Hindu woman pressured for conversion by Christian neighbour who mocked her faith

Case ID : 45f4f74 | Location : Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 1 December, 2025

Case ID : 45f4f74

Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, India

1 December, 2025

Hindu woman pressured for conversion by Christian neighbour who mocked her faith

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Attempting to convert/converting by denigrating Hinduism

Case Summary

In the Surana Nagar of Barwaha, Khargone district, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Ratna Shivshankar Solanki was harassed and pressured for religious conversion by her neighbour, a Christian woman named Manjubai Sinha. The accused also denigrated Hinduism and discouraged the victim from worshipping cows. According to the victim, her neighbour had been pressuring her to abandon her faith and convert to Christianity. She stated that the accused persistently harassed her, claiming, "Accept our religion (Christianity), what's in Hinduism?" The accused also insisted that she should not worship cows, claiming that they were merely a source of food. The accused also said wrong things about the victim's children. When the victim refused to convert, the accused began creating disputes with her over minor issues to further intimidate her. Subsequently, the victim, accompanied by her husband and members from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, went to the police station and submitted a written complaint, urging the authorities to take immediate action. Hindu activists stated that they had been receiving information for some time about poor Hindu families in Surana Nagar being lured into religious conversion. They stated that Ratna came forward with her experience, following which the complaint was formally submitted.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category 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. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The other sub-category selected here is - Attempting to convert/converting by denigrating Hinduism. In several cases, Hindus are converted or an attempt is made to convert Hindus by denigrating their faith, Hinduism. In such cases, the Hindus associate with the non-Hindu perpetrators often by choice and then, the attempt to convert them by insulting their faith, showing the faith down etc begins. An example of this would be a non-Hindu gathering where the Hindus are attending the gathering of their own free will. However, once they attend the gathering, there is an explicit attempt to convert them by abusing their faith and hailing the faith of the perpetrator. The denigration of the Hindu faith is often based on misrepresentation of the Hindu faith, its doctrine and scriptures and insult to espoused traditions if not blatant lies about Hindu beliefs and ways. Such conversions or attempts at conversions are driven by animosity towards the Hindu faith and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because the Hindu woman, Ratna Shivshankar Solanki, was harassed and pressured for religious conversion by the Christian accused, Manjubai Sinha. Firstly, 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 is 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 is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Secondly, the accused also denigrated Hinduism, claiming that there is nothing in Hinduism and that the victim should convert to Christianity. Such remarks are designed to demean and undermine the faith of Hindus and intend to create an inferiority complex in the minds of the victims against their own faith. This fosters an environment of hostility and disrespect towards Hinduism. These acts of insulting Hinduism stem from Christian theology, which harbours disdain and hatred for polytheistic faiths, and which categorises Hindus as ‘polytheists’, thereby fostering hatred against them. Such actions make the religiously motivated nature of the crime even more evident. Thirdly, the accused prohibited the victim from worshipping the cow and insisted that cows were merely a source of food. In Hinduism, the cow is venerated as a symbol of motherhood, purity, and selfless giving, believed to embody divine grace and compassion. She represents life-sustaining virtue and is worshipped as a sacred being worthy of protection and reverence. Thus, to claim that cows are a mere source of food represents a direct assault on the Hindu faith and identity. This act struck directly at the core of the victim’s religious identity. The prohibition of cow worship functioned not only as an insult to the victim’s religion but also as a calculated tactic to erode her attachment to Hinduism and push her towards conversion, reflecting clear hostility towards her faith and reinforcing the religiously motivated nature of the harassment. Fourth, when the victim refused to convert, the accused kept on creating disputes with her over trivial issues and also said bad things about her children. This was not random, but rather a punishment for refusal to abandon her faith. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. It was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. When a person or family was harassed in a targeted manner for practising or defending their religion, and the intention was to induce them to change it, such actions constituted hate-motivated coercion. The hate lay in the rejection and hostility toward the victim’s continued adherence to Hinduism. The Christian faith, by its very theological foundations, places a strong emphasis on proselytisation. In pursuit of conversion objectives, Christian evangelists often employ unethical means, ranging from psychological pressure and misinformation to insulting Hinduism. 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. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Hence, categorised as a hate crime in the database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media - 2 December 2025.