Several villages in central India have outlawed the open practice of Christianity – a move of questionable legality that worries church leaders who say it has already encouraged anti-Christian violence.
The village of Belar, in Chhattisgarh’s southeast district of Bastar, convened a village assembly on July 6 and passed a resolution banning all non-Hindu religious activities.
Two months earlier in the Sirsiguda village, also in Bastar district, delegates from about a dozen villages passed a resolution outlawing the outward practice of minority faiths. The resolution ‘bans religious activities such as prayers, meetings and propaganda of all non-Hindu religions’.
Arun Pannalal, president of Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, said that the councils wrongly believe the state’s Village Council System Act provides a legal foundation upon which to ban minority religious practice.
Persecution follows
Legality aside, the chief concern among church leaders is the potential they have to encourage a climate of impunity toward religious minorities. The Revd Aneesh Andrews, Methodist district superintendant for the region, said that, after the resolutions are passed, poor Christian families in some villages have been denied government rations of food staples and access to village water. ‘In some places, the passing of the resolution has been followed by attacks on pastors and pulling down of village churches.’
