Culture
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister at a shrine of the indigenous Donyi Polo faith
This is a classic example of locking the stable after the horse has bolted.
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu recently announced that a vital anti-conversion law enacted nearly half a century ago will be brought into effect now.
But the damage has already been done. The abject failure of successive state governments to enforce the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act that was passed in 1978 has resulted in the Himalayan state’s indigenous faiths and cultures being nearly wiped out by aggressive Christian evangelism.
This evangelism has had a tragic consequence: Christians are estimated to constitute more than 40% of the state’s population at present.
That’s a dramatic and disconcerting change in the state’s demography: Christians were a miniscule 0.79% of the state's population in 1971, but rose to 4.32% in 1981, 10.30% in 1991, 18.72% in 2001 and 30.26 % in 2011.
The Covid-induced pandemic derailed the 2021 census. But going by the exponential growth rate of the Christians due to very aggressive evangelism over the past few decades, it is feared that the next census (probably next year) will reveal the Christian population in the state to have crossed 40% at least.
Arunachal’s stark demographic change is the sharpest in the country in the present century. Nowhere else in the country has the demography undergone such a sharp change as in Arunachal Pradesh.
The 1978 law could have prevented that, but no government in the state, be it led by the Congress, the Janata Party, the People’s Party of Arunachal or the BJP, could overcome pressure from the powerful church to put the law into effect.
Christian missionaries had forced successive governments to put the law, passed by Arunachal Pradesh’s first chief minister Pema Khandu Thungon, on the backburner. The Arunachal Christian Forum which was formed a year after the law was passed in 1978 has been at the forefront of opposing the Act, calling it a “blatantly anti-Christian legislation”.
Even before the law received the President’s assent in October 1978, Arunachal East Lok Sabha MP, Bakin Pertin, launched a movement against it. Pertin was a Chrsitian belonging to the Adi tribe.
Since then, the pressure to keep the Act on the backburner and even repeal it has been relentless. The large number of Christian politicians, police officers, bureaucrats, civil society leaders, and the all-powerful clergy, had warned successive chief ministers of sectarian trouble in the otherwise peaceful state if the ‘anti-Christian’ law was enforced.
Even the BJP, which has been in power in the state for the past eight years (since 2016), has been powerless to enforce the anti-conversion law. Repeated prodding by the BJP central leadership of Chief Minister Khandu to enforce the law and stop the relentless evangelism had no effect.
That’s because Khandu feared that the Christians, who form the largest religious group in the state and have a very powerful presence in the state’s politics, police force, and bureaucracy, could revolt and launch mass agitations if the law is enforced by an administrative fiat.
The need to keep the Christians and the church happy was so great that Chief Minister Khandu, while attending an Arunachal Pradesh Catholic Association event in 2018, even announced that the 1978 Act would be repealed.
That (the repeal) would have happened had a BJP-led government not been in power at the centre. Senior party leader Ram Madhav, who was in-charge of party affairs in the Northeast at that time, put the brakes on Khandu’s intent while the party’s central leadership forced Khandu to backtrack.
Why the 1978 Act is out of the backburner
The law would have continued to remain on paper only (and maybe even got repealed) and the Chief Minister would not have made the announcement about its enforcement had it not been for the Gauhati High Court.
In 2022, advocate Tambo Tamin, a former general secretary of the Indigenous Faiths and Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh (IFCSAP), filed a petition before the Itanagar bench of the Gauhati High Court seeking judicial intervention in the state’s failure to frame rules that will put the 1978 Act into effect.
A division bench of Justices Kardak Ete and Budi Habung passed an order on September 30 last year directing the state government to finalise rules to put the law into effect within six months. That was after the state's Advocate General told the court that the draft rules had been framed and their finalisation would take another six months.
The 1978 Act prohibits religious conversion “by use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means” and entails punishment of imprisonment for up to two years, and a fine of up to Rs. 10,000 for the offence of “converting or attempting to convert” forcefully “from one religious faith to another faith.”
The Act also requires that every act of conversion be reported to the Deputy Commissioner of the district concerned. A failure to report this invites punishment for the person conducting the conversion as well.
The 'indigenous' faiths protected under the 1978 Act include Buddhism as practised among the Monpas, Membas, Sherdukpens, Khambas, Khamptis and Singphos, nature worship including the worship of Donyi-Polo by the Tani group of tribes comprising the Nyishis, Adis, Apatanis, Galos, Misings and Tagins, and the Rangfra faith (a tribal version of Vaishnavism) practised by the Tangsas, Noctes and Akas.
The unchecked harvesting of souls by Christian missionaries in Arunachal Pradesh
Till the time Arunachal Pradesh was a centrally-administered unit called the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA)—a legacy of the British raj—Christian missionaries were barred from entering the state.
Prime Minister Nehru, following the advice of some Congress stalwarts like Assam chief ministers Gopinath Bordoloi, Bishnuram Medhi and Bimala Prasad Chaliha, allowed only the Ramakrishna Mission and other Hindu organisations to set up schools and hospitals in the state.
That, however, did not deter the missionary zeal of the Chrisitian proselytisers. The church set up schools and healthcare clinics in the areas bordering Arunachal within Assam and admitted tribal students of Arunachal into these schools.
These clinics also catered mostly to the poor tribals living along the Assam-Arunachal border. And it is in these schools and clinics that the tribals were indoctrinated and converted.
The tribal converts then went into the interior areas of Arunachal and started preaching the gospel to their fellow tribals and converted more and more of them to Christianity.
As a result, proselytisation picked up and in less than a decade (by 1981), the Christian population in the state jumped 5.5 times and Christians formed 4.32% of the state’s population.
It was Rajiv Gandhi, and the catholic Sonia Gandhi exerting influence from behind the wings, who allowed Christian missionaries a free rein in Arunachal Pradesh.
Christian missionaries flooded Arunachal Pradesh as soon as it became a full-fledged state in February 1987 during Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership.
“Christian missionaries entered the state in large numbers, opened churches and schools, and started proselytising with resolute zeal,” said Emi Rumi, the president of the Indigenous Faith & Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh (IFCSAP).
The IFCSAP was formed in 1999 to protect and preserve indigenous faiths and cultures of the state that were facing the danger of extinction in the face of aggressive proselytisation by Christian missionaries.
Figures speak for themselves
By 1991, Christians became 10.32 percent of the state’s population. That couldn’t have happened, said Rumi, without active and direct patronage from very powerful figures.
By 2001, Christians formed 18.72% of the state’s population. But it was during the decade-long rule of the UPA at the centre (from 2004 to 2014) that proselytisation assumed ‘Biblical proportions’.
It is well known that Sonia Gandhi wielded actual power in both the UPA I and II regimes. What is interesting is that from 1987 onwards, a large section of the conversions took place under the aegis of the Catholic church.
This is quite unlike the other Christian-majority states of the North East, like Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, where the Protestant church – the Salvation Army, Presbyterians, Pentecostals and Baptists – has been the most evangelical.
Thus, while Catholics form a small percentage of Christians in the Christian-majority states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram, they form a large section of the Christians in Arunachal Pradesh. It is no coincidence that Sonia Gandhi is a practising Catholic.
By 2011, Christians formed 30.26% of the state’s population. Over the last 14 years (since the 2011 census), the pace of proselytisation has continued unabated despite the BJP being in power at the centre (from 2014) and the state (since 2016).
That’s because, says Arunachal’s former Indigenous Affairs Minister Taba Tedir, Christians have entrenched themselves themselves in the state’s politics, bureaucracy and the police force, thus providing protection and patronage to the Christian missionaries who redoubled their efforts to make Arunachal Pradesh a ‘Christian state’ like the other tribal-majority states of the region.
The goal of the church is to make Arunachal Pradesh a Christian-majority state by 2040. Going by the present rate of proselytisation, it seems that the obnoxious goal can be reached before that deadline.
How enforcing the 1978 law will help
The 1978 law will definitely put the brakes on conversions. As IFCSAP general secretary Maya Murtem says, the implementation of the Act will be an ‘armour’ for the people of the state who still hold on to their indigenous faiths, cultures and beliefs.
“This Act is vital to preserve our culture,” she told Swarajya.
Arunachal Pradesh’s Indigenous Affairs Minister Mama Natung, who is also the state's Home Minister, said that the Act will be enforced very sincerely. “Our indigenous faith and culture is under severe threat and will become extinct if not protected. This Act will provide the necessary protection,” said Natung.
A senior minister told Swarajya in confidence that the Gauhati High Court order came as a “much-needed shield” to enforce the Act.
“Now, we will be able to ward off pressure and enforce the Act. We will be able to say that we cannot ignore the court order,” the minister said.
IFCSAP general secretary Maya Murtem said that it is not just the demographic change that is disconcerting and harmful for the state’s indigenous identity.
“Conversions have also caused a lot of social and communal tensions. That is undesirable and needs to be checked. The enforcement of this Act will stem proselytisation and the resulting social stress and turmoil,” she said.
Tapir Gao, the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Arunachal East, told Swarajya that the Congress has long been a ‘catalyst’ in conversions. Gao, who was the president of the BJP state unit, added that enforcing the Act will not only stop the conversions, but could also reverse the process.
But while the IFCSAP and others are hopeful that enforcement of the 1978 Act will stem the tide of proselytisation, it remains to be seen how diligently the Act is enforced.
The first test will be the framing of the rules governing the Act. If the rules are not stringent enough, the whole purpose of the Act will be defeated.
It is, thus, too early to celebrate the Gauhati High Court order. As the adage goes, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip.