This story was originally published by Global Press Journal.
The mood inside Nirjuli Town Baptist Church one evening in late March was somber. Around 170 people, mostly young congregants from local churches, had gathered to rally against the revival of a long-dormant law that could suppress the growth of the Christian community in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
“I have to go to any extent to defend my father’s faith,” said James Techi Tara, general secretary of the Arunachal Christian Forum, an organization at the forefront of the agitation against the law’s enforcement. He urged the crowd to rally against the legislation. On the stage, a projector displayed a message from the Bible’s book of Matthew: “But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
The state’s Freedom of Religion Act bans religious conversion through “force, inducement or fraudulent means.” There was severe public backlash when it was passed in 1978, which resulted in the law being all but ignored since then. But in 2022, Tambo Tamin, a lawyer affiliated at the time with the Indigenous Faith and Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh, filed a petition to revive the law — a move that has reanimated decades-old debates about faith, religious identity and indigeneity in Arunachal Pradesh, a predominantly tribal state.
Tamin argued in his petition that followers of indigenous faiths in the state had declined from almost two-thirds of the population in 1971 to just a quarter by 2011 — a trend his organization, which is linked with the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was determined to reverse. As part of his petition, he pointed out that since the legislation had remained dormant, there had been “continuous conversions of indigenous faith groups to alien faiths.”
In September 2024, a court ordered the state government to create enforcement rules within six months. Those rules haven’t gone into effect yet, and it’s not clear when they will. The state, facing mounting pressure from Christians, has sought an extension with the court to ensure wider consultation on the enforcement of the law, including the creation of a committee with members of various religious groups.
Tamin filed a petition against the extension in late May.
“People shouldn’t convert forcefully and by inducement. I’ve even seen this in the case of my family members,” he says. People from the church would “come time and again home to campaign and try to coax people to convert.”
Tamin’s efforts link to a deeper trend in India: Government authorities continue to argue that policies regulating religious conversions aim to protect tribal communities. For Hindu nationalist groups, however, the goal is more explicit: to “bring back all converted Hindus.”
At the Nirjuli Town Baptist Church gathering, the question of coercion was on everyone’s mind. Could the legislation become a weapon to suppress the state’s Christian community?
‘A sleeping beast’
Christians across the state, where the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power, worry that under the law, any conversion will be viewed as coerced.
Their concerns are well founded. A dozen states now have anti-conversion laws, 10 of which were passed under the BJP, known for Hindu nationalist policies. In Uttar Pradesh state alone, over 800 cases were filed and nearly 1,700 people, including pastors and congregants, were arrested between 2020 and July 2024.
The Arunachal Pradesh law doesn’t mention Christianity, but Christians say there’s no doubt it targets them. At Nirjuli Town Baptist Church, James read the legislation aloud, highlighting troubling language. The act defines “force” in a way that includes “threat of divine displeasure or social excommunication.”
“The Bible is full of examples about the consequences of sin,” James said during the session. “We need to say this to save people from sin. That could be treated as divine displeasure or social excommunication.”
He criticized provisions in the law requiring anyone converting to notify the deputy commissioner or risk jail and fines. The draft rules, he said, mandate that the deputy commissioner maintain a list of religious organizations and the people associated with them.
James was adamant: The law violates a constitutional right to freely profess religion.
Many of those opposing the law view it as a tool in the arsenal of the BJP, India’s ruling party, and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. But Suneel Kumar, the organizing secretary of the Arunachal Vikas Parishad, an affiliate of the RSS, says the law isn’t political, but rather is about preserving society.
If it had been enforced sooner, he says, “there wouldn’t be so many Christians.”
James Lowangcha Wanglat, a former state home and finance minister, was just entering politics when the law was passed. “We had let a sleeping beast lie,” he says. “There was no conflict between the indigenous faith group and the Christian group.”
But that was about to change.
A state in flux
For generations, a quiet religious churn has gripped Arunachal Pradesh. Christian missionaries started working with the state’s tribal communities in the 1830s, as the British attempted to cement dominance.
After independence, then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru advocated for tribal self-determination, guided by British-born anthropologist Verrier Elwin, who warned against proselytization and state interference in religion. But that vision began to unravel in the 1970s, as Christianity spread.
In 1971, Christians accounted for less than 1% of Arunachal Pradesh’s population; today, they make up 30% of the population. (Nationwide, Christians make up just 2% of the population.)
Under K.A.A. Raja, the first chief commissioner of Arunachal Pradesh — described by some as a Hindu hardliner — the state witnessed church burnings and a crackdown on missionaries. He was instrumental in inviting a leader from the RSS, which went on to set up schools and promote tribal faiths. M.S. Golwalkar, RSS chief at the time, urged northeastern tribes to identify as Hindu, despite cultural differences. Both Christian and Hindu groups gained influence by offering education, health care and support in the remote, underserved hills.
Against this backdrop, Arunachal Pradesh passed the Freedom of Religion Act, pushed by Chief Minister P.K. Thungon. Though the law received swift assent, Christian protests — including hunger strikes — led to its dormancy.
Nabam Eto, 77, is the head gaonbura, or government-appointed village leader, of Gumto circle in Doimukh. “We believe in Jesus, and we are Christians,” he says. “Because we went on fast, they kept the rule dormant.”
Nearly five decades later, the legislation has emerged again.
Behind the law’s revival
The Indigenous Faith and Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh was formed in 1999 with a mission “to preserve, protect and promote the indigenous faith and the rich cultural heritage of the state.” It is an umbrella body for indigenous faith organizations, Kumar says.
Arunachal Vikas Parishad, an affiliate of the tribal outreach arm of the RSS, the Hindu nationalist group, supported the creation of the society, which would focus on faith issues. The RSS has pushed to institutionalize indigenous faiths in the face of growing Christian influence.
The RSS and its affiliate organizations describe tribal faiths as sanatana dharma, which they define as an “eternal way of life” bound to Indian civilization; in short, Hinduism.
“There is no difference between sanatana and Hindu,” Kumar says.
Before the movement to institutionalize indigenous faiths, there was a false sense of safety, says Emi Rumi, president of IFCSAP. “But there were other people who were trying to make an inroad into our social life. … In those days, our [Christian] friends would only talk about health, hygiene. After many years we came to realize their motive was different.”
That motive, he says, was to convert people to Christianity.
Stories of conversions — and attempted conversions — are common.
Tana Jiri, 24, a Christian, attended the Nirjuli Town Baptist Church gathering. She knew one story of a coerced conversion. A friend’s father had Stage 4 cancer, she says, and the family was told that if they gave 50,000 Indian rupees (about US$585) to the church, the father would be healed within a week. He died during that time.
“This is not the ethics of my Jesus,” she says.
But happier stories are common, too.
Tarh Miri, president of the Arunachal Christian Forum, converted because he believed it would cure his ill wife.
“Just after I was baptized, my wife was healed,” he says.
Others say Christianity offers more equality than tribal religions. Nabam Eto, 77, says many families couldn’t afford the sacrifices required by indigenous Donyi Polo priests. Only the wealthy could perform prayer rituals, by sacrificing goats and mithun, a large bovine.
“They would live,” Eto says, “but the poor would die.”
A dangerous path
Yaji Kipe, an indigenous priest in Arunachal Pradesh, lives at the junction of tradition and change. On a quiet morning, she sits outside her home weaving a basket from bamboo.
She says she once went to nyedar namlo, a prayer hall where Nyishi followers of the Donyi Polo faith have gathered since 2001. It was just like a church, she says, “even the way they sprinkle the water at the end of the ritual.”
Tribal leaders have emulated aspects of Hinduism and Christianity as they’ve institutionalized indigenous faiths like Donyi Polo. For instance, they host prayer gatherings at nyedar namlo on Sunday mornings.
Even Yaji Kipe’s family members follow different faiths. She often goads her brother for having converted to Christianity.
A government officer and social researcher who spoke on condition of anonymity says if the law is implemented without modifications, it will have a dangerous outcome. Christianity is an outsized force in the region, she says. “Churches are built in every nook and corner.”
Indigenous leaders needed support from right-wing Hindu groups to institutionalize their faiths as a counter to Christianity, she says, but they’ve made compromises along the way. Indigenous leaders are increasingly aligning their faiths to Hinduism, which threatens their unique practices and ways of worship.
If the state begins enforcing the law, she says, “all we will be left with is a crisis of identity.”
Angana Chakrabarti is a Shifting Democracies Reporting Fellow based in Assam, India. She covers politics in the Northeast region of India. In 2022, she won the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award for her reporting on the vandalism of mosques in Tripura.
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