Thiruvananthapuram, July 31 (The Hindu) – The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala on Thursday (July 31, 2025) appeared to scramble to mend bridges with Church leaders after the arrest of two Keralite nuns in Chhattisgarh on “questionable charges” of forced conversion and human trafficking threatened to strain relations and undermine the party’s ambitious outreach to the electorally significant Christian community ahead of the local body polls later this year and the Assembly elections in 2026.
BJP State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar will likely reach Kochi late on Thursday to apprise top prelates of the attempts taken by the party in conjunction with its counterparts in New Delhi and Chhattisgarh to secure the early release of the reportedly ailing nuns, both senior citizens.
BJP in Kerala defends ‘mistaken’ arrests of nuns in Chhattisgarh, distances itself from Bajrang Dal
The nuns, Vandana Francis and Preetha Mary, of the order of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate (ASMI), hailing from Kannur and Ernakulam, respectively, are currently under judicial remand in reportedly harsh conditions in Durg Central Prison after a district sessions court recused from hearing their bail plea on Wednesday, citing a lack of jurisdiction. The court maintained that the human trafficking section in the first information report (FIR) precluded the Bench from hearing the case.
The alleged involvement of Bajrang Dal, a Sangh Parivar affiliate and youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, in the arrests has put the BJP on the defensive in Kerala.
Catholic rites hold united protest against arrest of nuns in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh
Moreover, the silence of Union Minister Suresh Gopi, who won from the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency where Christians form a decisive electoral bloc, had drawn criticism from the ruling front and the Opposition in Kerala and seemed not to have helped the BJP’s ambitions to make further inroads into the minority community’s strongholds in central Kerala.
Notably, the Catholic Bishops’ Council of India organised a mammoth march to the Kerala Raj Bhavan on Wednesday to protest against the arrests. At least three prelates, including Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, led the march by hundreds of members of the laity.
Union Minister of State for Fisheries George Kurian said legacy churches in Chhattisgarh were not into proselytism and conversion to Christianity as alleged. He said some “new generations” were engaged in the activity, which the State law deemed unlawful.
He accused the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] of attempting to make political capital out of the nuns’ incarceration.
“The BJP is trying hard to get justice for the nuns. The Congress and the CPI(M) want them to remain in jail, and their public posturing and controversial statements in Chhattisgarh were an attempt to throw a spanner in the works of the BJP’s efforts to secure the sisters’ early release. Not one Congress MP from Chhattisgarh has echoed the accusations made by Congress leaders from Kerala in Parliament,” he added.
Mr. Chandrasekhar dubbed the Congress and CPI(M) delegations meeting the nuns in Durg Central prison as “theatrics and opportunist politics.”
The Hindu Editorial – Communal agenda is behind the arrest of nuns for human trafficking
The arrest of two Catholic nuns by the Chhattisgarh police on charges of human trafficking and forced conversion is another instance of growing religion-related harassment. Keralite Sisters Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, from the order of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate, were escorting three tribal girls to an Agra convent for jobs when they were apprehended from Durg railway station on July 25, 2025, after a Bajrang Dal member filed a complaint.
They have been booked under Section 4 of the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act, 1968 (conversion) and Section 143 of the BNS (trafficking). While Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai insisted that the nuns were engaging in “human trafficking and conversion… through inducement”, the kin of the girls have since clarified that there was no forceful conversion and they had given their consent to be taken to Agra.
The arrests have led to condemnation across the political spectrum against communal vigilantism. Leaders across political lines have protested. Ruling Left Democratic Front and Opposition United Democratic Front MPs from Kerala held dharnas outside Parliament, and the Catholic Church, through its official mouthpiece, Deepika, and other church organisations too denounced the arrests.
This is not the first time that a proselytisation row has erupted involving Christian missionaries. Last year marked 25 years of the brutal killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons in Odisha.
Despite the fact that the Constitution provides citizens the right to practise and propagate the religion of their choice, several States, including U.P., M.P., Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha, have misused provisions of anti-conversion laws that were intended only to prevent conversion through force or fraud or allurement. These laws are often used to criminalise interfaith marriages by labelling conversion by marriage as unlawful.
In tribal-dominated regions such as Jharkhand, there is another tension brewing between Adivasis and both Christian tribals and Hindus. While Hindutva groups with the RSS’s backing are exhorting tribals to wake up to their Hindu roots, tribal outfits are resisting this and demanding a separate Sarna religious code.
Tribal outfits allege that the Hindu groups are doing the same thing as Christian missionaries to subsume their distinct culture. In Chhattisgarh, which has around a 2% Christian population according to the 2011 Census, there is also a debate on whether tribals who are converting to Christianity should be delisted from the Scheduled Tribes.
In such a churn, the onus is on political, religious and social organisations to focus on economic development, jobs and welfare. Government machineries should be used to enforce rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, not violate them.
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