MUMBAI, India – In India, police arrested 19 Christians for distributing religious literature at two government-run schools without the permission of the school staff.
The arrests took place on Friday in Bihar, a state in Eastern India, on Sep. 26.
According to the Times of India, the police said 17 of the 19 arrested persons were from the South Indian state of Telangana.
The religious literature included Bibles, photos and pamphlets. This literature – along with three four-wheelers and a bike – were seized by the police.
The arrests were made after a complaint by the headmaster of a school in Nibiya village.
Bihar is the third most populous state in India, with over 130 million people. However, there are only around 100,000 Christians.
The Christians were charged with trespassing, obstructing government work and propagating religion in an illegal manner. They were granted bail after the charges were issued.
However, the accused claimed that the literature was distributed at the invitation of the school principal.
While speaking to the Sunday Times of India from Bihar, the Christians claimed that a group of Christians from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh went on a tour to visit different places in Varanasi and Bihar. After completing their trip to Varanasi, they said they went to Bihar to meet community members besides visiting local sightseeing places.
“Wherever we go, we distribute Christian literature to people who are interested. In the same way, we were distributing books by standing on the road,” Bhanu Victoria, who is from the state of Hyderabad, told the newspaper.
“A man who had gone through the books expressed interest in the literature. He introduced himself as a school principal and invited us to distribute the literature in his school. So, on his invite, two among us went to the school. Otherwise, why would we go?” Victoria said.
Someone in the school shot a video and shared it with the senior district administration. More than 50 persons gathered at the school and started to question the two women about how they could distribute the literature in the school. Then, police took all 19 persons into their custody and registered an official complaint on the accusation given by the school’s teacher.
“What wrong did we do? I have the right to share literature of my religion,” Victoria told the Sunday Times of India.
The national government in India is run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with strong links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization.
Hindu nationalists often accuse Christians of using force and surreptitious tactics in pursuing conversions, often storming into villages and leading “reconversion” ceremonies in which Christians are compelled to perform Hindu rituals.
These pressures on Christians, which also affect Muslims and other religious minorities, are part of what observers describe as a broad program for the “saffronization” of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meaning an attempt to impose Hindu values and identity while squeezing out rival faiths.
Although the BJP is not the ruling party in Bihar, it holds the position of Deputy Chief Minister.
