Poor men, women, and children made to attend prayer meeting organized by Catholic school, Hindu organisations protest calling the meeting a front for religious conversion

Case ID : b45f4c7 | Location : Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 21 December, 2024
Case ID : b45f4c7
location Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India
date 21 December, 2024
Poor men, women, and children made to attend prayer meeting organized by Catholic school, Hindu organisations protest calling the meeting a front for religious conversion
Predatory Proselytisation
Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination
Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Case Summary

A prayer meeting was organized on Sunday afternoon at a Catholic school in Bansi town, attended by poor women, men, and children. The weekly gathering took a tense turn when Hindu organizations, led by Ajay Verma, outgoing district vice president of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, protested against the event. Verma stated that the meeting was a front for religious conversion and alerted the Bansi Kotwali police. Police arrived promptly to manage the situation and found people being stopped at the school gate, creating tension. Kotwali in-charge Ramkripal Shukla stated that the police intervened to maintain peace and normalize the situation. Ajay Verma accused the organizers of using the prayer meeting for conversions and stated it was part of a larger conspiracy. He reported the matter to Raghavendra Pratap Singh, former MLA and state in-charge of the Hindu Yuva Vahini. Verma also demanded strict action. No arrests or disruptions to the meeting were reported.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case qualifies as a religiously motivated hate crime under the category of- Predatory proselytisation. Under this, the sub-category selected is- Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The second sub-category relevant here 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. In this instance, poor individuals were being coerced into attending a prayer meeting organized by a Catholic school. This suggests a deliberate attempt to manipulate and influence vulnerable people, aiming to convert them to Christianity. Luring Hindus to convert to a different faith by offering inducements is predatory in nature since the extremists manipulate the specific vulnerabilities of disadvantaged and poor Hindus to manipulate them into conversion. This stems from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is a subject to be dehumanised till they convert. 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.

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Case Status


Unknown

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Perpetrators Details

Perpetrators


Christian Extremists

Perpetrators Range


Unknown

Perpetrators Gender


unknown

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