Amid the heavy election campaign by all political parties – BJP, AAP, Congress and SAD – for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll, a new political outfit – ‘United Punjab Party’ was launched on April 3.
The announcement of the political party was made by Pastor Harpreet Deol. The pastor hails from a Jatt Sikh family.
Pastor Harpreet Deol runs “Open Door Chruch” in village Khojewala of Kapurthala district on April 3 said that he is the chairman of the committee (Christian Community Management Committee), and he announced this political party after meeting with the members of this committee. The committee is a panel of around 1,000 religious leaders.
Pastor Harpreet Deol claims to have successfully healed cancer patients with the power of prayer during his healing sessions and Sunday sermons.
It is to be noted that Deol’s father, Harbhajan Singh, was already a well-known preacher who had converted in 1988 under the persuasion of an Australian pastor—against the trend given his background as a member of the prominent Jat Sikh society.
When asked about the need for formation of a political party, Pastor Harpreet Deol said that there are several issues related to the Christian community in Punjab, but the current AAP Government has never asked them about their problems in the last one year of being in power. The party’s name suggests the unity of the Christians in the state, he added.
Christian leaders said that the then Punjab Government in 2011 had issued a notification regarding providing a cemetery in every district, but it never saw the light of day.
With this announcement of the political party, the political equation in Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll may change because the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency is reserved and a large number of Scheduled Castes have already converted to Christianity and they are staunch followers of the churches particularly ‘Ministry churches’, which are said to be part of the Pentecostal movement, which came to Punjab in the 1930s.
Captain A M Samuel, a British officer, is said to have trained all the Pentecostal pastors in Punjab. Such churches are mushrooming in Punjab and are allegedly “baptising” people in huge numbers, claiming miracle cures for cancer, AIDS, kidney failure, heart failure and people’s sufferings.
The fraudulent missionaries use dubious techniques like shows of miracles and give guarantees of cure from terminal illness etc., to attract innocent people mostly of the lower segment of society and mislead them into conversion. In many cases, the lure of migration is used as the bait. There are also reports of use of force to engineer conversion.
Since the church has a massive following from among the Dalit community which has been converted to Christianity in Jalandhar, the idea behind a new party is being seen as an attempt to tap this vote-bank in the Jalandhar bypoll.
IT raids conducted at premises of Pastor Harpreet Deol; incriminated documents seized
The Income Tax (IT) department on January 31, 2023 conducted raids at the residence Harpreet Deol from Kapurthala.
According to the reports, around 50 IT officers from separate teams executed simultaneous searches in Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Amritsar, New Chandigarh, Mohali, Kurali, and other locations belonging to two Pastors and seized documents related to their properties, bank accounts, and other important projects.
The IT officers revealed that pastor Harpreet Singh have been operating churches under the guise of healing ministries, which are self-styled congregations that accept a significant amount of funding from foreign nations.
The IT department has also seized documents, computers, and registers which contain details about the online bookings recorded for attending the Christian congregations.
The Influence of Christianity in Punjab
Christianity entered Punjab in 1834. John Lowrie and William Reed were the first missionaries to spread the word of Jesus Christ in the region.
Christianity is growing in Punjab, mirroring what states like Tamil Nadu experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Small churches are springing up on the rooftops of many villages in Gurdaspur.
Kanwal Bakshi is the state president of the United Christian Front (UFC), a group that has committees in 8,000 of Punjab’s 12,000 villages. According to him, 600-700 churches in Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts belong to four Christian denominations. He says 60-70 per cent of these have sprung up in the past five years.
In the Census of 2011, Punjab had 3,48, 230 Christians. According to some estimates, it would not be surprising if the Census finds Christians in Punjab to come to have formed 10 per cent of the State’s population.
The missionaries often publish false information about the person’s native faith to make them believe that
Christianity has more to offer. The churches are constructed in the shape of temples and Gurdwaras. Jesus Christ is referred to as ‘Satguru’ in Punjab by the missionaries.
Christian Hymns are being sung in the form of the “Kirtan” (musical recitation of the Holy Guru Granth Sahib).
There is now a body named Shiromani Church Parbhandak Committee to organise the Christian community in Punjab.
Meanwhile, last year, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) had launched a special drive in the villages in Punjab to check the conversion activities of the Christian missionaries.
The SGPC has come under attack after multiple videos of Sikhs converting to Christianity started doing the rounds on social media platforms.
The drive has been named “Ghar Ghar Andar Dharamsaal (sacred shrine within every home)”. The campaign aims to distribute Sikh literature to the people in the villages of Punjab.
The campaign will not only bring firmness among Sikhs toward their faith but also make the young generation take pride in their history and culture. Multiple Christian missionaries, funded by the foreign NGOs, are running conversion programmes in the villages of Punjab and luring the vulnerable through cash and other incentives.
The drive is aimed at countering the impact of the mission being run by Christian preachers.
