Indigenous Christian communities in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh are facing denial of water, employment, and forest access in what local advocacy groups say is an organised campaign to force “reconversion” to Hinduism. It comes amid a push by New Delhi to strip tribal converts of constitutional protections that has drawn condemnation from church leaders.
The Progressive Christian Alliance (PCA), an advocacy organisation, estimated that 26 Christian families in the Antagarh region of Chhattisgarh state’s Kanker district had been barred for several weeks from using rivers, ponds, taps, and hand pumps – water sources that rural and tribal communities in the region depend on almost entirely for their daily needs.
Tribal people, known officially as Scheduled Tribes, are Indigenous communities recognised by the Indian Constitution on the basis of geographical isolation, distinctive culture, and economic backwardness.
Denial of community resources
Representatives of Jila Masih Astha Samaj, a local Christian body whose name translates as District Christian Faith Committee, submitted written complaints to the police chief and administrative head of Kanker district on 28 and 30 April.
Oral requests for intervention had been made earlier in April. During a visit to the area on 16 May, community representatives said they found that more than 60 individuals from 32 villages had gathered to discuss the situation.
According to the delegation, 41 families had been denied work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a federal rural employment scheme. Additionally, 115 families had been prevented from collecting tendu leaves, a forest product used in manufacturing hand-rolled cigarettes and a major income source for tribal households. Firewood belonging to four families was said to have been taken by force.
PCA said the restrictions were intended to pressure families into participating in Ghar Wapsi, or reconversion ceremonies organised by Hindu nationalist groups, and into abandoning Christianity. The organisation cited constitutional protections under Articles 14, 15, 21, and 25 of the Indian Constitution, covering equality, non-discrimination, protection of life, and freedom of religion.
Campaign against tribal converts
The pressure on the ground in Kanker appears to be part of a larger legal and political contest over the status of tribal Christians in India.
On 24 May, thousands of members of more than 500 tribal communities gathered at the Red Fort in New Delhi for the Janjati Sanskritik Samagam (Tribal Cultural Congregation) rally, organised by Janjati Suraksha Manch (Tribal Protection Forum) and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Forest Dwellers Welfare Mission). Both groups are affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, RSS, or National Volunteer Organisation, an umbrella Hindu nationalist organisation.
The rally called for an amendment to Article 342 of the Constitution that would automatically revoke Scheduled Tribe status – which carries entitlements to reserved government jobs, educational places, and welfare benefits – for any tribal person who converts to Christianity or Islam. India’s federal interior minister, Amit Shah, who attended as chief guest, announced an intention to implement a measure to exclude converted tribal people.
Fr. Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Office for Tribal Affairs of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, told Asia News that if the delisting principle were applied consistently, it would have to cover tribal people who convert to Hinduism as well.
Tribal faith and legal identity
Tribal communities in middle and eastern India traditionally follow Sarna Dharma, an animistic faith built around the worship of nature, sacred groves, ancestral spirits, and local deities, with no caste system and no scriptures.
Between 1871 and 1931, the British census recorded the tribal population separately, allowing them to indicate “Animism” as their religion, a category distinct from Hinduism. Those categories were removed in 1951, when the first census of independent India replaced the “Animism” option with “Other”, leaving tribal communities without formal religious recognition.
Christian leaders and legal advocates argue that the Constitution grants Scheduled Tribe status on the basis of geographical, cultural and economic criteria, and that changing one’s faith does not remove a person’s tribal identity or entitlements.
In mid-June 2025, before the demand for stripping tribal Christians of their legal status escalated, posters and billboards banning the entry of Christian priests and “converted Christians” began appearing in tribal regions of Kanker district.
By the second week of August 2025, large hoardings had been erected in at least eight villages, citing the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act of 1996, a law granting tribal village councils authority over land, water, and cultural matters, as reported by The Wire.
Burial rights cases
Tribal Christians in Chhattisgarh have also been denied burial rights, with at least 15 cases reported in the state since 2023, according to UCA News. The United Christian Forum recorded 19 burial-related incidents in Chhattisgarh in 2025 alone, and about 30 in 2024.
Most affected villages have no designated Christian burial grounds, and communal graveyards that Christian families had used for generations have increasingly been treated as off-limits to them.
The most prominent case reached the Supreme Court in January 2025, when burial was denied to Pastor Subhash Baghel, who died in Chhindwada village in Bastar district. His body remained in a mortuary for three weeks while the case was heard.
The Supreme Court delivered a split verdict, and local police subsequently used the unresolved ruling to prevent tribal Christians from burying their dead in their own villages, even in cases where no dispute existed. In some instances they also supported local residents in exhuming bodies and forcing families to rebury them more than 30 miles away.
On 18 February 2026, the Supreme Court issued an interim order restraining further forcible exhumations, a protection that has yet to reach many villages, where Christians continue to be denied burial rights.
