How Hindutva’s war on religious conversion exposes BJP’s Christian dilemma in Kerala

His life and work reflected an era when religious conversion was not yet a political flashpoint, but the deeper battle was against the caste-based social status that persisted across religions. Though critical of Christianity, Appachan’s poetry makes it clear that conversions in Kerala were driven by the oppressed community’s longing to escape the stranglehold of caste.

In nineteenth-century Kerala, religious conversion had become a vehicle for profound social change, especially among indigenous communities. Missionary initiatives, expanded under the British Crown, brought schools, hospitals, and other institutions that reshaped education, healthcare, and cultural life.

By challenging rigid caste hierarchies and introducing new ideas of equality and dignity, these efforts opened pathways to mobility and reform. Conversions took place within this context, but most accounts stress that they were driven less by force and more by the promise of social upliftment and a new sense of belonging.

In a conversation with The Federal, historian T S Syamkumar recounts how during the 1931 British census, members of backward castes were asked critical questions, such as whether Brahmins conducted rituals in their families, whether they had access to temple worship, and whether they experienced equality in religious practices.

“For most, the answers for the first question were yes and for the second a big no, and when this data became public, it deeply unsettled them. This laid the ground for conversions,” points out Syamkumar.

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He continues, “Both Muslim and Christian missionaries disrupted the rigid caste system. For communities such as the Pulayas, conversion opened up a new way of life. Missionaries, in particular, gave Dalits a pathway to escape caste oppression. Poet and civil servant historian Ulloor S Parameswaraiyyer and scholars like Robin Jeffrey have acknowledged this.”

Many historians, including Syamkumar, have emphasised that intolerance toward religious conversion in India grew concurrently with the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement. The assertion of Hindu pride, which was later politicised as Hindutva, coincided with growing violence against Christians and Muslims. This trend intensified after the BJP first came to power in 1998, and it has continued with increasing force up to the present.

Sister Angeline Theophine, 74, now living a quiet retired life in a convent in Kottayam district of Kerala, had once faced the brunt of communal violence during her years of service in rural north India in the late 1990s. She survived multiple attacks by Hindutva mobs in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and parts of Bihar (now Chhattisgarh).

She tells The Federal, “We used to travel through the villages as a group, and we were easily identifiable. The villagers trusted us — we supported them with education and medical care. It is true that some among them chose to walk the path of Jesus, but many who were associated with us remained Hindus. We never had any intention to convert them forcibly or by luring them.”

“Still, the VHP activists were extremely hostile. I myself was attacked four or five times. This was immediately after the riots in north India that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid,” she recalls.

After the recent Chhattisgarh incident, in which two nuns — Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, from the order of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate — were jailed for more than a week on allegations of forced conversion and human trafficking, the conversion debate has once again picked up momentum. The case attracted national attention, not only because of the seriousness of the charges, but also due to the rare intervention of Kerala leaders across party lines.

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Even senior BJP figures from the state suddenly appeared to side with the Church, a posturing widely read as an opportunistic move to win Christian votes ahead of Assembly elections. This was made even clearer by the behaviour of their own party colleagues in Chhattisgarh, who doubled down on the crackdown, tightened the noose on missionaries, and issued arrogant, inflammatory statements portraying nuns and pastors as threats to society.

The disconnect between the BJP’s “friendly” face in Kerala and its aggressive, punitive stance elsewhere exposed the hollowness of its outreach. Shyamkumar stresses, “A similar process to what unfolded in nineteenth-century Kerala is now visible in Chhattisgarh, where Adivasi communities are converting in large numbers to Christianity. Hindutva activists, through campaigns like Ghar Wapsi, are striving to reverse this trend, opposing conversions in order to keep Dalits and Adivasis slaved into Brahmanical hierarchies. This anxiety over losing that control is the core reason behind the recurring attacks on Christians.”

In the wake of the Chhattisgarh incident, the BJP eyeing the Christian vote in Kerala, has made a call to approach this matter with sensitivity. BJP leader and Kerala state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar reacting to the controversy had said, “Forced religious conversions and human trafficking are extremely serious issues in states like Chhattisgarh. That’s precisely why strict laws exist to prohibit them.” Further, he cautioned, “We all must acknowledge this, approach the matter with sensitivity, and avoid triggering needless controversy.”

However, for Christian missionaries, especially nuns, the fear has only deepened. The Chhattisgarh arrests were not an isolated occurrence; similar incidents have continued to unfold, following a familiar pattern, anonymous complaints, accusations of coercion, swift police action, and a disregard for the absence of credible evidence.

For nuns travelling to remote areas to teach, provide healthcare, or serve the marginalised, even a simple train journey has become a dangerous undertaking.

Take the case of the 29-year-old nun, Rachana Nayak, who was pulled off a train at the Khurda junction, 20 km from Bhubaneshwar in Odisha, by suspected Bajrang Dal activists and kept at a police station for 18 hours on accusations of human trafficking and illegal religious conversions. The investigation later proved these allegations to be false. This incident happened two months ago.

Sujata Jane, a nun who is an Odisha-based lawyer, rues, “I’ve seen how much fear nuns carry when they travel. After the Khurda incident, families begged nuns to wear a saree instead of the habit — just for safety. But the provincials refused. The nun detained at Khurda said she was targeted because her habit made her stand out. Less than a week after I intervened to get her released, police came to our convent late at night, asking questions about one of our novices abroad. The timing wasn’t a coincidence.” 

Further, Sujata points out, “In all four recent major attacks on nuns during travel, all these nuns were in their habit. If leadership insists, we must wear it, they should also be ready to stand by us on the streets when we’re attacked. For me, the mission is with the vulnerable, not defending a dress code at the cost of our safety.”

After India’s independence, violence against Christians has occurred in multiple waves, with periods of heightened tension often coinciding with political mobilisation around the conversion issue. Attacks have been reported from Gujarat, Odisha, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and other states with significant tribal or Dalit Christian populations.

Since the late 1990s, a pattern of targeted violence against Christians in India has repeatedly surfaced, often framed around allegations of religious conversion.

In 1998, Gujarat’s Dang district witnessed over 20 attacks on churches and prayer halls, with Human Rights Watch linking the violence to Hindu nationalist campaigns accusing missionaries of inducing conversions among tribal communities.

Worse was yet to come. In January 1999, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were burned alive in their vehicle in Odisha’s Keonjhar district, by a mob led by a Bajrang Dal activist, an attack that shocked the world. Staines had worked for decades with leprosy patients, but his killers accused him of converting tribals — an allegation that was never substantiated.

The same year in Odisha’s Gajapati district, a mob in Ranalai village looted Christian homes and injured several residents after a dispute over a cross displayed on a hill. The National Commission for Minorities later concluded the incident was premeditated and politically backed.

This pattern intensified in Odisha’s Kandhamal district during the Christmas week of 2007, when over 100 churches and Christian institutions were vandalised or burned, displacing thousands.

The violence was fuelled by claims of tribal conversions, echoed again in the 2008 Kandhamal riots that killed more than 30 people and left tens of thousands homeless. Allegations of coercive conversions were cited widely, though survivors and independent observers disputed them.

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In the same year, southern Karnataka saw attacks on churches and Christian institutions in districts like Mangalore and Udupi, with assailants accusing them of conversion activities — charges denied by church leaders. Across these incidents, the recurring narrative of conversion has served as a rallying point for mob action, often overshadowing evidence that the accusations were unfounded, and leaving lasting scars on Christian communities nationwide.

According to the data collated by NGOs working in the area, between 2014 and 2024, recorded incidents of violence against Christians in India totalled 4,316, with 834 reported cases in 2024 alone. Many of these incidents have been linked to accusations of forced or fraudulent religious conversions, particularly in states governed by parties or coalitions aligned with Hindu nationalist groups.

Allegations of conversion, often disputed, have been used to justify attacks on churches, community buildings, and individuals, and to push for the enactment or enforcement of restrictive “anti-conversion” laws. According to the United Christian Forum, a coalition of Christian organisations in India, there are at least 100 Christians imprisoned on charges of “forcible” conversion, with their bail applications repeatedly rejected, as of August 2025.

Father Midhun Francis, a Malayali priest in Rome, believes that what drives this whole phenomenon is fear of the majority that’s in power. “There’s an anxiety among the dominant sections that minority communities, as they progress through education and healthcare, might one day outgrow them. History shows us how dangerous that fear can be, like when Hitler twisted Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ idea against the Jews. Even today, such philosophies get weaponised by those in power,” he tells The Federal.

Since the rise of the BJP and its Hindu nationalist ideology, Hindutva, the discourse surrounding religious conversion in India has undergone a profound transformation. Previously framed largely as a matter of individual belief and constitutional freedom, today conversion is often presented through a communal lens, as a threat to the cultural and religious fabric of the nation. This shift is neither incidental nor spontaneous; it is deeply embedded in how the state and its allied ideological institutions deploy law and rhetoric.

The introduction and enforcement of anti-conversion laws in BJP-ruled states mark this pivot in full force. These statutes, ostensibly aimed at preventing coercion or fraud, have been critiqued for targeting vulnerable minority groups, notably Christians and Muslims. By blurring the line between forced and voluntary conversions, such laws contribute to a climate of suspicion and often suppress legitimate expressions of faith.

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These legislative changes are supported by an ideological narrative that casts non-Hindu religious traditions as “outsiders”. Hindutva, at its core, envisions India as a Hindu nation, implicitly excluding other religious communities from belonging to the national majority. Conversion narratives are strategically woven into this worldview, generating the perception that religious minorities engage in systematic efforts to alter India’s demographic and cultural identity.

On this disturbing festering issue in the country, Father Augustine Vattoli, a senior Catholic priest who belongs to the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese, says, “The creators of our Constitution, by including the word propagate, envisioned that the right to practice and profess a faith also extends to inviting others into it. This does not mean coercion or conversion at gunpoint, but the freedom to share and preach one’s beliefs.”

“Muslims, Christians, and to some extent Buddhists, have historically exercised this right. In this light, anti-conversion laws stand against the spirit of the Constitution,” he says emphatically.

“At the same time, if someone chooses to leave their religion, it reflects dissatisfaction with that faith. Religions must accept this reality and work to remove the causes of such discontent — such as caste discrimination and inequality. Winning people back should happen through reform, fraternity, and renewal, not through restrictive anti-conversion laws,” reasons Father Vattoli.

Anti-conversion laws feed public anxieties, fuelling further political efforts to legitimise such measures. At the same time, Hindu nationalist groups, acting as both ideological incubators and grassroots enforcers, reinforce the narrative that conversion should be curtailed to preserve social cohesion.

Within their framework, conversion becomes less a personal spiritual journey and more a political flashpoint. The shift reflects broader trends like growing majoritarian confidence, institutional backing for Hindutva ideology, and the weaponisation of law to assert cultural dominance. Minority religious communities find that religious freedom, once seen as a bedrock of democracy, now increasingly collides with laws and narratives portraying conversion as an existential threat to the idea of the nation.

This shift in narrative — where conversion is seen not through the lens of individual rights but through communal suspicion — is increasingly, and worryingly, becoming central to India’s evolving political and social landscape under Hindu nationalist influence.