A Hindu group has given an ultimatum to Christian schools in India’s north-eastern Assam state to rid themselves of all Christian symbols including religious habits and cassocks.
Satya Ranjan Borah, president of the Hindu outfit Kutumba Surakshya Parishad (family safety council) said the move aims to stop Christian missionaries from using schools for conversion activities.
“Christian Missionaries are converting schools and educational institutes into religious institutes. We will not allow it,” he said at a press conference in Guwahati on Feb. 7
Assam is ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The group wants the idols or photographs of Jesus and Mary removed and has set a 15-day deadline for Christian schools to comply, failing which they warned of dire consequences.
Borah said they also want priests, nuns and brothers serving in Christian schools to stop wearing cassocks and religious habits on school campuses.
He accused them of promoting Christianity in schools through the display of such Christian symbols.
Archbishop John Moolachi-ra of Guwahati said all the alle-gations “are baseless.”
“We are aware of the threat and I do not understand why is this happening,” he told on February 9.
Christians have been actively involved in imparting education for several decades in Assam’s remote areas where poor tribal people dwell.

A body bringing together India’s Latin Catholic, Syro-Malabar, and Syro-Malankara bishops deplored Wednesday increasing attacks on the country’s Christian minority.
In a six-page statement issued Feb. 7, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) ex-pressed alarm at rising intolerance in Indian society and political life.
It said: “Attacks on Christians continue to increase in different parts of India. Destruction of homes and churches, harassment of personnel serving in orphanages, hostels, educational and healthcare institutions on false allegations of conversion have become common.”
Christians account for around 2.3% of India’s population, forming the country’s third-largest religious group, after Muslims (14.2%), and Hindus (79.8%).
Roughly a third of Indian Christians – more than 20 million people – are Catholic. They belong to three autonomous particular churches: the Latin Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.
Since 2014, India has been led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In April and May this year, India is scheduled to hold general elections, in which Modi will seek a third term in power.
In January, the advocacy group Open Doors listed India as the world’s 11th worst country in which to be a Christian.

Christian and Muslim leaders have disapproved of the passing of a polarising and contentious uniform civil code by a pro-Hindu government in a northern Indian state.
The Uniform Civil Code Bill was passed after two days of debate on Feb. 7 by the Uttarakhand state assembly through a voice vote amidst chanting of ‘Jai Sri Ram’ (Hail Lord Ram) and other pro-Hindu slogans.
The Uttarakhand government has fulfilled the demand of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an umbrella organization of Hindu groups, Christian and Muslim leaders said.
The RSS has long espoused a common civil code for the entire nation of 1.4 billion. It has been one of the electoral promises made by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India does not have uniform laws for personal matters such as marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance. Instead, it has a patchwork of different codes based on the customary traditions of different communities and faiths.
The rights of women, children, and families across India vary considerably depending on which code they fall under.
Goa located on India’s west coast is the only part of India with a common code, introduced when it was a Portuguese colony.
Many hardline Hindu politicians, jurists and reformists have described these custom-based codes as regressive and have lobbied for a code that would apply to all Indians equally.

After the recent arrests of priests and a nun in India on charges that they violated the Hindu-majority country’s “anti-conversion” laws, a Catholic bishop has sent out an appeal “to storm heaven with prayers.”
Bishop Ignatius D’Souza of Bareilly in the Archdiocese of Agra issued a “prayer request” on social media Feb. 7.
“I request you to storm heaven so that all those who are dealing with this sensitive case may get enlightened by the Holy Spirit and our brothers may be released soon,” D’Souza pleaded.
In the post, he said that Father Dominic Pinto and nine Protestant lay organizers have been taken into custody on charges that they violated the anti-conversion act, which, he said, does not allow those arrested to be released on bail.
Eleven out of India’s 28 states have passed laws to criminalize forced conversions but, in practice, they have been used to prevent the practice of the Christian faith.
Pinto, director of the Lucknow Diocese’s pastoral center in northern Uttar Pradesh state, was arrested on Feb. 6 for allowing a gathering of 100 people led by evangelical pastors to take place in the Catholic center. The government of Uttar Pradesh is controlled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India’s population is 79.8% Hindu, 14.2% Muslim, and 2.3% Christian. In Uttar Pradesh state – India’s most populous state with 2.3 million inhabitants – only 18% are Christian.
“Hindu fundamentalists barged into the center and insisted on the arrest of the priest at the police station along with the pastors while other fundamentalists even threatened the nearby convent and nuns nearby,” Father Donald D’Souza, chancellor of the Lucknow Diocese, told.