Christianity in Chhattisgarh

Christianity is a minority religion in Chhattisgarh, a state of India. Chhattisgarh is within the area of the Church of North India. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Raipur has its seat in the province. The suffragan dioceses with seat in Chhattisgarh are the Syro-Malabar Catholic Diocese of Jagdalpur, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ambikapur, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jashpur and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raigarh. Jyotipur has several Protestant churches.[1] Chhattisgarh is part of the newly formed Syro-Malankara Catholic Diocese of Gurgaon. Janjgir Mennonite Church was founded in the early 20th century. Dhamtari is the seat of the headquarters of the Mennonite Church in India and of Mennonite Higher Secondary Schools. Champa Christian Hospital was started by the Mennonite Mission USA in 1926. Believers Church of India is active in Chhattisgarh.[5] Bilaspur has a Disciples of Christ Church. Jagdalpur has a Christ College. Many people in the state are Adivasi. Chhattisgarh has anti-conversion legislation.

Quotes

Report to the Government of India on the nature of the activities of the foreign Christian missionaries (1936)

Lt. Col. A. S. Meek, 1936, Agent to the Governor-General, Eastern States, Ranchi, Report to the Government of India on the nature of the activities of the foreign Christian missionaries. Quoted in Madhya Pradesh (India)., Niyogi, M. B. (1956, [1998 reprint]). Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities.

• Colonel Murphy went immediately to Udaipur and visited 15 of the villages, his visit being without any previous intimation. He found that the statement that the movement of the people in the Udaipur State towards Christianity was entirely spontaneous and actuated by a knowledge of the benefits to be received was entirely incorrect. The people concerned had no knowledge whatever regarding such benefits and had been actuated by one idea and one idea only, that being the receipt of money from the mission on loan……… He found that the information bad been disseminated throughout this area of the State that loans were to be readily obtained at the mission station at Tapkara on a note of hand without security, all that was required of payers being that they should have their top-knot cut off …… that when one member of a family had taken a loan all the members of that family were shown as would be converts……… Christian schools had been started by catechists who had invaded the State from Jashpur and in one instance a mission teacher had stopped the boys from going to the State school. People questioned made it plain that their only purpose in going to the mission station had been to get money and all said that without this payment of money none would have sought to become Christian.
• Mr. Blakesley made a thorough enquiry in Jashpur and submitted a full report to the Local Government in 1913. He found that the movement towards Christianity in the Jashpur State was in no sense a religious one, it was one actuated in lesser measure by the expectation of social benefits to be obtained, Christians being able to get their children married by the missionaries in the adjoining districts of British India without incurring heavy expenditure, but the real governing causes were political and agrarian………. He found that the missionaries had advanced loans to many of their converts and that the missionaries had a considerable hold on them by means of these loans. He found that the catechists interfered on every possible occasion in the temporal affairs of the Christian converts. ‘These catechists carried complaint to the missionaries, wrote petitions for the converts, accompanied them to the courts, worked out cases for them and generally acted as unrecognised Vakils, the State authorities having no control over them at all’.
• Describing the position as it is today in Jashpur, the Superintendent gives the population of the State as 193,000, the number of Catholics 50,000 and the Lutherans 4,000. Christians are now to be found in practically all villages of the State (and continuous pressure is being exerted by the Fathers to secure conversion of the remaining part of the population.)
• This officer is of opinion that in course of time the Jesuits will convert all the aborigines of all the States in this part of the Agency. If this were to occur and foreign priests were to be given full freedom of entry and residence the result might be virtually a foreign Government of the whole group.
• I have shown the admissions of the Jesuit Archbishop of Calcutta and of the Anglican Bishop of Ranchi that, in so far as religion is concerned, the change of faith has practically no meaning for adult men and women amongst aboriginal people. It is to my mind clear from the methods adopted by the Roman Catholic Missionaries that they too know that the theory of freedom of conscience is a sham. They know fully well that, as the historical account of missionary enterprise which I have given abundantly proves, the aboriginal people of this part of India change their faith and accept Christianity in the expectation only of material benefits to be received. True religion has nothing whatever to do with the matter.