House churches in Chhattisgarh face an informal ban, say pastors

On August 14, the police in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, held a meeting with nearly a hundred pastors of Pentecostal churches in the district. In the meeting, the police told the pastors that all house churches in Raipur were to stop functioning until they sought permission from the district collector to operate.

Christian activists and pastors are calling this verbal demand – no order was served in writing – an informal ban on house churches.

Run mainly by pastors belonging to Pentecostal denominations of Christianity, house churches are small congregations that gather inside homes and not in formal church buildings.

In recent years, they have been the target of an increasing number of attacks by Hindutva groups in the state.

Between January and July this year, Chhattisgarh saw 86 “cases of systematic targeting” of Christians, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission. This is the second highest number of cases among all states, second only to Uttar Pradesh.

Many of these incidents involved mobs storming house churches during or after Sunday prayer meetings. Activists from the Christian community allege these mobs were led by vigilantes from Hindutva organisations.

“The VHP and the Bajrang Dal have been going wherever there are meetings in house churches and creating a ruckus there,” said Ankush Baryekar, the general secretary of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum. “They pass indecent remarks and beat up people.”

He added that the police often follow the mob. “It seems they are acting at their disposal,” he said.

Christian groups see the Raipur police directive as an extension of what they allege is discrimination against them. “The reason the police gave us is that the present atmosphere is bad,” said pastor Dankeshwar Sahu, the state secretary of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum. “But is the law supposed to kneel down because the atmosphere is bad? How is this the solution?”

Lakhan Patle, the additional superintendent of police who led the meeting with the pastors in Raipur district, denied the allegation. “There is no ban on house churches. The pastors simply have to take permission from the district collector to operate,” he said, before abruptly disconnecting the phone without taking further questions.

Pastor Rakesh Jeyraj who attended the meeting said: “Some people from the forum have approached the administration for permission, but nobody has received the permission yet.”

A rising graph of violence

Christianity in Chhattisgarh dates back to missionary efforts in the early 19th century in Adivasi areas. These older or mainline churches such as the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches have congregations numbering in lakhs and also have formal church buildings, some of which are over a century old.

In contrast, the Pentecostal denominations, which arrived in the state a few decades ago, are smaller in numbers. They largely gather in private homes for prayer meetings in small groups.

“While Catholics pray to Mother Mary, the Pentecostal focus is on the Holy Spirit,” said Baryekar, who runs the Masih Satsang Samuh Pentecostal Church in Raipur district.

Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on a direct connection to God through the Holy Spirit, is the fastest growing denomination of Christianity in the world. Its spread in India – as an experiential faith focused on healing – has gone hand and hand with a rise in anti-Christian violence.

In Chhattisgarh, scholars note that anti-Christian violence has existed at a “consistent and sustained level” since the late 1990s. However, it has intensified in recent years with Narayanpur district witnessing a series of attacks in December 2022 in which hundreds of Adivasi followers were evicted from their villages by mobs.

Christian groups say violence has now become widespread throughout the state. “In the past few months, almost every week there have been about five-eight attacks on Christians in house churches by the VHP or the Bajrang Dal,” said Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum.

Pannalal noted that the vigilantes were motivated by a Hindutva campaign that claimed “there are forced conversions happening in such churches” – an allegation he denied. “Almost 90% of the followers in Pentecostal churches remain non-Christians who don’t formally adhere to Christianity,” he said. “They remain Hindus who retain their religion but also pray to Christ and the Holy Spirit.”

Leaders of Hindutva organisations, while distancing themselves from the violence, blamed the pastors for the attacks. Ravi Wadhwani, a departmental convenor of the Bajrang Dal in Raipur, alleged Christian pastors knowingly targeted poor and vulnerable communities. “They first approach people through service,” he said. “But then they make people pray to Christian gods and not Hindu gods. That itself is conversion because people start leaving their Hindu gods behind.”

Hindutva organisations claim new followers of Christianity from Dalit communities do not formally convert to the religion to avoid losing access to reservation benefits in educational institutions and jobs. Christians and Muslims in India cannot avail Scheduled Caste status in India.

While there is no similar religious criteria for Scheduled Tribe status, Hindutva groups have been vociferously demanding the delisting of Christian Adivasis as Scheduled Tribes. It was this campaign that provoked the violent attacks against the Adivasi followers of Pentecostal churches in Narayanpur in 2022.

Nothing on paper

In Raipur and other districts of central Chhattisgarh, most of the followers of Pentecostal churches belong to Dalit and backward caste communities.

Instead of protecting them from the rising violence, Christian activists say the police have adopted a discriminatory attitude towards them.

“The police tell us that many of our house churches do not have registration numbers,” said Dankeshwar Sahu, the state secretary of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum. “Since when does belief in god require a registration number?”

Sahu argued that house churches were similar to Hindus keeping small temples and prayer meetings inside their homes. “Does every single Ganpati pandal and every Bhagavad Gita katha vachak [preacher] also have a registration number?” he asked.

Pastor Rakesh Jeyraj pointed out that many house churches are registered as NGOs or societies, if not churches. “Many house churches have already had their registrations done as different bodies, but now the police want us to take permission to operate,” he said.

Pastors who attended the meeting recalled that the police suggested they could merge their house churches with the more established churches. “The police told us that if we are Christians then we can go pray in mainline churches which have been around since a long time,” said Baryekar.

But this was not possible, he said. “Our customs and rituals are very different from other churches.” Moreover, he noted that the congregations of the mainline churches have been “Christians for generations” whereas Pentecostal congregations were “largely made up of non-Christians”.

Baryekar also pointed out that the police did not provide them with any legal documents to back up its directive. “Legally speaking they didn’t give us any documents enforcing a ban, but verbally they did tell us to shut down,” he said.

Dankeshwar added, “We requested the police to provide us official documents either with guidelines regarding the running of a house church, or a ban on house churches. This would allow us to take legal recourse against this informal order, but they refused to do so.”

While several house churches have shut down, activists said some are continuing operations covertly. “We are devising different tactics to continue prayer meetings without drawing attention, so some churches have shifted their prayer meetings to weekdays instead of Sundays, while others are holding them very early in the morning,” said Pannalal.

For many pastors, the closure of house churches comes at a personal cost. “I had a successful career in housekeeping and then in gardening, but I gave it all up to preach daily,” said Baryekar. “I am dependent on my church for a living.”

The Chhattisgarh Christian Forum is currently strategising how to challenge the police directive, Pannalal said.