[The incident left the foreigners and their host shaken. “We were all shocked,” said Dev Raj, a member of a Christian organization in New Delhi who had taken a group of friends, seven Americans and two Ukranians, on a tour of northern India. “My friends said: ‘Is this what normally happens in India? That you visit a church and are mobbed by a group of men?’ ”]
By Suhasini Raj and Nida Najar
 |
|
Yogi Adityanath, the new
chief minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,
during a news conference
last month in Lucknow.
Credit European
Pressphoto Agency
|
NEW
DELHI — Police in the
northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh were called to a Christian church in the
Maharajganj district on Friday by members of a Hindu youth group who demanded
that they investigate a group of Americans who they said were engaged in forced
religious conversions.
When a team of police officers, led by Anand
Kumar Gupta, arrived at St. Andrew’s Church in the village of Dadhauli, east of
Lucknow, they found about 25 activists from the group Hindu Yuva Vahini with a
written request for a police inquiry, Mr. Gupta said.
Inside the church, the police found nine
foreigners, including American tourists, and a group of villagers involved in a
prayer service, but no evidence of efforts to convert Hindus to Christianity.
After checking the passports of the foreigners and ensuring that they all had
valid tourist visas, the police allowed them to leave.
“We did not file any complaint as we found no
such activity happening there,” Mr. Gupta said.
The incident left the foreigners and their
host shaken. “We were all shocked,” said Dev Raj, a member of a Christian
organization in New Delhi who had taken a group of friends, seven Americans and
two Ukranians, on a tour of northern India. “My friends said: ‘Is this what
normally happens in India? That you visit a church and are mobbed by a group of
men?’ ”
The encounter underscores the tensions
between increasingly emboldened right-wing Hindu activists and India’s minority
groups, particularly over missionary activity. Concerns about this issue were
reflected in a decision last month by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his
governing Bharatiya Janata Party to shut down a Christian charity, Compassion
International, because of suspicions that it was engaging in conversions.
The Hindu Yuva Vahini, or Hindu Youth
Brigade, was formed in 2002 by Yogi Adityanath, a hard-line Hindu priest and a
longtime lawmaker who was appointed the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh last
month. It describes itself as a nongovernment organization whose aims,
according to its website, are to inspire nationalism and protect the welfare of
Hindus. Its website describes Mr. Adityanath as its “chief patron.”
Mr. Adityanath is known for provocative
comments about India’s minorities. In 2015, when a Muslim man was killed by a
Hindu mob outside Delhi over rumors that he had slaughtered a cow, revered as
sacred in Hinduism, Mr. Adityanath defended the mob and said that the family of
the man should be prosecuted for possessing the meat. He has called for India
to be enshrined as a Hindu rashtra, or Hindu nation.
But since becoming chief minister, Mr.
Adityanath has also moderated his language about minorities, saying all groups
should be tolerated.
A spokesman for the Hindu Yuva Vahini was not
immediately available for comment, and Mr. Adityanath did not immediately
respond to a request for comment sent through an aide.
