Legalised persecutions

The July 25 incident in Chhattisgarh, where two nuns -Sisters Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, along with Sukaman Mandavi, and a tribal man were arrested on allegations of forced conversion and human trafficking of three tribal women. The nuns, the three women and the tribal man were at a railway station a not on a clandestine act of proselytization but a professional arrangement to help the girls secure employment at a hospital. Based on an unverified complaint from members of the right-wing Bajrang Dal organization, mere complaint was enough to trigger an arrest under the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act and the Indian Penal Code. This legal complicity stems from India’s anti-conversion laws fueled not by concrete evidence but by suspicion and ideological animosity. Anti-conversion laws, originally framed to prevent fraudulent religious conversions, have been weaponized to persecute minority communities. The speed of the police action, followed by a week in judicial custody, suggests a system quick to respond to claims of religious transgression against Christian missionaries without thorough verification while doing nothing to hold those making baseless allegations into account.The flimsy nature of the accusations was exposed when a special NIA court granted the accused bail. The court’s decision was factored by the absence of any material evidence of coercion or inducement. The case unraveled further when the very individuals at the center of the controversy-the three tribal women-came forward with their own version of events. They not only denied being victims of trafficking or forced conversion but also lodged a complaint against the Bajrang Dal activists, accusing them of assault and coercion to give false statements. This pivot from a supposed crime against the girls to a crime committed against them by the accusers speaks volumes about the real dynamics at play. This incident is not an isolated one. It is part of a larger strategy of systemic persecutions against Christian minorities, who constitute barely 2.3 percent of the total population of the country. Such incidents have been recorded by numerous human rights organizations detailing attacks on churches, physical assaults on priests, and acts of vandalism. The common thread in many of these events is the invocation of anti-conversion laws. Many legal practitioners argue that these laws, with their vague and subjective language, are easily manipulated to target and harass individuals and institutions particularly Christians. They create an environment where a simple act of charity or association can be misconstrued as an attempt to proselytize, making it difficult for religious leaders to practice their faith and for individuals to voluntarily change their beliefs. The Chhattisgarh case is a microcosm of this systemic issue. The readiness to act on unsubstantiated complaints from elements or groups patronized by the party in power rests on reliance on a questionable legal framework. While the subsequent disregard for the victims’ own testimony when it contradicts the narrative, raise serious questions about the principles of a fair and just democracy. When legal instruments are used as tools for ideological enforcement, and when self-proclaimed protectors of a faith are given a free run to create fear, the fabric of a pluralistic society begins to fray. The incident is a sobering reminder of the need for an impartial and evidence-based approach to the rule of law, protecting all citizens from arbitrary persecution.