By Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Members of a Hindutva group have threatened 42 Christian families in the Gopalpur village of Bihar’s Bhagalpur District to either undergo ‘ghar wapsi’ (homecoming) to Hinduism or leave the village, triggering fear among the minority community.
According to Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News), the threats were broadcast on 8 August from loudspeakers mounted on a three-wheeled vehicle that moved across the village. Videos of the announcements have since circulated widely online.
The speakers branded the Christian families as samaj drohis – “traitors to society” – and called upon other residents to enforce a complete social boycott. The announcements claimed that Gopalpur had historically been exclusively Hindu and that only Hindus should live there in the future, effectively giving Christians a choice between abandoning their faith and leaving their homes.
The rhetoric also targeted places of worship. Speakers portrayed churches as a threat to the village’s social order and warned that if churches were permitted today, mosques would follow tomorrow, a formulation that projected both of India’s largest religious minorities as a danger. One speaker said allowing them would “ruin” the village.
Gopalpur is a small settlement. At the last Census in 2011, it had 2,387 residents in 411 families. Christians now account for 42 families.
A Christian resident, speaking on condition of anonymity citing safety concerns, said the community had faced pressure for an extended period, but the intimidation had become more overt with the use of public-address systems to warn of punishment unless they renounced Christianity.
Hindutva groups have long used the concept of ‘ghar wapsi’ to argue that Indian Christians and Muslims are descendants of Hindus who should be brought back into the Hindu fold.
Human rights advocates said the incident raises constitutional concerns. Jesuit priest and activist Father Cedric Prakash said that calls for social and economic isolation of an entire community go beyond a religious dispute and directly challenge India’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion.
This story was originally published in clarionindia.net. Read the full story here.