Catholic Church leaders have dismissed a claim by a Hindu nationalist group of “re-converting” 184 Christians back to Hinduism in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh as “false and misleading.”
A report released by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, on a re-conversion ceremony at Kalyanpura village in Jhabua district on Nov. 7 said 184 Christians belonging to 38 families from 24 villages had returned to the Hindu fold.
“[The] VHP’s claim is totally false. Christians of all denominations are properly documented and nobody has abandoned the faith,” Father Rockey Shah, public relations officer of Jhabua diocese said.
The re-conversion ceremony is part of propaganda to defame Christians, he told UCA News on Nov. 9 and challenged its organizers to release details of those they claimed to have reconverted.
Alok Kumar, the central working president of VHP, said a special drive to make Jhabua district and its surrounding region “conversion free” was launched on Nov. 6 and will continue until Nov. 20.
He had also sought to know from the state government how many Hindus had converted to Christianity under the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 2020, but the reply was “none.”
The VHP leader said this raised suspicion about the Church’s activities in the district. “When nobody converted to Christianity, how come so many churches are being built?” he asked.
Kumar further claimed that churches were built without valid permission from the state government, which was denied by Father Shah.
“All our churches have valid permission and most of them were built even before the formation of the state. Some are as old as 100 years and even older,” the Catholic priest said.
Father Shah said the Hindu nationalists were misleading the people on the issue of religious conversions by Christian missionaries. “We don’t convert anyone illegally as is being made out,” he said.
This story was originally published in ucanews.com . Read the full story here