Court in India says efforts to bar Christians from villages not unconstitutional – Crux

    
       
    
Flag of India. (Credit: Unsplash.)
MUMBAI – A petition seeking the removal of billboards from at least eight villages in India’s Chhattisgarh state that prohibit the entry of pastors and “converted Christians” was refused by the state’s High Court.
The court said the billboards prevented the forcible conversion by way of allurement or fraudulent means cannot be termed as unconstitutional.
On October 28, a division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru ruled that the billboards appeared to have been installed “as a precautionary measure to protect the interest of indigenous tribes and local cultural heritage,” according to The Indian Express.
A petition filed by Kanker resident Digbal Tandi sought the removal of the billboards, arguing that they segregate the Christian community and its leaders from the wider village population.
He alleged that the Panchayat Department had instructed villages to adopt resolutions under the slogan “Hamari parampara hamari virasat (our tradition, our heritage),” which were being misused to prohibit Christians.
The petitioner claimed that the billboards and other circulars misused provisions of the 1996 Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, to promote religious discrimination and hostility against Christians, reported The Indian Express.
Chhattisgarh has a population of around 30 million people and is over 93 percent Hindu. Less than 2 percent of the people are Christian.
The state is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has also ruled the national government since 2014. The party has strong links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization. Religious minorities have complained of increased harassment since the party took power on a Hindu-first platform.
Incidents of harassment against Christians and other religious minorities have increased across India, with various Christians being detained or arrested for “attempted conversion,” and places of worship being vandalized.
The billboards addressed in the court, which are displayed at village entrances, claim to prevent “forced religious conversions” and have sparked debate over their legality and impact on religious freedom, the Indian Express reported.
Additional Advocate General YS Thakur told the court that the Gram Sabhas had acted within their powers under the 1996 Act, which empowers them to protect local cultural heritage and community practices.
He added that the hoardings were “only meant to prevent only for the limited purpose of prohibiting only those pastors of the Christian religion belonging to other villages who are entering the village for the purpose of illegal conversion of the tribal peoples.”
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur of Raipur and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Council of Chhattisgarh (CBCC) was distressed by the latest court decision.
“It is a very sad situation in our country where a basic human and Constitutional right to free movement can be denied to a citizen of India because some people suspect that some people – Christians – are doing something without even being tried or proved in the court of law,” he told Crux.
“It is a true case of mobocracy,” the archbishop said.
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