Law Sought to Ban Conversions in One More Indian State

Thursday, Jul. 2, 2009 Posted: 5:36:15PM HKT

Undated photo of India Christians on Palm Sunday. (Photo: AP)

Prominent Hindu leaders had urged Chief Minister of southern Indian state of Karnataka to enact law banning conversions in hope of stopping Hindus converting to Christianity, causing great concerns for Christians.

After Orissa state, this is the state that recorded the most number of attacks against Christians last year.

According to Chennai-based Hindu newspaper, six prominent Hindu leaders on 25 June said that they had urged Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to enact a law on the lines of the legislation brought out by the Madhya Pradesh and Orissa state Governments to ban conversion.

This is in view of the increasing number of conversion of people to Christianity affecting the demographic structure of the State, they said.

The six Hindu leaders who addressed the media were MLC S.R. Leela; the former MLC K.Narahari; Executive Director, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Mathoor Krishnamurthy; Member, All India Executive Committee, Rashtreeya Swayamsevak Sangh M.C. Jayadev; Regional Secretary, Vishwa Hindu Parishat B.N. Murthy and noted scholar M.Chidananda Murthy.

The leaders said they had a presented a memorandum containing the demands to the Chief Minister recently.

Hindu religious heads have written to the government in this regard, they said.

They said that a large section of the Hindu population in the northeastern States had been converted and added that a situation had arisen that the people in the seven States had an impression that they were a separate entity.

Such developments should make the State Government enact a law on stopping conversion, they added.

In May 2009, in an interview to The Organiser, the weekly mouthpiece of Hindu fundamentalist organization called the Sangh Parivar, Minister of State for Law, Suresh Kumar, said there is a strong demand to introduce the anti-conversion law in Karnataka.

Suresh Kumar said the law will be introduced by examining the Tamil Nadu State where the law was introduced but withdrawn shortly.

Commenting on that plan, Dr. Sajan K. George, national president of the Karnataka-based Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), expressed anguish over the reported plans to introduce the law.

Karnataka ruled by the Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) "recorded at least 112 anti-Christian attacks across 29 districts in 2008,” and at least 10 more such incidents have been reported this year, George told Compass Direct News.

In September 2008, the Bajrang Dal in Karnataka’s Mangalore state attacked over 30 prayer halls. 53 Christians were injured in the Dakshina Kannada district and parts of Udupi district.

Christians from several years have been protesting over the existing bills, which they claim has been ‘misused’ to arrest and imprison Church leaders on false charges.

Churches have been burnt, Christians murdered and their homes and properties razed to ground by Hindu radicals on allegations of "forced conversions" by missionaries.

When attacks in Bangalore synchronised with the Orissa violence, Church sternly refuted claims of conversions and affirmed, "it has never been proved in the Court of India."

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Joseph Keenan
Christian Post Correspondent