Kannumuru Raghu Ramakrishna Raju, the Member of Parliament (MP) belonging to YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP party met Union Minister of State for the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh on February 5, and submitted a representation letter, seeking action on rampant conversions to Christianity happening in Andhra Pradesh, misuse of benefits meant for Scheduled Caste by Christians and violations by foreign funded Christian NGOs.
In his letter, the Narsapuram MP noted that large-scale injustice is being meted out to Scheduled Castes citizens in the state due to large number of Christians claiming themselves to be members of Scheduled Caste community.
He stated that conversion from Hindu religion to Christianity has been taking place at a large scale for many years and that the state does not have any legislation to counter it adding that the majority of the conversions are happening with the Scheduled Caste population of the state.
Comparing data from Census 1971 and 2011, the MP drew attention to the anomaly arising out of the growth of total population of the state vis a vis the population of Christians and the number of Churches.
“While the population of the state of AP has gone up by 78.43% between 1971-2011, the population of Christians has moved in the opposite direction, declining by -54.13 %. Total number of Christians has gone down from 14.87 lakhs in 1971 to just 6.82 lakhs in 2011.”, the MP noted in his letter.
To make his case, the MP highlighted the situation in 5 districts of Andhra Pradesh – Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Kadapa, West Godavari and Kurnool where the total population of Scheduled Castes have gone up and the Christian population has gone down drastically.
Citing the case of Maddulaparva Village in Krishna District, he noted that it has led to a situation where there are zero Christians in a village but have 11 churches.
The MP stated that it is safe to assume that those practicing Christianity are claiming themselves to be Scheduled Caste to claim benefits like reservation in job, educational institutions, scholarships, etc.
The MP pointed out that the Scheduled Caste conversions to Christianity is enabled by huge inflow of foreign funds through the FCRA route to Christian organizations.
“The Christian evangelist lobby aided and abetted by their foreign counterparts have gone on a massive evangelisation and conversion spree in the state of Andhra Pradesh. A strong and well-knit organisation of Churches, religious workers in the shape of pastors, padres have gone on a massive church planting drive all over Andhra Pradesh. This well organised groups encourage converts to declare themselves as SC Hindus and corner all the benefits legitimately due to genuine Hindu SCs. Acting as a solid vote bank they are dictating terms to the elected representatives and to officials of the state administration.”, the MP noted in his letter.
The MP further added that large scale conversions are leading to social strife, law and order issues, even families being torn apart.
“Converts are refusing to cremate their departed elders, refusing to attend family ceremonies.”, the MP stated in his letter.
He said that proselytising evangelists are sowing the seeds of secessionist, separatist ideas in the minds of converts and are shifting the loyalties of the converts from nation to extra-territorial, extra-constitutional evangelical/ Christian religious heads located abroad.
The MP further brought the issue of child care centres and educational institutes run by Christian organizations coercing children to learn Bible and being converted without the knowledge/consent of their parents.
He also added that the donors and functionaries of these Christian organizations are tarnishing the image of India by making statements like the present government is trying to abolish Christianity and projecting the Prime Minister in bad light.
“These acts have seriously damaged the reputation of the nation in the eyes of the world. There is an urgent need to rein in these evangelist NGOs before they cause more serious and permanent damage the Indian nation and Indian society.”, the MP said in his letter.
The YSRCP MP seeking the urgent intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office has asked for the constitution of a fact-finding committee of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes to study the rampant conversion of misuse of benefits meant for those belonging to Scheduled Caste.
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