A Hindu temple priest from an SC (Scheduled Caste) community in Andhra Pradesh has posted a video narrating his alleged harassment at the hand of Christian villagers, who constitute an overwhelming majority in his village, to convert to Christianity and abandon the temple. The priest claims that the accused have also foisted false cases on him.
After HinduPost’s request for assistance in translating the priest’s appeal from Telugu to English went viral, twitter user @srisivanicharan obliged and provided the following translation –
“Jai Sri ram! My name is Addepalli Raghavulu and I come from Bapatla district, Nagaram Mandal, Sajjalavaripalem village, SC colony, Andhra Pradesh. With the help of Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD), we set up the Rama temple in our Madigapalle.
In our village, people who converted to Christianity from our community are pressuring us to get rid of the Rama temple and not to follow Hindu Dharma in Madigapalle and pressuring me to convert to Christianity. Since I said no to conversion, they filed false cases claiming that I had badmouthed women from the Christian community, and threatened to open a rowdy sheet against me through Nagaram Mandal SI.
I am saddened by the police threatening me to convert and become one of them by saying since most of them are on one side, and I cannot do anything by staying on the other. So, I request all Hindus to save the Sri Kodanda Rama temple in Sajjavaripalem from demolition and pujaris like me who are constantly working for Hindu Dharma need blessings and help from the leaders of our Hindu organizations.
Dear Hindus, I am saddened and troubled a lot by the 2-3 FIRs that were filed against me, and they are trying to file one more FIR. Since I am the only Hindu, if they file these cases, there will not be any Hindu and pujari for this temple and it can be taken over and converted into a Church by the Christians. I hereby request you to save this temple, Hindu Dharma, me, and my family. I hope I can get the support of Hindus. Jai Sri Ram! Jai Hind!”
Another twitter user has captioned the entire video.
Baptla district was formed in April this year, combining parts of erstwhile Guntur and Prakasam districts. It is part of coastal Andhra, which has seen heavy evangelical missionary activity since YSR came into power in 2004. Now, YSR’s jon, CM Jagan Reddy is accused of covertly assisting the aggressive, and often predatory, Christian proselytization across Andhra with undeclared state support. This proselytization almost always involves denigration of Hindu Dharma as a ‘false religion’, and abuse of Hindu murtis and deities as ‘false gods’, ‘stone’, ‘satan’ etc.
HinduPost spoke to an activist who visited the village and priest in question. The activist informed us that out of 500 families in the village, only 3 Hindu families remain, including the priest’s. A couple of cases have also been lodged against the priest, as he claims in the video. The matter needs to be investigated in depth.
It must be noted that once missionaries gain a toehold in any village or area, threatening and slapping non-Christians who oppose their proselytization with fabricated cases (often under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act) is a common tactic that has been reported many times in the past – see this (case from Guntur district), this, this, this.
The Supreme Court has recently termed forced religious conversion a very serious issue. Taking note of proselytisation through deception, allurement and intimidation, the SC asked the Centre to step in and make sincere efforts to check the practice. It warned a very difficult situation will emerge if such religious conversions are not stopped as they may pose a danger to national security and the fundamental right of citizens to freedom of religion and conscience.
The apex court made these comments while hearing a plea filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking direction to the Centre and states to take stringent steps to control fraudulent religious conversion by intimidation, threatening, deceivingly luring through gifts and monetary benefits.
“Incidents are reported every week throughout the country where conversion is done by intimidating, threatening, deceivingly luring through gifts and monetary benefits and also by using black magic, superstition, miracles but Centre and States have not taken stringent steps to stop this menace,” said the plea filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey.
