In several corners of Bengal, a quiet but determined campaign of religious conversion is unfolding not in temples or schools, but under the seemingly benign banner of ‘free treatment’ and ‘faith healing’. A recent investigation, including a covertly placed phone call to one such service provider, reveals how villagers are lured with promises of medical relief and material help, only to be nudged step by step into adopting Christianity. The recording of this call, accessed by the media, lays bare the subtle mechanisms through which desperate families are targeted, persuaded, and eventually converted. The sting began when reports surfaced from villages in South Bengal about ‘miracle healers’ offering treatment for chronic pains, infertility, and mental distress.
Here the mentioned incident took place in Jangipara, Hooghly. It is reported that a group of 50–60 goes somewhere (Later on it is known that the place is Mecheda, East Midnapore) to pray to Jesus for healing from illnesses. Finding this unusual, a friend of this author called the number on August 21, posing as someone suffering from joint pain. What followed was startling. The interaction that followed was startling. Within minutes, the conversation shifted from medical advice to spiritual reassurance. There was no discussion of doctors, prescriptions, or licensed practitioners. Instead, the caller was told that the true cure lay not in medicine but in ‘prayer and acceptance of divine grace’. At first, the prospect of free or low-cost relief is emphasized. For villagers burdened with expensive hospital visits and erratic government healthcare, such an offer is irresistible. Soon, however, prayer sessions are introduced as part of the ‘healing package’. The volunteer assured the caller that many patients had been ‘cured’ simply through faith. The next stage involves promises of material aid. Groceries, medicine kits, and even school help for children are mentioned as available for ‘regular participants’. Finally, individuals are invited to attend evening group sessions. These gatherings are positioned as prayer meetings but reportedly act as community pressure points where faith adoption is normalized.
A social worker from Jangipara, Hooghly where we traced this incident of conversion to Christianity, remarked, “The system is clever. They don’t preach openly in the marketplace. Instead, they enter homes under the guise of care, and once trust is established, faith slips in quietly.” According to the information received from that covert phone call, gatherings of over three thousand people take place in Mecheda, East Midnapore, more than once or twice every month for these healing sessions. Several local residents of Mecheda, when approached, also confirmed the occurrence of such gatherings, who did the prayer of Jesus and they became cured. It’s very disappointing, when we are in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), these types of incidents are still happening.
The questions posed in the call also revealed a pattern. The handler asked not just about symptoms, but also about family size, financial conditions, and household struggles. Experts suggest this as a part of a profiling exercise to identify households most likely to succumb to inducements. “Such operations always target the socially and economically weaker,” says a professor and social scientist at a Kolkata-based College. “Widows, the elderly, or families facing chronic illness are offered hope and assistance, but the help is tied to conversion.” Local residents have corroborated this claim. In one village of Hooghly district, a man suffering from arthritis reportedly stopped visiting the local doctor after being assured that her pain would vanish if she embraced the prayer sessions.
If someone wishes to change their religion out of personal conviction, there is nothing objectionable about it. But when conversion is carried out by misleading people, exploiting their ignorance, or deceiving them under the guise of healing, can that ever be justified? In November 2022, the Supreme Court observed that religious conversions carried out through force, allurement, or fraud could “ultimately affect the security of the nation as well as the freedom of religion and conscience of citizens.” (Source: Hazarika, A. (2022, November 14). Religious conversion by force serious issue; affects freedom and security of country, citizens: Supreme Court. Bar & Bench.)
According to Pranjal Chaturvedi, a Scholar of Constitutional Law and Research Fellow at Bennett University, “The constitutional guarantee of religious freedom under Article 25 of the Indian Constitution grants every individual the right to profess, practice, and propagate religion. It also permits an individual to convert to any faith; however, such conversion must be lawful and not induced through fraudulent means, as the Hon’ble Supreme Court emphasized in Rev. Stainislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1977). In practice, many organizations engaged in conversion exploit the vulnerable socio-economic conditions of families to achieve their objectives. Such activities, therefore, must be addressed with the firm intervention of the state.”
With due respect to my Christian friends, I must raise a simple question: if prayer alone were enough to cure every ailment, then why do Christian-majority nations have so many hospitals? Swami Vivekananda himself, from the historic stage of the Chicago Parliament of World Religions on September 20, 1893, had exposed this hypocrisy: “You Christians, who are so fond of sending out missionaries to save the soul of the heathen—why do you not try to save their bodies from starvation? In India, during the terrible famines, thousands died from hunger, yet you Christians did nothing. You erect churches all through India, but the crying evil in the East is not religion—they have religion enough—but it is bread that the suffering millions of burning India cry out for with parched throats. They ask us for bread, but we give them stones.” (Source: ‘RELIGION NOT THE CRYING NEED OF INDIA’, September 20,1893; Swami Vivekananda’s Speeches at the World ‘s Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893)
The essence of Swamiji’s words remains as relevant today as it was more than a century ago. To those who are quick to dismiss such criticism as “anti-Christian,” let it be clear: we have the highest regard for Christianity, but not for “Churchianity.” Did Lord Jesus ever sanction such deceitful conversions? Certainly not.
Culture and demography are the true power of any nation. Change them, and you change the very soul of the land. History shows us that when demographics shift continuously, the original culture is either diluted or destroyed, eventually replaced by another community. That is precisely what happened to our country in the past, leading to centuries of subjugation. As Sri Aurobindo reminded us: “When it is said India shall rise, shall be great, expand and extend, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall. It is for dharma and by dharma that India exists.” Today, this very soul of India is facing a subtle, soft attack masked as compassion, charity or modernity.
Now, here comes the irony. Our so-called ‘intellectuals’ suddenly lose their voice when they see deceptive conversions unfolding in broad daylight. But the moment someone raises the issue of anti-conversion, their throats clear up, their pens start dancing, and their moral outrage knows no limits. Western media too plays its clever game: conversions to Christianity are painted as noble acts of ‘freedom of choice’, but the moment someone wants to return to their ancestral faith, it becomes ‘radical Hindu nationalism.’
Take ‘The Guardian’, for instance. In one of its reports, it declared: “Last week the hardline group Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) claimed to have ‘reconverted’ more than 20 Christians in Kerala.” (Source: Burke, J. (2015, January 29). India investigates reports of mass ‘reconversion’ of Christians. The Guardian) Notice the loaded terms ‘hardline’, ‘claimed’. But where were these bold pens when thousands were lured into conversions with false promises? Apparently, silence is secular, and selective outrage is liberal. This is how narratives are manufactured. The West decides the script, our elites perform it dutifully, and we, in our eagerness to look ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’, end up clapping for our own slow erosion. The tragedy is that while the soul of India, Sanatana Dharma is under siege, its people are busy seeking certificates of civility from those who once colonized us.
Now, one may ask why religious conversions to Christianity should be a matter of concern for the people of West Bengal. To begin with, in today’s age, offering false promises of “miracle cures” through practices like ‘jalpora’ amounts to nothing short of a crime. Moreover, we must remember West Bengal’s strategic significance: the state shares nearly 4,000 km of international border with Bangladesh. This naturally links the issue to questions of national security. Reports suggest that such activities are quietly taking place across several districts of the state. If demographic shifts occur in this manner, they could pose serious challenges and concerns for national security as well.
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