India’s Bishops, as much as its civil society, possibly missed an ominous warning in a report in the Kathmandu-based portal Himal South Asia that there has been growing support within tribal communities in the north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh for stripping those among them who have converted to Christianity from Scheduled Tribe status, which comes with special protections and reservations.
The report becomes important with the news that the government of Arunachal Pradesh – once called NEFA [North East Frontier Agency] as it borders Bhutan, Myanmar and China through Tibet – will shortly enforce the anti-conversion law it passed in 1978 to stop the growth of Christianity in the state. Also likely to be raised is the political demand that those already converted to Christianity be stripped of all privileges given to the members of the scores of big and small tribes inhabiting this Himalayan redoubt.
Stripping tribals, also called Adivasis in North and Central India, of their scheduled status is an important national project of the BJP and the Sangh to contain the growth of Christianity among Tribals and Dalits. The Presidential Order of 1950 became the biggest anti-conversion law of the newly independent India, with converts penalised by being denied reservations in government, legislatures and education. Tribals, till now, can retain such rights even if they become Christians, and very rarely, Muslims.
These rights were the fuse that lit the conflagration in Kandhamal, Orissa which saw 56,000 people displaced from their homes and seeking safety, first in the nearby forests, and then in government refugee camos for up to a year. Many women, including a Catholic Nun, were raped, more than 400 churches and 4,000 houses burnt, while 400 villages were cleansed of Christian presence. The subtext was that converts to Christianity should not be given the Scheduled Tribe benefits.
This was also one of the subtexts of the violence in Manipur which began on 7 May 2023, and continues with the toll mounting every day. Over 70,000 people, mostly tribals of the Kuki-Zo group are homeless.
They have also forced Meitei Christians to return to the older Sanamahi faith by making them sign conversion affidavits and burning their bibles in what they described as acts of ghar wapsi, or homecoming – the preferred BJP term for the reconversion to Hinduism of Indian Christians and Muslims.
As in Kandhamal, over 400 churches are reported destroyed. The majority Meitei, who are not tribals, want the same scheduled status. This would in effect make everyone the state equal and give the Meitei egress into the hill districts which have mineral deposits, and allegedly now grow contraband poppy, from which many opiate derivatives find their way to the billion dollar international drug trade in which reportedly politicians are also complicit.
Arunachal Pradesh is home to 26 major tribes and over 100 sub-tribes, collectively 68.78% of the 1.3 million population [2011 census].
The first Church in Arunachal was set up in 1957 at Rayang village in the present-day district of East Siang, close to the Assam birder.
Christians now constitute just over 30 per cent, with Hindus close behind at 29.0% , the Donyi-Polo at 26.2% and Buddhism, both Theravada and Mahayana at 11.8%. The many indigenous tribal religions, many nature or ancestor worshipping, total some 3 per cent .
The strength of the Hindu population may be significantly more as the Donyi Polo often also so identify themselves. Many of their social, political and religious leaders are also members of the RSS
In such a mixed population, English is a link language, but also Hindi, which many people if the state speak fluently as it was taught in Vivekanand schools. Hindi also makes it easy for the Hindutva activists to emphasise its connectedness with the Hindu majority Indian mainland. The other tribal states of the North East use English as their link language.
Over the last three decades which saw Christian evangelisation, the RSS was working with equal zeal radicalising Hindu tribal groups, and ones following various indigenous faiths. the RSS and its affiliates, who view the state’s “indigenous faiths” as part of “Sanatana Dharma”. This has now effectively pitted them against the proselytised Christians.
The Sangh, not working exactly under the radar, set up an education network which parallels the one by Christian missionaries, quite matching it in expanse and facilities. These Ekal Vidyalaya are similar to the ones which impart Hindu nationalist philosophy to tribal children from Orissa in the south and Rajasthan in the west. Demonising Christians is part of the extra-curricular activity.
The Anti-conversion Act was not passed by a BJP government in the state or in the Centre. It was enacted in 1978 when Arunachal was not even a state but a Union Territory. It remained in cold storage till 2024 when a series of steps became harbingers f a toughening if stance against the Church.
As other similar laws in a dozen central and north Indian states, it too does not name Christianity or Islam, and prohibits conversion “by use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means”. Many states have now weaponised this law and punishment can range up to ten years for the pastor engaged in proselytising, or a Muslim man marrying a Hindu woman and making her a Muslim. Every act of conversion is to be reported to the Deputy Commissioner of the district concerned.
The Act was contested even before it received Presidential assent. The Christian community formed the Arunachal Christian Forum which has ensured that the law remained in abeyance all these decades. Forum president Tarh Miri says, to push for the repeal of the Act. It continues to lead the push against the Act” which Miri called an “anti-Christian law.” “If the bill is enforced, there are chances of it being misused by the district administration or police,” he said.
The number of Christians in the state has grown rapidly over the years, and in the last census of 2011, they were enumerated as 30.26% of the population, making Christianity the largest religion in the state, if by a whisker.
In 2018, Chief Minister Pema Khandu had told a meeting of the Arunachal Pradesh Catholic Association that the state government was considering to repeal of the Act.
But, as in Manipur in yet another parallel, the call to stop conversions was routed through a public interest litigation in 2022 by a lawyer, Mr. Tambo Tamin, in the Itanagar bench of the Guwahati High Court appealing for judicial intervention over the “failure” of the state government to frame rules for the Act.
On September 30, 2024, the State government told the court that draft rules had been framed and would be finalised in six months. That would mean March end or April may see the law operationalised.
Preparations apparently had begun last year when government strengthened the existing Inner Line Permit system that makes it mandatory non-residents including foreigners to apply for a permit to enter the state. Such permits are also required for some other North East states, including Manipur.
The entry permit system gives the state powers through its police to check any evangelist to enter the state.
The church in Arunachal no longer really needs people from outer areas to reach out to various remote areas to preach. Unlike in North Indian states, or even in. Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west of the country where the Christian population is small, Arunachal now has a sizeable community which can take of itself if the state itself does not turn on the people.
The Sangh may possibly have met its match in this state.
Courtesy: Mainstream Weekly