Hindu mob vandalizes Catholic school in India’s Madhya Pradesh

A mob of Hindus vandalized a Catholic school in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh after a former employee accused its management of forcing him to convert to Christianity, a charge firmly denied by a Church official. The mob stormed into the campus of St. Aloysius Senior Secondary School on the outskirts of Jabalpur city on July 14, shouting anti-Christian slogans and pelting stones at the building. “They broke many glass windowpanes, but timely police intervention helped stop further damage,” said Father Thankachan Jose, a senior priest and educator belonging to the Catholic diocese of Jabalpur, which runs the schools. Some members of the mob also tried to demolish a life-size statue of St. Aloysius on the campus, he alleged.

The priest said the former employee's allegation of attempts to convert him is baseless. “We have been running this school for the past 25 years, and currently some 2,500 students are enrolled in it, but such an allegation is first in its history,” Jose told UCA News on July 15. The former employee, the priest said, complained to the police and the education department, claiming that the school terminated his employment after he refused to succumb to attempts to convert him. “His appointment was for one year, but he wanted to continue. When management refused, he threatened to file a case against school principal Father Somy Jacob under the state’s stringent anti-conversion law,” Jose said. But when he failed to provide evidence to substantiate the complaint, he appeared to have sought help from some Hindu activists to work against the school, the priest added. Retired Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur said the whole episode appears to be a part of the ongoing targeted attacks against Christians and their institutions in the state. “Our schools have people from all religious and cultural backgrounds studying or working there, but when someone is denied admission or employment, we are accused of religious conversion and attacked and abused,” Almeida told UCA News on July 16. The prelate said the state’s anti-conversion law is being misused to trap Christians in totally false cases. Almeida himself, along with a nun, has been charged with an attempt to convert destitute children under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021. Anti-conversion laws are active in 13 Indian states, most of which are ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These laws have criminalized religious conversion through allurement, force, and coercion, among other means. The state amended its more than five-decade-old anti-conversion law in 2021, adding harsher penalties, including jail terms of up to 10 years for violations. Christian leaders say the law is selectively applied against Christians and Muslims, and Hindu mobs often target their schools and other institutions based on false allegations of conversion. Christians make up 0.27 percent of Madhya Pradesh’s more than 72 million people; a majority, 80 percent, are Hindus, including some 21 percent of indigenous people who follow animist beliefs and practices.