Hindu Nationalists Persecute Dalits, Then Jail Pastors Who Minister to Them
My organization, the Vulnerable People Project, reaches out to the most abandoned and forgotten groups on Earth. Those groups include persecuted Christians in Africa and Gaza, hunted Jews in Nigeria, and Yazidi in Iraq. Sadly, I must say it also extends to hundreds of millions of people in their own native country, India. Hindu theology, now weaponized by a radical, ultra-nationalist regime, regards Dalits (“Untouchables”) as basically subhuman and treats them that way. (See sidebar.)
And now that same regime, which is bulldozing hundreds of churches each year, is trying to keep Dalits trapped in the religion that scapegoats them by persecuting Indian Christians who dare to minister to them, offering hope.
Prison Terms for Preaching the Gospel
In a historic ruling, a pastor and his wife have been jailed for five years after a special court in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh found them guilty of converting untouchables (Dalits) to Christianity.
Hindu nationalists falsely accused Pastor Jose Pappachan and his wife, Sheeja Pappachan, of luring Dalits from poor families to the Christian faith by offering them inducements. While hundreds of pastors and evangelists, many of them Hindu converts to Christianity, have been penalized and even imprisoned under unjust anti-conversion laws over the last decade, this is the first time an Indian court has imposed such a harsh sentence for preaching the Gospel.
While ten witnesses claimed that Pappachan and his wife had offered them bribes to convert, witness statements and the court order obtained by The Stream show that there was no evidence of guilt.
Most Americans know little about India. They think of spicy food, colorful festivals, ornate temples, and the kind, helpful people they might meet working in some convenience store. The truth is much uglier and more complicated. India is in many ways like the antebellum South, with Brahmins in the role of slaveowners and 250 million Dalits (once called “Untouchables”) born into squalor and servitude. As Jules Gomes (himself of Brahmin background) wrote here at The Stream:
“Westerners need to understand that the caste system is intrinsic to Hinduism and is rooted in the legal texts of the Manusmṛti, traditionally the most authoritative of the books of the Hindu code (Dharma-shastra).
This canonical corpus, attributed to Manu — the legendary first man and lawgiver — describes the untouchable as “polluted” and “unclean” from birth. … The Dalit (untouchable) … is a different species, like an animal or sub-human.
‘Metaphorically and literally, the Dalit has been a ‘s–t bearer’ for three millennia, toiling at the very bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy,’ writes Prof. Sagarika Ghose.
Members of higher castes shun any contact with Dalits. They exclude them from education and any but the most menial, degrading jobs. Dalits often inherit crushing debt and are forced to work that off as virtual slaves on plantations. Dalits cannot enter temples, drink from public wells, or live in most neighborhoods — often ending up segregated in squalid ghettos outside of town. They are frequently subject to violence, including rape, with little recourse to justice.
Orwellian Legislation
The witnesses, who were instigated by Hindu nationalists, could only prove they were offered Bibles, calendars with Christian imagery, notebooks, religious books, and pens, as well as community meals and a cake on Christmas day “to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ.”
Uttar Pradesh’s draconian anti-conversion law defines “allurements” to include not just “any gift” or “material benefit either in cash or kind,” but also the promise of a “better lifestyle, divine displeasure or otherwise.”
“This legislation is straight out of George Orwell’s 1984,” Kshitija Salvi, a former board member of the Indian missionary organization Love Maharashtra, told The Stream. “It is cleverly designed to trap evangelists who preach the Gospel with its promise of eternal life.
“Even giving a cheap pen or notebook to a seeker during a Bible study or a gospel tract to a passerby, or offering a meal to a seeker can be construed as an allurement, as we see in the case of the Pappachans,” said Salvi, who is an expert on the famous Hindu convert Pandita Ramabai. “This is preposterous, since such acts of generosity are the staple of Indian culture. Even grocery stores offer calendars to customers at the beginning of each year.
“It is telling that the legislation penalizes Hindus for converting to Christianity (or Islam) but does not punish Christians for converting to Hinduism because the law subtly states that returning to one’s ‘immediate previous religion’ is not a crime. Hindu nationalists euphemistically label this a ‘homecoming.’”
Bailed Out of Prison
In 2021, Pastor Pappachan was brutally assaulted and threatened by police and extremist groups in Supaul district, Bihar, while carrying out his ministry. Legal persecution of the Pappachans began on January 24, 2023, when Chandrika Prasad, a district secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the ruling Hindu nationalist political party, filed a complaint.
The Hindu activist accused the couple of coercing Dalits in the area to convert to Christianity, and alleged that it had caused the Dalits “mental distress.” The Pappachans were charged, arrested, and held without bail for much of the trial. In September 2024, the Allahabad High Court granted the couple bail after they had spent eight months in prison.
“Providing good teachings, distributing the Holy Bible, encouraging children to get an education, organizing assemblies of villagers and conducting community meals, instructing villagers not to argue and also not drink liquor does not amount to allurement,” the Allahabad court ruled. But at the trial, judges aligned with the Hindu nationalist government convicted the couple and imposed the five-year prison sentence for giving converts Bibles and religious pictures.
No Evidence
“How is it possible to sentence someone to five years on merely suspicion of conversion?” asked A.C. Michael, the national coordinator of the United Christian Forum (UCF). “There was no evidence to substantiate the charges of conversion, yet they were convicted based on unsubstantiated statements, and such a conviction for a suspected attempt to convert will not pass the judgment of a higher court.”
Pastor Joy Mathew told Indian media that Christians would challenge the judgment in the High Court, noting that “there was no evidence on record to substantiate the conversion charges, but still, they were convicted. This is bad in law” if people can be convicted “merely based on unsubstantiated statements from those listed as witnesses,” Matthew said.
Trumped-Up Charges
The Stream obtained witnesses’ statements against the evangelist couple, which in many cases did not even include the surnames of the people making the accusations.
Lavkush, a witness from the Lona Chamar (Tanner) caste, testified that the Pappachans often visited his neighbor Viphala’s house, teaching the Bible and handing out religious literature. The couple also invited villagers to their church in Manguradila and distributed church books. The witness also accused the pastor and his wife of celebrating Christmas by cutting a cake and offering sweets to the villagers.
Viphala, another witness, said the Pappachans had distributed Bibles and encouraged villagers to gather at her home for prayer meetings.
“They also organized prayer meetings where children, including my own, participated. They promised educational materials such as free notebooks, books, and pens. The accused gave me a Bible, instructing me to give it to a literate person in my household to read aloud,” Manju testified.
“They taught our children, sharing knowledge and lessons from the Bible,” Suramani told the court, stating that the evangelists encouraged them to become Christians. “They organized community meals and distributed Bibles.”
Financial Inducements?
“They would talk about Jesus Christ, urging us to worship Him, declaring that ‘Jesus Christ is our God,’ and asking us to join Christianity,” Anjani testified. “They also gave me Bibles and money as an incentive. Over the course of five to six months leading up to the incident, they repeatedly asked me to convert to Christianity, using monetary offers to entice me.”
Anjani, however, was unable to prove that the Pappachans offered her financial inducements — which was the only legally substantive charge against the couple.
In his court statement, Devendra Kumar, the police investigating officer, said that he had seized “various materials, including Bibles, diaries, and calendars with Christian imagery” from Viphala’s house as evidence against the pastor and his wife.
According to the court ruling, the evidence includes a Children’s Picture Bible, three large Bibles (with two bearing the Bible Society of India logo), one small New Testament, and another book titled Pyar Ka Uphaar (Gift of Love), and four calendars, two of which portray images of Jesus Christ.
India Weaponizes Anti-Conversion Laws
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu supremacist regime has weaponized anti-conversion laws to terrorize Indian Christians, The Stream reported in August. According to Open Doors, North India is witnessing more than 100 persecution incidents every month, in which the state of Uttar Pradesh records the greatest number.
Over 800 incidents were recorded from January to September 2024. In September, around 140 cases were recorded. Currently, around 60 pastors and believers are in jail, including 11 women. Three pastors have been convicted of involvement in coercive conversion under the Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law, Open Doors reported.
Thousands of Christians have been arrested under anti-conversion laws, which exist in 12 of India’s 28 states. Other states have been gearing up to pass similar legislation.
Penalties range from one to 10 years’ imprisonment and fines from 100,000 rupees ($1,200) to 300,000 rupees ($3,600). The Evangelical Fellowship of India reported that 648 Christians were arrested under these laws in 2023, with 440 arrests occurring in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone.
The method is the same each time — the police receive complaints against Christians, and the believers are arrested with no procedure being followed before filing a First Information Report (FIR), Open Doors noted.
Police are spying on home gatherings of Christians, confiscating mobile phones to obtain details of pastors’ contacts, and local police intelligence units are visiting centers owned by Christians, the agency reported.
In a groundbreaking ruling in May, India’s Supreme Court noted that “some parts [of the anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh] may seem to be violative of the fundamental right to religion guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution.”
“This Supreme Court observation gives us great hope,” said Bangalore Archbishop Peter Machado. “The court observation highlights the primacy of the fundamental right of freedom of conscience. There is certainly a clear link between atrocities on Christians and anti-conversion laws. Even secular human rights groups have pointed out this link.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published an Anti-Conversion Laws Compendium in 2023, and in a separate briefing explained why India’s laws “are inconsistent with freedom of religion or belief under international human rights law,” especially Article 18 of the UDHR. This provides that everyone has the right to freedom of religion or belief including “freedom to change” their religious beliefs.
Since the power of Hindu elites rests on their power to dominate the lower-caste masses, it’s no surprise that these aristocrats (essentially, in the case of Dalits, slaveowners) are willing to violate the basic religious freedom of Christians in India.
We must pray, and speak up, on behalf of our distant brothers in Christ.