Poor Hindu villagers lured into converting to Christianity with promise of monetary and social benefits

Case ID : b1c5d9d | Location : Chandauli District, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 16 October, 2025

Case ID : b1c5d9d

Chandauli District, Uttar Pradesh, India

16 October, 2025

Poor Hindu villagers lured into converting to Christianity with promise of monetary and social benefits

Predatory Proselytisation

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Case Summary

Poor Hindu villagers from Ramroopdaspur were coerced into leaving their ancestral culture and faith and converting to Christianity by missionaries with the promise of monetary and social benefits. The case is from Chandauli district, where over a dozen Hindus were converted to Christianity. The victim families had reportedly adopted Christianity in the past after receiving economic inducements from missionaries and consequently distanced themselves from Hindu rituals and practices. After intervention from Hindu groups, they were brought back to Hinduism in a ghar wapsi ceremony held at a local temple. The event, which was organised by former BJP leader Rana Pratap Singh and members of the RSS, included traditional Hindu rituals such as havan and purification rites. Community leaders described the ceremony as a return to cultural roots and stated that similar efforts had been made to prevent religious conversions. Villagers had welcomed the event as a positive step toward social harmony.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the subcategory selected is - Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases, therefore, are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. This case is being categorised as a hate crime, since a clear intention for manipulation and exploitation is established by the profiling of the victims and the use of bribery as a tool for conversion. Hindu families were targeted because of their socio-economic vulnerability. This is a well-documented tactic used by Christian missionaries, who especially focus on economically weaker sections of society and lure individuals into their fold with the promise of monetary and social benefits; ultimately alienating the victims from their culture and ancestral faith. When evangelists and Christian missionaries focus their efforts on converting individuals of a particular faith, in this instance, Hindus, it reveals a fundamental disregard for that community and its beliefs. Conversion, especially when not based on sincere personal conviction but rather on external persuasion or pressure, is not about sharing a different religion. Instead, it is an attempt to undermine the values, traditions, and identity of the Hindu community. The Indian constitution and culture provide an adult individual the freedom to explore different theological ideas and practice his/her preferred religion. If a person voluntarily explores a different belief system from his/her ancestral one and makes an informed decision to adopt the new ideology. In that case, he/she has the freedom and a constitutionally ensured right to do so, and this act won't be considered as predatory proselytisation or a hate crime. But if a person is influenced into accepting a new religion by paying money and promising other social benefits, it is considered a manipulative conversion. The Christian faith, by its very theological foundations, places a strong emphasis on proselytisation. In pursuit of theological domination, Christian evangelists often employ deceptive or unethical means to achieve their objectives. By disguising conversion attempts as prayer social welfare, the missionaries aimed to bypass resistance and draw unsuspecting Hindus into their network. These were not random or isolated incidents, but rather, premeditated efforts to undermine the Hindu faith, persuade Hindus to discard their own religion, and convert to Christianity. Such acts are deeply rooted in religious animosity towards Hindu victims and their faith. Therefore, this case has been added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: No specific date or time frame is mentioned in the news in regards to when the conversions took place and when the manipulation started. Hence, the date of the media report has been taken as the reference. Disclaimer: The media statment does not provide an exact number or the gender of the victims, and states that "more than a dozen" were converted. Hence, we have taken the conservative number of 12 victims and assigned an equal gender distribution of 6 males and 6 females in accordance with the average gender ratio.