News18 has found that students in tuition centres too are facing religious preaching. A girl narrated how her teacher had told her and her classmates that “Hindus are Satans. You will only get misery if you do not pray to Jesus.” – Anvit Srivastava
Thirteen-year-old Rajan (name changed), a student of Class 8 in a school in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli, recalls how he was told during an extra class that if he needs good marks and wishes to perform academically better than his peers, he must pray to no other God but Jesus. Not doing so will bring “failure in life and deformities to his body,” Rajan tells News18 in the wake of recent incidents of religious conversions reported from the state.
Rajan’s father transferred him to a different school after he came to know about the incident. “School is not a place where we send our children to learn how one religion is better than others. This creates hatred. Many other parents were outraged on learning about it. We took the matter up with the school administration but only to see that no serious action was taken,” the father said.
Earlier this month, a video of a Class 6 student from a school in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, was widely shared on social media where she was seen complaining to the administration of her government school about how one of her teachers was telling her and other classmates to read a Bible and that all other deities are Satans.
A News18 team was present in the school at the time of incident along with the girl’s parents. As the incident became the headline in the media across country, two days later, the schoolteacher was suspended.
Two months ahead of this incident, in January this year, 17-year-old Lavanya, a Class 12 student in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur, had allegedly ended her life due to alleged torture by two nuns of her school, who, as the girl had reportedly said in her dying declaration, were forcing her to turn to Christianity. Almost a month later, the Madras High Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take up the probe into the matter.
In the wake of Lavanya’s case, as the special investigation team of News18 travelled extensively across south Tamil Nadu and visited various government as well as private-run schools, testimonies of students, parents, activists and educationists were recorded that claimed how religious conversion in this part of the state is rampant. They also raise questions on how the lack of action on the state administration’s part is only fuelling such practices.
Two months ahead of this incident, in January this year, 17-year-old Lavanya, a Class 12 student in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur, had allegedly ended her life due to alleged torture by two nuns of her school, who, as the girl had reportedly said in her dying declaration, were forcing her to turn to Christianity. Almost a month later, the Madras High Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take up the probe into the matter.
In the wake of Lavanya’s case, as the special investigation team of News18 travelled extensively across south Tamil Nadu and visited various government as well as private-run schools, testimonies of students, parents, activists and educationists were recorded that claimed how religious conversion in this part of the state is rampant. They also raise questions on how the lack of action on the state administration’s part is only fuelling such practices.
Locals and activists in the area say such incidents are becoming “more common and brazen day by day”.
Talking about the “modus operandi” of these religious groups, Theiva Prakash, who runs a school in Nagarcoil, said mostly these people enter a school premise posing as educationists. “They would offer the school administration to give students lectures on ‘uses of cell phones’ or ‘misuses of technology’ or on moral science. But as we have been told by students, these lectures slowly graduate to become preaching on prayers, importance of one particular religion and how to pray to God and on how other religions are bad. This is complete brainwashing of a child as young as 8-9 years old,” Prakash said.
Activists and educationists in south Tamil Nadu also stressed that despite raising the matter, nothing significant has so far been done by the administration.
Umayoru Bhagan, an educationist and retired professor from Kanyakumari, said the problem of religious conversion based on allurements is not new in the area.
“Over the past two decades, the demography of Kanyakumari and nearby villages has changed dramatically and quite evidently. Since targets for conversion are selected as per one’s needs, the allurements by the groups that approach these people are so strong that one easily falls prey to them. In the recent past we have seen that more and more schools are being approached. Students can’t be told they will do better academically if they follow one particular religion. Playing with the future of children is criminal,” Bhagan said.
Laxmi Manivannan, who often writes on similar issues in Kanyakumari, also said conversion rate in the area is unusually high. “If children are being lured with marks, for adults and those running a house, financial help is used as a trap. As per my studies, 50% of the residents of Kanyakumari and nearby areas are crypto Christians that means they are Hindu in government records but in practice they are Christians, only to be able to benefit from both government schemes as well as missionary groups,” Manivannan added.
While the incidents of religious conversion, as the locals say, are rampant, there are activists who say they have now joined hands to timely reach out to those who have converted or to those who complain of being forced or being offered allurements for religious conversion.
Bhaskar, one of such activists, said he receives two to three complaints every week. “I am a field worker. It is true that we are associated with some Hindu outfits but that is because alone no one can fight these groups. I work independently. There are many others like us. We keep in touch and whenever we get any such call, we reunite and visit the family, school or wherever such complaint has been made. We try to bring these people back to their religion and also help them file a complaint with the police if they wish to,” Bhaskar said.
In many cases, these activists claim they have also written to the police or have made emergency calls but allege that they do not act timely.
When News18 reached out to one of the police officers present at the spot during one such complaint being made by the parents of a Class 6 girl at a government school in Kanyakumari, he declined to comment. “We will let the school administration handle the issue for now,” he said.
News18 also wrote to some of the missionaries and groups, which run schools in south Tamil Nadu asking them to comment on such allegations but no response was received. – News18, 24 April 2022
› Anvit Srivastava, Principal Correspondent at CNN-News18, covers crime, security, policing and society in Delhi. He also worked with national dailies like The Times of India, Hindustan Times and news agency Press Trust of India.
Filed under: india, tamil nadu | Tagged: evangelicals, hinduphobia, missionary activity, religious conversion, school children |
BHARATA BHARATI 
Anti-Conversion Laws in India: How states deal with religious conversion – Aneesha Mathur – India Today – New Delhi – 23 April 2022
There is no central anti-conversion law. The states that have enacted anti-conversion laws make religious conversion by force or allurement a punishable offence. Here is an account of how states deal with religious conversion in India.
With the recent controversy over the Uttar Pradesh government’s anti-conversion ordinance, India Today takes a look at the existing laws regarding forced conversions in India.
The demand for an anti-conversion law has been raised at multiple levels, with political statements regarding a national anti-conversion law also being raised in Parliament.
ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS IN COLONIAL TIMES
According to research paper of the US Library of Congress (LOC), laws restricting religious conversions were originally introduced by princely states headed by Hindu royal families during the British colonial period—particularly during the latter half of the 1930s and 1940s.
These states enacted the laws “in an attempt to preserve Hindu religious identity in the face of British missionaries”. The LOC research paper indicates that there were “over a dozen princely states, including Kota, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Raigarh, Patna, Surguja, Udaipur, and Kalahandi” that had such laws.
ATTEMPTS TO ENACT A NATIONAL LAW
Following India’s independence, Parliament introduced a number of anti-conversion bills, but none were enacted. First, the Indian Conversion (Regulation and Registration) Bill was introduced in 1954, which sought to enforce “licensing of missionaries and the registration of conversion with government officials”. This bill failed to gather majority support in the Lok Sabha.
This was followed by the introduction of the Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill in 1960, “which aimed at checking conversion of Hindus to ‘non-Indian religions’ which, as per the definition in the Bill, included Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism”.
The Freedom of Religion Bill was introduced in Parliament in 1979. It sought “official curbs on inter-religious conversion.” These bills were also not passed by Parliament due to a lack of political support.
In 2015, the Union law ministry had given the opinion that a law against forced and fraudulent conversions could not be created at a national level, since law-and-order is a State subject under the Constitution. However, state governments can enact such laws.
OVER TO STATES
Over the years, several states enacted “Freedom of Religion” legislation to restrict religious conversions carried out by force, fraud, or inducements. The research organisation, the PRS Legislative Research recently released a report comparing various existing anti-conversion laws in several states.
“Freedom of Religion laws” are currently in force in eight states—(i) Odisha (1967), (ii) Madhya Pradesh (1968), (iii) Arunachal Pradesh (1978), (iv) Chhattisgarh (2000 and 2006), (v) Gujarat (2003), (vi) Himachal Pradesh (2006 and 2019), (vii) Jharkhand (2017), and (viii) Uttarakhand (2018).
The laws passed in Himachal Pradesh (2019) and Uttarakhand also declare a marriage to be void if it was solemnised for the sole purpose of conversion, or a conversion was done solely for the purpose of marriage.
Further, the states of Tamil Nadu in 2002, and Rajasthan in 2006 and 2008, also passed similar legislation. However, the Tamil Nadu legislation was repealed in 2006 after protests by Christian minorities, while in case of Rajasthan, the bills did not receive assent of the governor of the state, and the President of India.
In November 2019, citing rising incidents of forced or fraudulent religious conversions, the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission recommended enacting a new law to regulate religious conversions. This led the state government to promulgate the recent Ordinance.
ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS IN PRACTICE
According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reports of 2016 and 2018, observers have noted that there are very few arrests or prosecutions under these laws but they “create a hostile, and on occasion violent, environment for religious minority communities because they do not require any evidence to support accusations of wrongdoing”.
More recent reports by USCIRF have highlighted certain incidents of arrests, including an incident in 2017, where religious minority leaders and adherents faced intimidation and arrest as a result of these laws.
For example, a Catholic nun, along with four tribal women, was detained in June 2017 based on suspicion of induced conversion. In April 2017, three Christians were arrested in the Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh following allegations that they were converting people.
In July 2017, Christians protested in Ludhiana, Punjab, after Sultan Masih, the pastor of the Temple of God Church, was murdered in public over suspicion that he could be engaged in conversion.
WHAT’S IN THE ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS?
The PRS research shows certain common characteristics of the various state laws. While all states have banned conversions by force, fraud or allurement and inducement of money, only the Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and UP laws place a ban on conversion through marriage.
Notice of Conversion: The Arunachal Pradesh’s law is considered the most lenient legislation in the need for notice of conversion. It makes it mandatory only for the priest, who has performed the conversion, to give notice to the district magistrate or similar authorities after the conversion. It does not require the converted person to make any such declaration.
In all other states, advance notice by the priest or “religious convertor” as well as the converted person is required. Uttar Pradesh has the strictest provisions, requiring a person who wishes to undergo a conversion to give a 60-day notice to the district authorities. The priest is required to give the notice one month in advance. Uttarakhand has prescribed one month notice period for both.
Punishment: Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, which have the oldest laws, also prescribe the lowest imprisonment time—one year for forced conversion. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand prescribe up to five-year jail term for forced conversion. In case of a minor or a woman, the punishment is higher in all states.
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TN Conversion Row: Teacher called me donkey with vibhuti, says child; BJP demands action – Pramod Madhav – India Today – 26 April 2022
A Class 6 student of a government school in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur has alleged that two teachers attempted to forcibly convert her and harassed her over her religious identity.
“She [teacher] called me the donkey with vibhuti [sacred ash]. Once she put her hand in water and spoke about Jesus. Later, she touched Hindu girls’ stomachs thrice with water in her hands,” the student said.
The child also alleged that the teacher asked her students to pray in class. “One day when she was taking a class, she asked who saved us by giving their life. We said different names but she asked us why we did not say Jesus,” she added.
The student said that one of the teachers asked her who the strongest among Gods is and she replied Lord Shiva. However, the teacher refuted her remark and said Jesus is the strongest among Gods.
The girl informed her parents who have filed a police complaint. A probe into the matter has been initiated.
The girl’s father said, “I’ve given a complaint at the police station. They are only trying to pacify us. They asked me to write what action I seek in the matter. I’ve done so and am now awaiting action.”
BJP DEMANDS ACTION
Speaking exclusively to India Today, BJP spokesperson Narayan Tripathi accused the ruling DMK government of being a mute spectator to incidents of forced conversion.
“The police and government should take immediate action and arrest the accused. We have demanded action against the school management. Conversion is a very dangerous thing, we need an anti-conversion law immediately in Tamil Nadu,” he said.
Earlier, a government school teacher in Kanyakumari was suspended after a student accused the teacher of promoting Christianity inside the classroom.
In January, a Class 12 student in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur died by suicide after an attempt was allegedly made to forcibly convert her.
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