{"id":33147,"date":"2018-10-30T11:06:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33147"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:06:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:36:09","slug":"outrage-in-satna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/outrage-in-satna\/","title":{"rendered":"Outrage in Satna:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/editorials\/outrage-in-satna-madhya-pradesh-seminarians-detained-anti-conversion-law-4988819\/\"><strong>Outrage in Satna:<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Vigilante violence against carol singers, state response, raise questions about protection of minority rights in MP<\/p>\n<p><strong>What has happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>30 priests and seminarians singing carols in a village near Satna town were detained by local police after Bajrang Dal activists accused them of trying to forcibly convert the villagers. One of the priests was arrested under the the state\u2019s draconian anti-conversion law<\/p>\n<p><strong>An old practice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to the Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of India, the singers were from a nearby theological college and carol singing during the Christmas season has been a local practice for over 30 years now<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier instances<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With Christmas a few days away, the Bajrang Dal, by all accounts, aimed to spread fear among the small Christian population in the state. In November, Hindu Jagran Manch members had targeted a group of Christian children in Indore, who were on a train to attend a Bible study class, and claimed they were being taken to Mumbai for conversion<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why such incidents are dangerous?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Author states that in today\u2019s times of social media, a single incident can polarise vast sections of a society. Hence, political leadership in the state should send out a strong message against hate campaigns<\/p>\n<p><strong>Criminalisation of conversion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It gives the impression that the state is willing to condone the violence of the vigilantes. The anti-conversion agenda, it must be remembered, has legal cover in Madhya Pradesh: Sweeping provisions in the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1968, allow police to criminalise conversion<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The authorities must act against the vigilantes and assure the Christian community that their constitutionally-guaranteed right to faith will be protected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Outrage in Satna:\u00a0 Context Vigilante violence against carol singers, state response, raise questions about protection of minority rights in MP What has happened? 30 priests and seminarians singing carols in a village near Satna town were detained by local police after Bajrang Dal activists accused them of trying to forcibly convert the villagers. One of&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/outrage-in-satna\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Outrage in Satna:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704686395},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}