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A religious survey conducted by police among the Christian community in Gujarat is raising fears of unpleasant surprises planned for Indian Christians by Hindu fanatics in the western state.

The Gujarat government says it has been gathering statistics on Christians at the behest of federal officials. On Tuesday the State High Court ordered the survey halted. It has sent notices to federal and State government officials to explain the motive behind the survey.

"Such surveys are dangerous, and illegal, because other than the national census, held under [federal] laws, no one else has the right to ask intimate questions on faith," says John Dayal, secretary general of All India Christian Council. "These surveys are dangerous because they arm goons of the Hindu group RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] and other … elements with ready-made hit lists of the nature made famous by Nazi cadres." Human rights observers say Hindu gangs used similar lists to target Muslims, their property, and businesses during a genocidal riot in Gujarat last year.

During the first week of March, copies of a handwritten questionnaire in the local Gujarati language recently were sent to missionaries across the state. The questionnaire was also sent to every police station in the state. It seeks information on Christians living in the various areas from 1998 to 2002. The document says all information will go to the state and central governments before the end of this month. It asks for names, years of birth, details of all Christian institutes, numbers of conversions, numbers of new institutes, and exact details about born and converted Christians in each village. The questionnaire also asks, "What are the reasons behind the conversion in your districts?"

State officials have attempted to downplay the significance of the information gathering. "We are collecting information for Parliament," says Amit Shah, Gujarat State home minister. "There is no separate circular or survey. We are just collecting some data."

Police say they were collecting statistics to protect minorities. Observers suspicious of right-wing Hindu efforts to curtail religious conversions, however, suspect that leaders in the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat are laying the groundwork for a controversial bill that would ban religious conversions. One church leader in Saurashtra was asked whether Christians would hold demonstrations if the anti-conversion bill is introduced in the assembly, sources say.

"Several families in Ahmedabad city and other parts of Gujarat have been visited. Many have had the police knocking on their doors as late as 10 or 11 in the night, asking them questions like when they converted and who converted them," says Cedric Prakash of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights. "This is increasingly intimidating, and our people are feeling harassed."

Christian leaders say police visited some houses in Ahmedabad, Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, and Kutch districts over the past few days and asked about the ancestors and assets of Christian families.

"This survey is a build-up to the anti-conversion bill the government wants to introduce in the state assembly during this session," Prakash says.

Critics say the ruling BJP is backing anti-conversion bills across the country to win the support of Hindu voters. Following an attack on Christians and the burning of churches in the Dangs district around Christmas 1998, the state intelligence department ordered a similar survey. The agency abandoned it after critics filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court.

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March (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47