Forcible Conversion of Chhattisgarh into Hindutva Rashtra
Brinda Karat
WHEN our delegation* met the nuns, Sisters Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis in the Durg central jail, the utter injustice of the BJP government in Chhattisgarh was further brought home to us by the courage and dignity displayed by both the sisters. They were more concerned about the well-being of the adivasi youth Sukhman Mandavi who had been arrested along with them. The nuns have provided selfless service for decades in some of the most deprived and remote areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where there are no facilities. They have been serving all sections of the poor in clinics and hospitals set up by their institutions, never asking the religion or caste of the people who came for their help. We thought they should be awarded for this sustained work, instead they have been incarcerated.
The nuns remain in jail even though the charges against them have been shown to be patently false and manufactured. The charge of forcible conversion itself is bogus because the concerned adivasis who were with the nuns have been practicing Christians for many years. If they are already Christian where then is the issue of forcible conversion? Secondly on the issue of human trafficking, all the three adivasi young women are adults proved by their aadhaar cards. They have given statements that they were going with the nuns of their own accord. Their parents have also made such statements. So, the charge of human trafficking is also a lie. Yet the BJP government shamelessly has sent the case to the NIA so as to make the bail more difficult. If there is any forcible conversion, it is the forcible conversion of Chhattisgarh into a Hindutva Rashtra.
When we met the nuns in the jail and I held their hands, I found that both had fever. They have some chronic health related issues for which they require regular treatment but in jail, being made to sleep on the hard cold jail floors has aggravated their medical condition. We argued with the jail superintendent that beds should be provided and they should be taken to the hospital for a proper checkup. We also met Sukhman Mandavi, an adivasi youth who was also jailed in the same case.
They narrated the entire sequence of events to us. Their institutions in Agra, Bhopal and Shahdol require assistants as kitchen help. One of the former assistants, an adivasi called Sukhmati who had worked for several years in the hospital and left because she was getting married in her village in Chhattisgarh, was contacted to ask whether she knew of anyone who would like to take the job. The salary is 10,000 rupees a month. Sukhmati back in her village and now a mother of a three-year old child asked some families she knows in her village in Narayanpur district who were happy to accept the offer. Three young adivasi women Lalita, Kamleshwari and a third also called Sukhmati finalised their travel plans first to Agra to be trained and then to any one of the institutions. None of these young women have travelled outside their district and were understandably nervous, so their parents arranged for the senior Sukhmati’s brother Sukhman Marandi to travel with them to Durg railway station where the nuns were to meet them and escort them to Agra. At the station Sukhman did not buy a platform ticket. A passing ticket inspector who saw this group asked for their tickets. They said that the tickets were with the nuns who they were expecting to meet. This exchange attracted attention and one of the persons there was a member of the Bajrang Dal. Meanwhile the nuns had also arrived. Soon a crowd of Bajrang Dal people gathered and shouting aggressive slogans demanded that the Railway police arrest them. The group were pushed into the Railway police control room. Here they all gave statements that they were going of their own accord. Sukhman contacted the girls’ parents on the phone and they too informed the police that the travel had their support and consent.
But it was not the facts, but the toxic agenda of the RSS outfits which came into full play. There is video evidence to back up what the nuns told our delegation, namely that in front of the police who remained bystanders, the Bajrang Dal hooligans led by a woman called Jyoti Sharma who is with the Durga Vahini, started a verbal and physical assault on all of them. The nuns were abused in the filthiest sexist language which cannot be repeated here but which constitute a crime of verbal sexual assault under the law. They were bullied, cursed, intimidated, insulted. The three adivasi women were physically assaulted. One of them has made a public statement as to how Jyoti Sharma slapped her twice demanding that they give statements that they were being trafficked. Each girl was taken into an adjoining room separately and forced to give statements. What they said and what was written by the police are totally different.
If the Bajrang Dal and its cohorts can dare to act in this manner in front of the police it is because they have the full support of the BJP government. Despite the clear evidence, no case has been filed against the perpetrators of this atrocity.
Bail applications were moved in the lower court which were rejected. When an appeal was moved in the Sessions Court the prosecution told the judge that the Sessions Court had no jurisdiction as under BNS Sec 143 the case should be heard by the Special Court under the National Investigation Agency. In 2018, the Modi government had amended the National Investigation Agency Act and included in the Schedule of Offences the then IPC Section 370 related to human trafficking. This was because human trafficking has international ramifications. However it does not state that all cases of human trafficking have to be mandatorily investigated by the NIA. In the present case, the investigation was done by the local police. The local court first heard the application for bail. At that time there was no mention by the prosecution that the case had been referred to the NIA. In the appeal in the Sessions Court the prosecution did not show any notification from the government that the case had been referred to the NIA. It is questionable how the Sessions Court accepted the prosecution plea without going into any details regarding the reference to NIA. This is another grave injustice. Since the case is so flimsy, reference to the NIA will make it all the more difficult to get bail. This is the face of the double engine Modi government.
There are other issues also involved in this case besides the targeting of the Christian community. This is an attack on the constitutional right of a citizen of India to travel and work anywhere in the country. Does a young adivasi woman who belongs to the Christian community have to get a passport stamped by an RSS outfit like the Bajrang Dal to travel to another state. Why should adult adivasi Christian women have to show proof and evidence as to why and with whom they are travelling. This case establishes a terrible precedent which directly impacts the lives and livelihoods of young adivasi women travelling out of their villages for work.
A second issue is the nature of the attack on the nuns and the adivasi women. Can anyone – man or woman, use language which amounts to verbal sexual assault against those in custody and not be prosecuted. This was also a sexist attack which concerns the rights of all women. Then again, the only time the brave Sister Preeti Mary broke down was when she narrated that she was accused by the hooligans of being a “foreigner” and called a “dheemak” (termite) working against national interest. With tears in her eyes she asked “after all my years of work for the poor, for the leprosy afflicted, in the most remote areas without any facilities, am I to be termed an anti-national termite? My religion inspires me to work for the poor – am I to be punished for that?”
We have heard words like “termites” used by the home minister of India to abuse Bengali speaking Muslims routinely, as being “illegal migrants.” Here we have Christian nuns being called termites. The dots between that cell in Durg central jail and the bastis of Delhi and elsewhere where Indian citizens, Bengali speaking Muslims are being harassed and tortured in the name of detection of illegal immigrants, were joined by the words we heard – anyone and everyone who does not fit into the framework of Hindutva can be termed a “foreigner” and their rights curtailed. Taking it one step further – the deletion of lakhs of voters in Bihar, mainly the poor, the dalits and marginalised communities in the Special Intensive Revision to “purify” the electoral lists is also being done in the name of detection of foreigners. The number of foreigners detected is negligible, but the EC’s demand for documents, impossible to procure, has basically robbed the poor of a basic right of every Indian, to vote in an election.
Join the dots of what is happening across India. The horrific aggression and arrest of the nuns and adivasi Christians is not an isolated incident. To paraphrase what Pastor Neimoller had said “If we stay silent today, there will be no one to protest when they come for us tomorrow.”
As a postscript to our visit, we heard that a delegation of the UDF MPs had made a flying visit to the Jail. We saw press reports of Congress leaders led by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi holding placards outside Parliament. This is as it should be. But from October 2022 to February 2023, when the Congress was in power in Chhattisgarh there were a series of horrific attacks on Christian adivasis. The main Catholic church in Narayanpur was attacked and statues of Jesus Christ and Mother Mary were smashed. The same hordes belonging to the RSS outfits which attacked the two nuns in Durg were even then responsible. It was only the CPI(M) which then went to Narayanpur and affected areas and met all those attacked. I was part of the team and we gave a report to the Congress chief minister. But no action was taken. No delegation from the Congress ever visited those families. Double standards as displayed by the Congress in Chhattisgarh weaken the fight against the BJP.
We stand in solidarity with the nuns and the adivasis. We did so then we do so now.
*Members of the delegation included Annie Raja, Members of Parliament and Party leaders, Jose K Mani, K Radhakrishnan, A A Rahim, P P Suneer and myself.
