there. It was the biggest reason that people turned against Staines.
Suspected Hindu fanatics burned Staines and his sons Philip, 9, and Timothy, 7, inside their jeep on Jan. 23, 1999, in Odisha State’s Keonjhar district.
However, Singh’s remarks have saddened Christian leaders and communities in India.

Seven tribal Christians were allegedly beaten, partially ton-sured and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram.” (Hail Lord Ram) in a Jharkhand village for allegedly slaughtering a cow.
The September 16 incident, reported to the police the next day, came to public only on September 25 when former zilla parishad (district council) member and social activist Neel Justin Beck told a local news portal about it.
Police have confirmed the incident. Shams Tabrez, the superintendent of police in Simdega district where the attack took place, said four of the nine named as accused in the First Information Report have been arrested and the rest would be picked up soon. The FIR also mentions 10 unnamed accused.
Jharkhand had witnessed the lynching of several tribal people and Muslims on unsubstantiated charges of cow slaughter or beef possession during the tenure of its previous BJP-led government (2014-2019). This is the first reported communal attack since an alliance of various secular parties came to power last December.

Tangkhul Churches on September 24 fasted and prayed for Naga unity and for peaceful settlement of the Naga political issue. Briefing the media, Remember Rimai, convener of Tangkhul Community Inter-Denomination Churches leaders and a pastor of Union Baptist Church in Ukhrul town, highlighted the main objectives of holding the fasting prayer program across Tangkhul villages. The day is dedicated as “Tangkhul global one day, fasting prayer day” under the banner “Oneness in Christ with Trust,” he added. Rimai said that all the Tangkhul Christians took part in the fasting prayer program at their respective Churches to show support to the collective leadership of NSCN (IM) led by Muivah.

Dalit Catholic leaders across India have threatened to start a new church if their demand to end casteism and discrimination against Dalits in the Catholic Church is not met. Around 30 speakers and 150 participants attended a virtual meeting on Sept. 5 organized by six Dalit Christian organizations from the southern State of Tamil Nadu.
“If the Vatican does not immediately remove the discriminatory process of bishop selection that neglects qualified Dalit priests, we could announce our own Indian Dalit Catholic Church or the Indian Dalit Catholic Rite,” Franklin Caesar Thomas, coordinator of the National Council of Dalit Christians (NCDC), told.
“The new church will separate Dalit Catholic Christians from the Indian Catholic Church’s casteist leadership.”
During the virtual meeting, Dalit leaders appealed to the Catholic Church, the apostolic nuncio to India and Pope Francis to curb the visible and invisible untouchability practices that exist in the selection of bishops.
They said that none of India’s four cardinals and 31 archbishops have a Dalit background. Similarly, among 188 bishops, only 11 are from the Dalit community. In caste-ridden Tamil Nadu, only one of 18 bishops is from a Dalit background.
Dalits, formerly untouchables, are the lowest caste within Hindu society. Huge numbers of Dalits have converted to Christianity and Islam over the decades, though the religions offer limited protection from societal prejudice.
The word Dalit means “trampled upon” in Sanskrit and refers to all groups once considered untouchable and outside the four-tier Hindu caste system. Government data shows 201 million of India’s 1.2 billion people belong to this socially deprived group. Some 60 percent of India’s 25 million Christians are of Dalit or tribal origin.
Vincent Manoharan, national convener of National Dalit Christian Watch (NDCW), told that years of protests by the Dalit Christian community had not brought any positive changes. He said protest marches are planned near the nuncio’s office and the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).

Muslims, Dalits and tribal people are more likely to be imprisoned in India than Hindus, according to a new report. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report also says that that these groups make up around 52% of inmates across the country.
“Minority groups have been subject to suppre-ssion for several years, so it is nothing new. There is prejudice among people that crime is always committed by minorities,” Father Vijay Kumar Nayak, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ office for Dalits and lower classes.
“It is obvious that their number is more because of their illiteracy, financial crises and lack of means to engage lawyers, plus police bias to file charges against them freely without fearing a backlash.”
The priest said these minorities are poor, vulnerable and easy prey for authorities. Muslims, Dalits and tribal people together account for 39 percent of India’s population, according to the 2011 census, Muslims make up 14.2%, scheduled castes 16.6% and scheduled tribes 8.6%.
According to the NCRB, at the end of year 2019, Muslims formed 16.6%, Dalits 21.7% and tribal people 13.6% of India’s prison population. Muslim leader Muhammad Arif, chairman of the Centre for Harmony and Peace, told that the poor are “left at the mercy of God to fend for themselves.”
“The so-called media, which claims that it is secular, is least bothered to raise its voice at national level as it is more concerned with the activities of the elite group,” said Arif, whose organization is based in Uttar Pradesh.
“There are several cases in our country where the police arrest poor people in the name of solving the problem.”