‘Seeing his body might weaken my resolve’– In Chhattisgarh, a man’s legal fight to give his father a Christian burial

Twenty days on, he’s continuing to fight to keep his promise to his father. “Seeing his body might weaken my resolve,” he tells The Indian Express.

Chhindwada, the village where Ramesh’s father Subhash — a local pastor — was born and raised in, is a tribal majority village of 6,450 people, according to government records. While 6,000 of these are tribal families, the remaining residents belong to the Dalit Mahara caste — including Ramesh’s family. According to various estimates, the village has over 100 Christians – mostly Mahara but also tribals.

For just over a year, however, the issue of burials appears to have divided the village, with many village residents that The Indian Express spoke to considering Christian funerary rituals as posing a threat to the “Rudi Parampara” – a set of tribal sentiments, traditions and cultural values. On February 7, 2024, the Gram Sabha passed a resolution forbidding a village burial for those who have given up the Rudi Parampara and converted to other religions.

Ramesh Baghel outside a church in his backyard in Chhindwada village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar | (Express photo: Jayprakash S Naidu)

The resolution wasn’t limited to tribal converts but also applied to Dalit Maharas such as Baghel. As a result, Ramesh now faces “social non-cooperation” – a punitive punishment the resolution prescribes for “violators”.

“Life has become a nightmare,” Ramesh, a school dropout who travelled 450 km to attend the hearing at Chhattisgarh HC, says. “Slowly, people stopped coming to the (now-closed) grocery store that my father had opened and I can’t get labourers to work in my farm…. I live in a joint family with my wife, two brothers, their wives and six children, but now we have no source of income.”

Tribal belief versus religious identity

According to village residents, Ramesh’s grandfather Lakheshwar and his family – including his father — were among the village’s first Christian converts back in 1980s. Ramesh talks about the reformation his father underwent since they converted to Christianity.

“My father and grandfather were both alcoholics. Villagers tell me my father used to beat and abuse my mother. But due to Christianity, they came in touch with good people and slowly their bad habits stopped. We saw a massive change in my father, and our family progressed from having a cycle to owning cars,” he says.

A place of worship in Chhindwara village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar | (Express photo: Jayprakash S Naidu)

The village has between 7-10 graveyards – one for each of its varied caste groups. A visit to one of the graveyards shows a number of Christian headstones.

Among those are Ramesh’s grandfather Lakheshwar, who died in 2007, and a paternal aunt who died in 2015. “They were given Christian burials. No one objected back then,” he says.

Through a 13-point resolution last February, Chhindwada Gram Sabha forbade village burials for anyone who does not follow the Rudi Parampara, and warned of “social non-cooperation” and a fine to those villagers not only seen as challenging village traditions but also those “working” with such alleged transgressors.

As a result, there was a row over the burial of a Christian woman, Pachami Bais, with the standoff only ending when the family agreed to bury her without a cross on her tombstone.

Sukram Kashyap, 63, a government teacher whose wife is the sarpanch of Chhindwada 2 – one of three villages that comes under the Chhindwada Gram Panchayat – says the resolution was aimed at “protecting the tribal identity”.

“Although there has been a growing resentment against religious conversions for years, the majority began to feel it when the converted villagers, including tribals, stopped participating in our ‘Rudi Parampara’ (cultural and traditional activities) and even stopped believing in our ‘Dev Gudi’ (the tribal sacred stone), worshipped by tribals as well as Maharas. They stopped taking our prasad (offerings) and refused to attend festivals and marriage rituals… The village finally decided that since they gave up their identity and accepted a new one, they must not be allowed to use our graveyard either,” Kashyap says.

The second flashpoint came last October, when Eshwar Nag, a Christian native of Chhindawada, died in Sukma’s Tongapal village, and his cousin Jaldev Andhkury, a 42-year-old pastor from the village, buried the body there. This led to a heated argument with villagers, and Andhkury and six of his family were eventually arrested.

A view of the Baghel family’s now-closed shop village in Chhindwara village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar| (Express photo: Jayprakash S Naidu)

“We were in jail for four days. I still don’t know the charges against me. But the villagers have approached the high court to get my brother’s body exhumed.” Jaldev told The Indian Express. The Bastar Police confirm the arrest, but claim it was “preventive custody”.

The issue once again resurfaced after Subhash’s death this month. When word of his demise spread, a crowd gathered at his house to prevent his burial.

“One sarpanch pati told me: ‘You are Christian and so you cannot bury your father here’ and the police were called. But even in their presence, the villagers warned me against burying my father. The police as well as tehsildar supported them,” he says.

But police claim it “never picked sides”. “We heard a Christian person has died and rushed to the spot and ensured no untoward incident occurs,” one officer said.

Tehsildar Deepika Dehari, meanwhile, claimed that authorities had “no role in it”.

‘Provoked’

On their part, Christian groups such as the Grahmin Isai Seva Samiti and the Progressive Christian Alliance see this as “the right-wing’s attempts to provoke tribal sentiments and cause communal issues”. They are also seeking a burial space for Christians at the block level.

“They want to divide our village on religious lines,” Grahmin Isai Seva Samiti vice-president Nukesh Baghel says.

But Chhindwada 1 Deputy Sarpanch and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rameshwar Nag dismisses these allegations. Instead, he associates the issue with tribal rights and reservation.

Some women consoling the family at Ramesh Baghel’s home in Chhindwada village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar | (Express photo: Jayprakash S Naidu)

“Tribals don’t see themselves as part of any religion, although there are some similarities with Hinduism… Villagers here don’t like that some people have given up in the tribal culture and have forgotten our ancestors, which will ultimately take away our tribal identity and affect our rights under Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) of 1996 and the reservation that comes with it,” he says.

But for Ramesh, the row has already extracted its toll – it has severely affected his mental health and cost him close friends.

“My childhood friends aren’t speaking to me. Since my father’s death, I’ve had many sleepless nights,” he says. “I have no appetite and every interview with the press brings back bad memories. At home, we wonder if it’s such a big crime to be Christians that Bastar people are willing to accept dead Maoists, criminals and rapists but not us.”

His lawyer Degree Prasad Chouhan, claims this is one of “countless incidents going on in the Bastar region for the last few years.

“The main factor behind this is the misuse of the PESA and its rules by villagers backed by right wing groups,” he says.