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“In May, they destroyed our house and threw out all our belongings,” he told me. “We were beaten up. They threatened to set our belongings on fire.” The family continued staying in the destroyed house over the next two weeks as they had nowhere else to go. “For 15 days, we lived in this condition. Water was dripping and our belongings were ruined. Then we wanted to file an FIR at the Dornapal police station” under whose jurisdiction Bodiguda village is “but the police were not willing to register it. They did nothing,” Desha said. According to him, the police have not taken any action against those who attacked his family. Many in the village still oppose him and his family has been thrown out of the community. Despite the hardships, Desha said it was a good decision to convert to Christianity. “We were under slavery before. We are free now. We go to church. The church authorities have stood with us.”
Suresh Jangde, the inspector of the Dornapal police station, told me that no arrests were made in the case. “The victims stated in writing that they do not want to proceed further and that they will come forward if something similar happens again.” He added that the investigating official in the case has been transferred elsewhere. Desha, however, said the locals had only accepted an agreement because both the police and the villagers had pushed them to agree to one. “Yes, we gave them an agreement,” Desha said. “The SDOP”—Pratik Chaturvedi, the sub-divisional officer of Dornapal police station—“sir said that the villagers have assured him that they will not do it again. The villagers agreed, promising that they will not repeat it. So, the police told us to forgive them. So, we forgave them and we submitted an agreement.” When asked if he would have preferred an investigation into the attack, he said, “Yes. But the villagers and police said they won’t do it again, so we agreed.”Desha’s account of continuous violence and persecution of Adivasi Christians is similar to accounts from Dantewada district, in Chhattisgarh. An Adivasi Christian from Kameli village in the district, who wished to remain anonymous, told me, “These things keep happening. We suffer beatings every year.” Referring to locals backed by the Hindu groups, he said, “They trouble us and ask us to flee from here. They say we don’t have a place here. Only Hindus will live here.” He explained that this year, all 105 Christians in the village were asked to vacate their houses. He said he has been a Christian for 25 years now. “If it was just a couple of years, it would have been a different matter,” he said. “But it has been many years since I embraced this religion. I tell them that I cannot denounce it now, no matter what happens. We had filed a complaint to the police but nothing was done. We complained at least thrice.”
Wycliff Chinnam Sagar, a pastor from Dantewada district, told me that Hindutva groups had been holding frequent ghar-vapsi programmes for the past five years, which had become more common during the lockdown. “Several families I have spoken to are being harassed and told that they will have to leave the village if they continue to follow Christ,” Sagar said. He told me that, along with local Christian bodies, he was planning to write to the district collector raising the community’s grievances.
Arun Pannalal, the president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, told me that the sudden growth in the frequency of ghar vapsi functions was a phenomenon across the state. He said that in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, the Shiv Sena’s local unit had put up several bright posters inviting the public to an “aakrosh rally” rage rally against religious conversions to Christianity. The poster said that a major ghar-vapsi ceremony would occur in the town on 22 July. One of the slogans on the poster declares, “Desh ka Hindu jaagega, Pope Padri bhagega” The nation’s Hindus will rise, the Pope and pastors will run away.
To be Continued…
