By Matters India Reporter

Itanagar, July 17, 2024 — Chief Minister of right wing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party ruling northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh had words of appreciation and praise for a group of Catholic Church leaders visiting him on July 17.

In his official Facebook post Chief Minister Pema Khandu said, “blessed to receive a call-on from Bishop Benny Edathittayel of Itanagar, Bishop George Palliparambil of Miao and the members of the Arunachal Pradesh Catholic Association, led by President Shri Taw Tebin Ji.”

“Their tireless efforts in promoting peace, education, and social welfare in our state are truly commendable,” he wrote.

Serving a second term as Chief Minister Khandu did not hesitate to place on record the contribution of the Church stating, “I deeply appreciate the Catholic community’s dedication to raising awareness on critical issues like corruption, drug abuse, and the money culture in elections, contributing to a more informed and responsible society.”

In concluding the post the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh state which introduced the anti-Christian legislation – Freedom of Religion Act in 1978 – did not hesitate to say, “Thank you for your selfless service and commitment to the betterment of Arunachal Pradesh.”

Pema Khandu born on August 21, 1979 is the son of former Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh late Shri Dorjee Khandu.

Several states in India, including Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, and Odisha, have implemented anti-conversion laws.

Anti-conversion laws are legislative measures aimed at preventing or prohibiting religious conversions. These laws can be used to discourage individuals from leaving a particular faith or to restrict religious groups from actively seeking new members from other religious backgrounds.

The specific provisions and enforcement of anti-conversion laws differ across jurisdictions, and they may involve both criminal and civil penalties.

Christian leaders content that the implementation of these laws have the potential to favour dominant religions or suppress minority faiths

6 Comments

  1. Like a routine practice, the BJP leaders when they were invited to speak in any Christian gathering, they all have the same sermon about the great contribution given by the Christians in education and healthcare. But, when the Christians were attacked in the BJP ruled States, how many BJP leaders stood up to defend the persecuted Christians of India? Hindutva rule headed by the anti-Christian Modi has their hidden agenda of demoralizing the Christians through persecution, thus in a hurry enacted anti-conversion laws without realizing that the Church will grow only through persecution. While hearing the sermons of the BJP leaders like, P.M. Modi, Venkiah Naidu-Governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai- Arun Jaitly-Ranjit Shah etc, they were assuring the Christians that they will protect the Christians. Well, God sent a fire in their camp now for fooling the Christians and persecuting the minorities.

  2. At present, 11 states of India have enacted anti-conversion laws to curb change of religion (from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam) by individuals or groups through inducement, force, coercion or any other fraudulent means. These states are:

    (1) Odisha (1967), (2) Madhya Pradesh (1968), (3) Arunachal Pradesh (1978), (4) Chhattisgarh (2000 and 2006), (5) Gujarat (2003), (6) Himachal Pradesh (2006 and 2019), (7) Jharkhand (2017), (8) Uttarakhand (2018), (9) Uttar Pradesh (2020), (10) Karnataka (2022) and (11) Haryana (2022).

    Tamil Nadu in 2002, and Rajasthan in 2006 and 2008, also passed similar legislations. However, after protests by Christian minorities, Tamil Nadu legislation was repealed in 2006; while in Rajasthan, the bills did not get approval of the governor of the state, and the President of India.

    However, the Bhajan Lala Sharma-led BJP government, which came to power in the state in December 2023 after ousting the Congress, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, 19 June 2024 stating that while the state currently lacks specific legislation on religious conversion, it is actively working on drafting a new law.

    21 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court of India over anti-conversion law cases pending in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Karnataka high courts. They reiterated that these laws have had a “chilling effect” on the Constitutional right to profess and propagate one’s religion, and wanted all the High Court cases on Anti-conversion laws to be transferred to the Supreme Court. Citizens for Justice and Peace, a rights organization too sought the transfer of all such cases pending in high courts to the Supreme Court. There is no news on the progress of these cases so far.

    One doesn’t know whether there is some bottleneck with the listing of cases. On Saturday 29 June 2024 Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud who was in Kolkata for the Regional Conference of National Judicial Academy, made several pointed observations during his address on ‘Contemporary Judicial Developments and Strengthening Justice through Law & Technology.’ One of his observations was : “It has been noticed is that the most resourced of citizens are getting their cases fast-tracked pushing the cases of poorer citizens to back seat.” One cannot say for sure whether the anti-conversion cases (as mentioned above) have been put to the back burner!

  3. The anti conversion law passed in 1978 was when Morarji Desai was the PM and Arunachal was still a Union Territory.
    I also happened to be in Arunachal in 2019 when this CM announced that this law would be repealed in the next session of the State Assembly. That was 5 years ago. Need one say more?

    1. Morarji Desai had a bitter spirit towards the Christians. I read that while he was a student at the Wilson College in Mumbai, the teacher who was a Priest forced him to read the Lord’s prayer, and that created a hatred towards the Christians. On the other hand, he used to quote from the Bible.

    2. Though Arunachal Pradesh passed the Freedom of Religion Act in 1978, it was never enforced. Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Khandu had in 2018 announced that the Act would be repealed. It has not been pursued with so far. According to 2011 census, Christianity accounts for 30.26% of Arunachal’s total population, Hindus 29.04%, Sikhs 11.77%, Muslims 1.95% and 26.98% practise other religions. (Source: Northeast Now, 24 February 2021).

      I mentioned this point during my presentation on Anti-Conversion Laws in India at Indian Catholic Forum Convention in Varanasi on 17th February 2023.

      1. In some States like Arunachal Pradesh-Himachal Pradesh etc, even though they have anti-conversion laws, they are not persecuting the Christians in their evangelism. When I visited Himachal Pradesh few years back, saw very few Christians, but now a lot of people are followers of Christ, and Himachal Pradesh is not a notorious State of Christian persecution.

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