In yet another alarming development from the Northeast, a disturbing video recently emerged on social media of the Arunachal Christian Forum (ACF) brazenly declaring Arunachal Pradesh a Christian State. Thousands were made to swear allegiance to Christianity, representing a direct threat to not only the indigenous culture and civilisation of the state but also the country’s national security, unity and integrity. More often than not, the rise of Christianity in the different states of Northeast Bharat has been succeeded by the emergence of numerous separatist outfits demanding ‘Independence’ from the Union of India.

The recent declaration of the ACF needs to be understood from the perspective of the continuous decline of Arunachal Pradesh’s indigenous culture and heritage over the years. Successive State Governments have failed to implement the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act (APFRA), 1978 which prohibits forced religious conversions mandating imprisonment for 2 years and a fine of up to Rs. 10,000/-. It also mandates reporting all acts of conversion to the Deputy Commissioner, with penalties for violations. In short, the Act aims to safeguard individuals from fraudulent religious conversions, ensuring their freedom to choose and practice their faith without coercion. 

The ACF has organised repeated protests against this law, expressing significant concerns that enforcing it could lead to social unrest similar to the ongoing Manipur violence. This time too, the mayhem began after the Gauhati High Court’s ultimatum to the Arunachal Pradesh State Government in September 2024 that ordered the implementation of the law by March 2025. To voice their apprehensions, the ACF organised an eight-hour hunger strike on February 17, 2025, and planned a peaceful demonstration outside the Arunachal Pradesh State Assembly on March 6, 2025. In response to these concerns, Chief Minister Pema Khandu of the incumbent BJP Government has continuously defended the Act.

The Chief Minister has categorically stated that the purpose of the Act is to preserve the state's indigenous culture and traditions and that it is not intended to target any specific religion. One of the most important and significant decisions of this government was the establishment of the Department of Indigenous Faiths and Cultural Affairs in the year 2017, a few months after assuming charge. Its objective is to preserve and promote the rich cultural heritage of the state’s indigenous communities through documentation, research and cultural exchange. Additionally, Home Minister Mama Natung has engaged in discussions with the leaders of the ACF. But, as of now, no consensus has been reached.

Historically speaking, the present-day state of Arunachal Pradesh was earlier a part of Assam. At that time, it was commonly known by the name of ‘Uttar Axom’. From the Parashuram Kund in the Lohit district to the world’s tallest naturally-formed Shiva Linga in the Ziro Valley, the history and culture of Arunachal Pradesh are integrally associated with the Vedic Hindu civilisation. After the entry of the British in the Northeast following the end of the Burmese invasions and the signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo (1826), Arunachal Pradesh came to be known as Northeast Frontier Agency (NEFA). Since then, Christian missionaries gradually began expanding their foothold in the region.

Although in the initial stages, the missionaries tried their best to reach out to the people by providing education and health services, they could not attain much success till at least the 1970s. In the initial stages, the missionaries failed to convert the adult Hindu population of Arunachal Pradesh. Hence, the economically powerful American Baptist Church and the Roman Catholic Church began establishing schools. The minor children were given a copy of the Bible and enticed to join these schools by offering them free education. Thereafter, the missionaries worked to convert the kids by baptising them without the knowledge of their parents.

As soon as a child is converted, his or her earlier name is changed in the school register the next day to something like that of John, Joseph, Mary or Margaret. This has happened in many places in Arunachal Pradesh including the capital city of Itanagar. Such conversions of minor children invariably lead to social disharmony and breakdown of families. In other instances, the schools educated the children freely for one or two years before charging them for books and clothes. However, if in case the parents were not able to bear the costs, the schools asked them to convert four or five children from their village to Christianity. In such a situation, they were not required to pay the tuition fees at all.

These same missionary schools have infused the seeds of separatism in the minds of the little ones by making them believe that they are actually “Austro-Mongoloid”, since they do not look like other Indians. Moreover, the difference in people’s food habits has been strategically used by the missionaries to achieve their objective of “Soul Harvesting”. Since some people eat the meat of the gayal (mithun) in Arunachal Pradesh, they are told that they should not identify themselves with other Indians. The missionary schools then begin to focus on the differences, and the gullible people are easily influenced for they do not have a deeper understanding of the unifying principles of their own culture.

The idea has been spread that becoming a Christian is just another way towards development and achieving all-round success in life. There was no Christian in the state as per the Census of 1951. The Census of 1971 recorded a minimal increase of 0.79% in the strength of the state’s Christian population. On January 20, 1972, NEFA became a Union Territory known by its present name ‘Arunachal Pradesh’. The Agency Council was replaced by the Pradesh Council which was later converted into the Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 1975. Subsequently, elections to the 30 member-Assembly were held in 1978.

Arunachal Pradesh attained full statehood on February 20, 1987, becoming the 24^th state of the Indian Union through the 55^th Constitutional Amendment Act. Interestingly, it was from 1987 onwards that large-scale conversions began in the state under the aegis of the Catholic Church, unlike the neighbouring states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, where the Protestant Church has been at the forefront of conversions. The Catholics have played an important role in making the people believe that their ancestors had been practising evil forms of worship and therefore they should abandon it immediately. This is a part of the Catholic Church’s campaign for conversion across the Northeast.

An example of an incident reported from Seppa, the headquarters of East Kameng district, in 2020. A video footage of conversion by a Pastor of a family circulated by the missionaries themselves clearly shows them burning the symbols of the indigenous religions and condemning these beliefs as “Satan”. By referring to the different indigenous deities as “Satan”, the missionaries question the local people’s conviction in their own culture. By using the word “spirit”, they have also philosophically separated the tribal population of states like Arunachal Pradesh from their Hindu origins. Sometimes, they are even told that they and their customs are “Satanic”.

Thus, all traditions and forms of worship, festivals, etc. are condemned as “Devil Worship”. While Catholics constitute a small percentage of Christians in the Christian-majority states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram, they form a large section of the Christian population in Arunachal Pradesh. But, in this regard, another important yet rarely heard dimension of these conversions is that a significant percentage of them has taken place through coercion and threats by Naga separatist groups. Majority of these incidents have been reported from the border districts of Tirap, Changlang and Longding where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958 is still in operation. 

The close association between different militant groups in the Northeast and the Church in terms of logistics and funding is no longer a secret. By the late 1990s, many villages in Arunachal had already been converted en-masse. Foreign missionaries were entering the state in the guise of tourists via the Inner Line Permit (ILP) and then misusing their tourist visas and passports to expand their proselytisation activities. They were involved in organising harvest and healing festivals in different parts of the state including Itanagar. This was a clear violation of the provisions of both the Inner Line Permit (ILP) and the Restricted Area Permit (RAP).

In 1999, the Indigenous Faith and Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh was formed as a Registered Society to preserve and promote the indigenous faiths and the rich cultural heritage of the state. Units of this organisation were established in every district and community prayer centres opened in different parts of the state under the aegis of this organisation. However, it was already too late. The adverse impact of the conversions on the society and culture of the state was beginning to be felt. A Pastor from Bihar who attended a ‘Healing Crusade’ held at Ziro in 2004, was reported in the local media to have persuaded his fellow Christians to vociferously spread the message of Jesus throughout Arunachal. 

Till at least the early 2000s, the Naga militants, in groups of at least 20-30, would travel from Nagaland and Churachandpur in Manipur via the thick and dense forests of Assam to reach the remote border villages along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border lying along the stretch from Margherita to Khonsa. They patrolled these areas, ate and rested, and later threatened the people that they either built a Church or paid a “tax” to them. Sometimes, they even kidnap people for ransom. This money was later used by the militant groups to buy sophisticated guns and weapons. Due to fear for their lives, many people converted to what came to be known as ‘Gunpoint Conversions’.

Failure to implement the Anti-conversion Act of 1978 in letter and spirit led to a continuous increase in the population of Christians in Arunachal Pradesh in the last four decades. The percentage of Christians in the total population of the state had skyrocketed to more than 30% by the Census of 2011. Accordingly, the all-powerful Christian lobby in the state has been able to expand its footprint far and wide. At the same time, the followers of indigenous faiths such as Donyi-Polo, Rangfraa, Amik-Matai, Heraka, Nani-Intaya, etc. have registered a sharp decline. The same holds true for the Buddhists of East Kameng and Tawang districts as well.

Non-Christians have no problem with the Act of 1978. But, Christians have opposed it for violating their ‘Freedom of Religion’. At present, non-Christians cannot even freely celebrate their festivals in many places of the state. Even if they celebrate, they do it under tight police protection. The ever-present threat of the ACF collaborating with the Naga separatists has stopped successive Governments from taking the necessary steps to protect the culture and civilisation of the state. A large Christian Naga population in Eastern Arunachal (encompassing the districts of Changlang, Longding, Namsai, Lohit, Anjaw, Lower Dibang and Upper Dibang) has provided a fertile base for such anti-national activities.

Conversions are dangerous and the consequences are there for all of us to see. When people adopt the ways of Christianity, the harmonious community living ends and divisions begin to surface among communities and groups of people who, otherwise, earlier lived peacefully. There are many examples of how the neo-converts do not participate in community activities such as festivals, town meetings, or preparing the agricultural fields for farming. Nor do they help with community house-building. The end of this cooperation as a result of some people having become Christians leads to selfishness and alienation from one another as well as their customs and traditions.

Christian conversions in Arunachal Pradesh have also been accompanied by an abnormal increase in the number of wine and liquor shops and the rise of alcoholism. This problem can be better understood regarding the tradition of making and drinking rice beer, a fermented brew prepared from rice and locally available vegetables. In the name of a flawed notion of “modernity”, Christian missionaries ask people to give up their traditions because they are “evil”, including the making of rice beer, which is not an organised industry. Instead, they simply encourage people to buy wine. However, the effects of any foreign wine or liquor on human health are far more detrimental compared to the nutritious rice beer.

Many times, the Church has not attempted to hide what it is doing. Their ultimate objective is to increase the number of converts so that it helps them increase their funding from the West. They openly declare their intention through literature, or in Church services, of turning the Northeast into the land of Jesus Christ. They do not engage in any social service or welfare, except religious conversion through fraud. At a time when reports are circulating of China funding new militant outfits in Arunachal Pradesh to halt the progress of major infrastructure projects, the news of the state being declared ‘Christian’ is too pressing to be ignored. The anti-conversion Act of 1978 needs to be implemented as soon as possible. 

It would otherwise amount to inaction on the part of the Government, nullifying all its good works in the Northeast since 2014 and even possibly paving the way for another wave of separatism. Moreover, non-implementation of this Act would provide a free hand to the missionaries to expand their area of activity and operations to even those regions and communities among whom the percentage of conversion is still low like the Vaishnavite Noctes, Wanchos, various other tribes residing in the border areas of Assam and Arunachal, etc. Arunachal Pradesh is becoming the next Christian state in the Northeast. This would directly affect Assam which is already fighting another major civilisational war against Islam.

References

1. Jaideep Mazumdar, ‘Swarajya Exclusive: China Incubates New Militant Outfit In Arunachal Pradesh To Thwart Mega Dam Projects In The State’, Swarajya, January 4, 2025.
2. ‘Arunachal Christian Forum Openly Declares Arunachal a Christian State’, India Unravelled, https://www.facebook.com/INDunravelled/videos/arunachal-christian-forum/631368386372670/
3. Shri Kuru Tai, ‘Conversions in Arunachal Pradesh despite Anti Conversion Law’, Sangam Talks, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG10_qwjIcs
4. Various testimonies provided by locals to the author.