Hindu nationalists weaponize ‘anti-conversion’ laws against Christians.
Pastor Bajarang Rawat, a 47-year-old convert from Hinduism in Mohanlalganj, Lucknow District in Uttar Pradesh state, faces charges of converting people by “allurement” even though police could find no witnesses against him, and the only evidence they presented was his Bible, the pastor said.
Released on bail on Aug. 7, Pastor Rawat was arrested on July 16 and charged at the Loni Katra police station under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 for “attempt to convert…by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by fraudulent means.”
The next day, police drove him to the District and Sessions Court, Barabanki, where the judge asked why he was arrested and told him they had confiscated a Bible.
The following weeks left his wife and two daughters, ages 3 and 10, near starvation, but police had received intense pressure from Hindu nationalist government authorities to prosecute him, he said. Pastor Rawat has yet to find a source of income after Hindu nationalists ruined his sales stall and forced him to leave the area.
Police, the news media, and Hindu nationalists who accompanied officers could not find a witness testifying of any allurement. But the extremists blamed Pastor Rawat for brainwashing people, “so much so that they stop worshipping idols,” they said. One Hindu nationalist told officers, “He has been preaching about a foreign God and spreading a foreign religion,” the pastor said.
Police confiscated all his songbooks and Bible and took him to the Haidergarh police station. After questioning him and holding him for a few hours, the officers let him go. That evening, however, police reached Rawat’s makeshift house – a shed covered with plastic sheeting – and again told him to accompany them to the police station, ostensibly to collect the confiscated songbooks and Bible.
“I insisted on following them on my bicycle because I would face a transportation problem while returning, to which they said they would drop me back as well,” Pastor Rawat said.
He was arrested and detained at the Loni Katra police station. An officer showed him videos that the police had recorded of the people who attended his church and praised him for doing a noble job, the pastor said.
According to Pastor Rawat, the officer told him, “You are doing a noble work by working for the community. I can see that people themselves are giving witness to the healings they have received, but there is a lot of opposition and pressure from the authorities.”
Pastor Rawat said officers told him that he need not worry, that he would be released in three days and that those who had harassed him for no reason would be prosecuted.
In the prior four years, police had regularly monitored Pastor Rawat’s activities but always responded positively to the people who gathered for worship at his place.
But Loni Katra police arrested Pastor Rawat, who ran a stall beside his shed where he sold petty items at a railway crossing, on the complaint of Vijay Hindustani. Hindustani alleged that Pastor Rawat was involved in alluring people to convert to Christianity with the help of a dozen unidentified people.
The day of his arrest, six or seven officers accompanied by about 12 Hindu nationalists and a few news reporters with cameras and microphones arrived at his place at 11:30 a.m. while he was leading Sunday worship, Pastor Rawat said.
He said the news reporters asked congregation members questions about their faith, reasons for their gathering, and whether they were offered any allurement.
Spontaneous Church Plant
About 50 to 60 congregation members gathered in the open beside his makeshift stall every Sunday for prayer to hear the Word of God, but the church began without him intending to start it, he said.
Area Christian Anand Masih said Rawat never went to school and could barely read, “but God’s anointing was so much on him that he began to read the Bible and preach a strong and powerful message.”