Hindu teacher working at missionary school pressured for religious conversion; terminated upon refusal to convert

Case ID : 30a73c5 | Location : Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 16 July, 2016

Case ID : 30a73c5

Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

16 July, 2016

Hindu teacher working at missionary school pressured for religious conversion; terminated upon refusal to convert

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Khajuraho town of Chhatarpur district in Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu school teacher named Ruby Singh was pressured for religious conversion by the school’s Christian missionary principal, Sister Bhagya. Ruby Singh was later terminated from her job when she refused to convert. The incident occurred at the Sacred Heart Convent High School, where the Hindu teacher, Ruby Singh, stated that the school’s principal, Sister Bhagya, who was a Christian, was attempting to compel her to abandon her Hindu faith and adopt Christianity. The victim stated that she had been working as a teacher at the institution since 2016. According to the complaint filed with the Khajuraho police station, the school principal, Sister Bhagya, repeatedly pressured her to convert to Christianity during her employment. Singh stated that she resisted these attempts and refused to change her religion. Subsequently, her services at the school were terminated on 17 July 2020 claiming complaints from parents and students regarding her teaching. After her dismissal, she protested outside the convent and the school premises, demanding reinstatement, and later approached the police, stating that she was terminated because she refused to convert to Christianity. Based on Singh’s complaint, the police registered an FIR against Sister Bhagya on 22 February 2021 under the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, which criminalises conversion through force, inducement, or fraudulent means. In response to the FIR, the principal moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court seeking to have the case quashed, maintaining that the teacher’s services had been discontinued due to unsatisfactory performance and that the complaint emerged after the termination. During the hearing before the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the state government informed the court that the investigation had produced sufficient material against the accused and that the complainant’s statement had been recorded before a magistrate. The court observed that pressuring an individual to change religion constituted a serious offence and ruled that the evidence was prima facie sufficient. Justice Vinay Saraf refused to quash the FIR, stating that such matters required proper examination during trial and that the High Court should exercise restraint while using its powers to interfere at the preliminary stage. The court allowed the criminal proceedings to continue and stated that the final determination of the matter would take place during the trial.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory selected is- Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. This case has been added to the tracker because the Hindu school teacher named Ruby Singh was pressured for religious conversion by the school’s Christian missionary principal, Sister Bhagya. The accused attempted to force the Hindu victim to renounce her religion and convert to Christianity. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another was a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Furthermore, when the victim refused to convert, she was terminated from her job on flimsy grounds. The dismissal appears to have been a punitive action taken after the victim resisted the pressure to abandon her faith. Losing employment as a consequence of refusing religious conversion reflects the use of institutional authority to coerce and punish individuals for adhering to their religious beliefs. Significantly, the court acknowledged that there was sufficient evidence to proceed against the accused, indicating that the allegations were not baseless and that there existed material grounds suggesting that the pressure for conversion and the subsequent termination warranted judicial scrutiny. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith, since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. These actions were not merely personal or professional disputes but were rooted in an attempt to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of the incident based on when the crime occurred. The media reports published this case on 24 February 2021. However, the media reports do not specify the exact date of the beginning of the victim’s ordeal. The victim joined the missionary school in 2016 and she was terminated on 17 July 2020. Considering these two pieces of information, we are using an indicative date of 17 July 2016 as the date of the incident. This date is used for documentation purposes only and represents the estimated beginning of her ordeal.