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IS HINDUTVA TERROR ON THE RISE?
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IS HINDUTVA TERROR ON THE RISE?

Aug 09-Aug 15, 2025, Cover Story August 8, 2025 , by

ON July 14, 2025 members of the Belgavi Unit of the Ram Sene were alleged to have poisoned the water tank of a government primary school in Hulikatti village school, causing 11 to 13 children in the age group of seven to ten fall ill after drinking the contaminated water. It is alleged that the motive behind the poisoning of the water tank was to victimize the Muslim head master of the school, Suleman Gorenayak.
An associate of the Ram Sena chief Krishna Madar, allegedly part of the Bajrang Dal, reportedly bribed a minor schoolboy Kavya with chocolates and money, to pour pesticide from a discarded bottle into the tank.
More recently, on July 25, 2025 two Catholic nuns from Kerala, sister Preeti Mary and sister Vandana Francis, were arrested, along with a tribal youth, Sukaman Mandavi, on charges of forced religious conversion of three tribal women from the Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh.
In the first case the FIR was reportedly filed by a local Bajrang Dal activist, and the BJP-ruled state government very quickly acted upon it.
In the second case the two nuns were arrested by a lower court on the grounds that the case was filed under the jurisdiction of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The case was transferred to the NIA at Bilaspur. The special NIA court granted conditional bail to the two nuns with strict conditions, including surrendering their passports and furnishing a bond of Rs50,000 each.
In the case of the school water tank poisoning in Belgavi district of Karnataka, the Ram Sene president of Savadatti taluka, Sagar Patil, along with his associates Krishna Madar and Magangouda Patil, were promptly arrested.

CONGRESS IN KARNATAKA
 THE Karnataka government is ruled by a Congress government. The investigation launched by the Karnataka police revealed that the motive was to tarnish the school’s reputation and force the transfer of the school’s Muslim headmaster, Suleman, who has served the school for 13 years.
Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiah condemned the incident “as a heinous act driven by religious hatred and fundamentalism.” The Karnataka Congress CM, who promptly set a special task force to monitor hate speech and communal violence in the state, warned that the Belgavi incident could lead to widespread violence.
The Karnataka State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights has called for reports on a similar poisoning incidents in the state.
HOWEVER, in the case of the arrest of the two Kerala nuns, there has been no response either from the local BJP government or the Central leadership of the BJP. This despite an uproar across Kerala over the arrest of the two Malayali nuns. There have been massive protests both by the clergy and political figures across communal lines protesting against the harassment of the nurses.
The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, including Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, has drawn attention to the contribution of the nuns in helping the tribal community and condemned their detention as unjust and appealed that they be freed unconditionally. The Syrian orthodox church of Kerala has also protested against the arrests, for such incidents are undermining India’s secular tradition. In Parliament, Opposition members including Congress and UDF leaders, accused the BJP and the Bajrang Dal of minority targeting minorities and misusing legal authority.
Significantly, at the time of writing the church in Goa had not protested against the arrest. Ever since the BJP government came to power at the Centre in 2014, it has been targeting both the Christian and Muslim minority communities.

BONE OF CONTENTION
 THE major instrument of harassment has been the anti-conversion law that has been enacted in several BJP-ruled states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The anti-conversion law has been used to target Christian pastors, missionaries, and tribal converts. The accusation is of forced conversions, though there is no evidence that any coercion or inducements were used.
Even in the case of the Chhattisgarh conversion incident, the families of the tribal women publicly declared that the act of conversion was voluntary. It must be pointed out that most of the missionaries operating in the BJP-ruled Hindi states are Protestant and among other missionary orders none are part of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the sisters working in the tribal areas are soft targets and have been constantly harassed and suspected of coaxing conversions.
There have been incidents of Ram Sena, allegedly behind the recent Belgavi water tank incident, targeting churches in Mangalore and northern Karnataka. In Goa the present Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, recently revoked the ban on the entry of Ram Mutalik, who was barred by the late Manohar Parrikar when he was the chief minister.
In the case of the Muslim minority community there have been violent attacks on them for alleged cow slaughter, beef consumption and love jihad. Love jihad is the conspiracy theory that Muslim man seduce Hindu women to convert them. In the face of the protest from the church and Muslim organizations the film “Kerala Story” — which is about love jihad — was permitted to be screened. There has also been increasing discrimination against Muslims with regard to housing and employment. Even in metro cities like Mumbai, it is difficult for Muslims to buy flats in Hindu-dominated colonies.

THREE KHANS
EVEN the three famous film industry Khans — Salman, Shah Rukh and Amir — have admitted that they face discrimination. The double-engine BJP government has used new laws like the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act to target members of the Muslim community under one pretext or another. There is an organized boycott of Muslim vendors in many BJP-ruled states. Sadly, even in Goa, there have been attempts at targeting Muslim vendors during jatra festivals.
Against the backdrop of the harassment of Christian missionaries and Muslims, Goans must strongly object to any proposal for introducing an anti-conversion law in the state. There is very little evidence of any forced conversions either to Christianity or to Islam in India. It was during the British colonial era that a large number of Christian missionaries spread out in the tribal belts like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and the North East.
These missionaries offered education, health care and social services, which attracted many tribal communities and the lower castes. Conversion did offer them an opportunity to escape caste oppression. The general belief is that the early conversions were voluntary and with a view to gaining access to education.

GROUND REALITY
IT IS a ground reality that the Christian community has the largest network of schools, colleges and hospitals in the country. These institutions are open to all communities and even senior BJP leaders like LK Advani have acknowledged their contribution. Ironically, the children of BJP leaders have been educated in Catholic education institutions or are sending their children or grandchildren to Christian education institutions.
In sharp contrast, Hindu religious organisations have failed to play a major role in providing education or health care. Sometime ago, Margao-based businessman and social activist Datta Naik, openly criticized Hindu temple groups in Goa for not extending any relief to the poor and the needy. Neither the Partagali Mutt nor the Kavelem Mutt have set up any educational institutions.
Regrettably, the Muslim community and its maulana have also failed to set up secular education institutions. Both the Hindu fundamentalists and the Muslim fundamentalists have limited themselves to starting religious schools for their respective communities, such as Sanskrit schools and madrasas. It is not a coincidence that the largest number of Christian converts are found in the tribal areas in north India. In fact the entire northeast is a Christian stronghold.
HISTORICALLY, Hindus have never sought to convert anyone. It is only after the BJP came to power that there is been a conscious attempt at stopping conversion to Islam and Christianity, if not promoting aggressive Hinduism. This is most evident in Manipur where the BJP government tries to create a divide between the two major tribal groups, owing allegiance to Hinduism and Christianity, respectively. This has led to a civil war instigated by the BJP and the RSS group.
Similarly, in other tribal areas, hardcore Hindutva groups are very active, targeting missionaries and nuns, most of whom are engaged in teaching or rendering health and medical services. The murder of the protestant missionary Graham Staines and his wife sons in Rajasthan is still fresh in our memory.
Between the Muslims and the Christians, they constitute less than 19% of the population of the country. They cannot be considered as a threat to Hinduism, which is the religion of 80% of the population. At no time were the minorities a threat to the Hindu majority.
By and large, there has been less tension between the Hindu and the Christian community. This is partly because of the educational medical facilities that the Christian community provides without discrimination to all communities. When I visited the Northeast some years ago, I found that all the educational institutions were run by missionaries. It was even alleged that the revolt against the Indian government by the tribals in the northeast was instigated by Christian missionaries, notably a Baptist.

GOA FORTUNATE
FORTUNATELY, in Goa we have not had any major problems. All religious groups have lived in communal harmony. The successive state governments have always respected the church. It may be recalled that both the Central government and the State government extended help, both financial and physical, for the holding of the Exposition of St Francis Xavier last year, in 2024. Unlike the Protestant churches and missionary orders in north India, the Roman Catholic Church at least in Goa, actively discourages people who want to convert.
I personally know of a case of a Bengali gentleman who relocated in Goa with his Goan Catholic wife. The Bengali husband sought to convert on the basis that he was an adopted son and that his biological parents were Catholics. The parish priest at the Bishop’s Palace has been very wary about permitting the Bengali residents of Goa to convert to be Catholic.
INCIDENTALLY, the most high-profile convert to Islam in Goa is the Oscar-winning music composer AR Rahman. AR Rahman was born a Hindu, and his original name is Dilip Kumar. However, the Chennai-based Dilip Kumar converted to Islam in his early 20s in 1989 and took the name Allahrakha Rahman. Rahman, however, was primarily influenced by the Sufi tradition of Islam which emphasizes secular values. We understand that the turning point was the illness of Rahman’s sister. The family was helped finally by the Sufi spiritual teacher Khadri Abdul Jelani, who not only offered spiritual guidance but also reportedly played a role in the sister’s recovery. Rahman is on record that he found peace and meaning and purpose in Islam and Sufism.
Contrary to popular belief Tamilnadu superstar Kamal Haasan is not a Muslim. Kamal Haasan was born in a Hindu Tamil Brahmin family with original name being Parthasarathy Srinivasan. The name Kamal Hassan is derived from Sanskrit with “kamal” translating to lotus flower and “haasan” derived from laughter. Incidentally, of the three famous Khans in Hindi cinema, two of them, namely Shah Rukh Khan and Amir Khan, have Hindu wives.

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