The only two districts where the Christian proselytisers haven’t been able to make much headway are the state’s western districts of West Kameng and Tawang, which have a large number of Buddhists. The Christian missionaries have not been able to entice, lure or threaten them into converting. But not for a lack of effort. “Last month, we got reports of a Naga teacher in a school set up by Christian missionaries in Tawang town teaching the Bible and enticing students to embrace Christianity. He was promising them free education in good colleges outside the state and monetary and material rewards for converting. We had to warn this proselytiser,” a popular youth leader from Tawang, who is also a close kin of present Chief Minister Pema Khandu, told Swarajya. The proselytisers have been able to convert only a few Nepali families in these two districts to Christianity.

The Church’s Silent Invasion

Arunachal Pradesh was a centrally administered unit called the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) from the British days till 1972, when it became a union territory. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi heeded the advice of experts on the need to keep this strategically located territory bordering Tibet away from the reach of the evangelical Christian church. They allowed only the Ramakrishna Mission and other Hindu organisations to set up schools and hospitals in the state.

But the Christian proselytisers would not be deterred. The church set up schools and healthcare clinics in the areas bordering Arunachal within Assam and admitted tribal students of Arunachal into these schools. The clinics also catered mostly to the poor tribals living along the Assam-Arunachal border. And it is in these schools and clinics that the tribals were indoctrinated and converted. The tribal converts then went into the interior areas of Arunachal and started preaching the gospel to their fellow tribals and converted more and more of them to Christianity.

What is ironical is that Arunachal Pradesh was the third state in India (after Odisha and Madhya Pradesh) to pass an anti-conversion act – The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1978. The Act prevents conversion of people of indigenous faiths like Donyi-Polo, Rangfra (a tribal variant of Vaishnavism) and Buddhism through force (including physical threats, threats of divine displeasure or social excommunication), inducements or fraud into alien faiths like Christianity, and imposes heavy penalties on violators. But not a single person has ever been prosecuted even though it is well known that inducements and threats are the preferred tools of conversion by the Christian proselytisers. And even though the Act lays down a stringent procedure involving prior information to be provided to the state administration for any conversions, the procedures are observed only in violation by the Christian church.

Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi’s Roles

The policy of keeping Christian missionaries away from Arunachal was silently overturned by Rajiv Gandhi when he became the prime minister in 1984. “Rajiv Gandhi put a lot of pressure on Gegong Apang (the longest-serving chief minister of the state who is now with the BJP) to allow Christian missionaries in, but he (Apang) held out. However, for a backward state like Arunachal, which is wholly dependent on the Union government for funds, it is difficult to defy the prime minister of the day for very long. Hence, the state succumbed to pressure from New Delhi and didn’t enforce the anti-conversion Act,” a close aide of Apang, who did not want to be named, told Swarajya.

Statistics show that it was roughly in the decade coinciding with Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure that the Christian population in Arunachal had the first upsurge, from 4.32 per cent (in 1981) to 10.30 per cent (in 1991). Most of the conversions then happened in the second half of the decade, when Rajiv Gandhi was in power.

Apang was, however, steadfast in refusing entry of Christian missionaries into the state till his second stint in power (from August 2003 to April 2007). Apang’s successor Dorjee Khandu (of the Congress), despite being a Buddhist, also could do little to stop the Christian missionaries, who used every trick in the book to lure the poor tribals to Christianity. A range of inducements, including admissions in schools run by the missionaries, admissions and free scholarships in colleges run by them in other parts of the country, free healthcare, regular doles in the form of financial assistance and material gifts as well as blatant threats were employed by the proselytisers.

Arunachal got its first Christian chief minister in Nabam Tuki in November 2011. He, a Catholic, was handpicked by Sonia Gandhi. And under Tuki, not only did the church, especially the Catholic church, get a free rein to proselytise, Tuki also deployed the state machinery to help the church and discriminated in favour of Christians who became the exclusive beneficiaries of various state social welfare schemes. Tuki also prevented organisations like the Ramakrishna Mission, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and organisations working for the preservation and spread of indigenous faiths from working among the tribals while allowing the Christian evangelicals to do so.

Such was Tuki’s importance to the larger game plan of making Arunachal a Christian state that the Christian church and the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress did its best to keep him in power even when he had lost the support of the majority of the members of the legislative assembly during the political crisis in the state from the beginning to mid-2016. The then governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa had written to the union government about Tuki’s close ties with the proscribed NSCN faction led by the late S S Khaplang.

The NSCN, which has close links with the Christian church, has been forcing members of the Wancho and Nocte tribes inhabiting Arunachal’s Tirap and Changlang districts that border Nagaland to convert to Christianity. Rajkhowa also wrote about Tuki’s encouragement of the proselytising activities of Christian missionaries. Tuki, who was then engaged in a war of words with Rajkhowa, slaughtered a “mithun” (a semi-domesticated bovine) in front of the Raj Bhavan, allegedly at the behest of some Christian priests. Rajkhowa had protested saying bovines are held sacred by Hindus.

Why the Indigenous Faiths Became Easy Targets

“Donyi Polo” (or the Sun and the Moon), the predominant indigenous faith in the state whose adherents worship nature, faces the greatest threat from Christian proselytisers. The other indigenous faith – the Rangfra – which is a tribal variant of Vaishnavism – is nearly extinct as the Church has aggressively converted the Tangsas who were its primary adherents.

Nani Bath, a professor of political science in the Rajiv Gandhi Central University at Naharlagun near state capital Itanagar, explains that Donyi-Polo and Rangfra are not organised religions. “They are not codified religions, there is no religious text. There are no set rituals. Though the initiative to codify the Donyi-Polo faith was launched in the mid-1980s, it is still a work in progress. As such, Christian missionaries find it easy to lure away our people with allurements and material as well as financial enticements. The Christian missionaries also offer false hopes of salvation,” said Bath, who has written extensively on conversions.

Another factor, says Sunil Tayeng, a physician at Itanagar, is the expensive rituals that Donyi-Polo priests recommend. “For illnesses and to cast away evil spirits, they often recommend sacrificing pigs and mithuns, which the poor can’t really afford. Christian missionaries highlight these practices as witchcraft and sorcery while Christianity involves no such practices. So poor tribals are lured away,” he said.

The church sermons, say those who have attended them, are full of vile threats about non-Christians being condemned to rot in hell and suffering terrible deaths. “The missionaries manage to convince the simple and gullible tribals that only Christianity can lead them to salvation. And they also hold out various enticements like free education and healthcare as well as material benefits. Leaders of our indigenous faith cannot match the Christian missionaries,” said Tayeng.

Strengthening the Indigenous Faith

The process of making Donyi-Polo an organised religion was initiated by Talom Rukbo, who is known as the father of modern Donyi-Polo and revered as “Golgii Bote” (the immortal father). Rukbo, an Adi, was a multi-faceted personality who served as an officer in the NEFA administration. He revived many cultural festivals and started the process of codifying the faith, writing religious scriptures and giving the Donyi-Polo faith an organised form.