State lawmakers in India are in search of to curtail evangelism with a ban on “magical healing” that might penalize Christians who offer prayer or any “non-scientific” practices to comfort people who find themselves sick.
Last month, the northeastern state of Assam introduced the bill, which Christian leaders say unfairly targets their community’s custom of praying for the sick. Though church healing meetings in India have drawn people to Christ, local Christians insist that prayer is a legitimate, universal spiritual practice and never an unethical tool for conversion, as Hindu nationalists claimed.
The proposed ban, which passed the 126-member state assembly on February 26, states that:
No person shall take any part in healing practices and magical healing propagation for treatment of any diseases, any disorder or any condition regarding the health of an individual (regarding human body) directly or not directly giving a misunderstanding of treatment to cure diseases, pain or trouble to the human health.
Any first-time offender can face one to a few years in prison, a positive of fifty,000 rupees (about $600 USD), or each. A subsequent conviction may end in as much as five years’ imprisonment and/or a positive of 100,000 rupees (about $1,200 USD).
The bill have to be ratified by the president of India to change into an act. Assembly leaders in Assam say that the healing ban doesn’t goal any particular religion, but they were clear about their goals to limit evangelism and conversion.
“We wish to curb evangelism in Assam, so in that direction, the banning of healing … will probably be a really, very necessary milestone,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam. The state is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the national ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Healing is a really, very dicey subject, which is used to convert tribal people,” said Sarma. “We are going to pilot [this bill], because we imagine that religious established order could be very necessary. Whoever is Muslim, allow them to be Muslims; whoever is Christian, allow them to be Christians; whoever is Hindu, allow them to be Hindus, so there is usually a proper balance in our state.”
The bill has drawn flak from the Christian community and the opposition party.
The Assam Christian Forum (ACF), an umbrella body of all Christian churches in Assam, has spoken out against the ban as a violation of non secular freedom and against lawmakers’ characterization of prayer as “magical healing.”
“Prayer is a universal practice across religions, used to invoke divine healing,” the forum stated. “Labeling it as magical healing oversimplifies the profound spiritual dimensions of religion and life.”
ACF clarified that Christian prayers for healing are acts of compassion, not conversion. According to the forum’s spokesman Allen Brooks, leaders are concerned that any prayer that will follow healing could possibly be perceived as “a motive to convert the opposite person to Christianity,” during which case “everybody will go to jail.”
In the neighboring state of Nagaland, the Chakhesang Baptist Church Council criticized the Assam bill as wrongly banning Christian practices in a secular country. The council praised its own state for upholding the suitable to freedom of faith.
The council’s executive secretary, C. Cho-o, also objected to the term “magical healing” as dismissive of supernatural intervention. “Healing is the work of God, not the work of Christians,” he said. “So, when divine healing takes place, Christians cannot claim responsibility, nor can they be blamed for it!”
Officially called the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024, the proposed law would criminalize any “non-scientific healing practices with ulterior motives for exploiting the innocent people.”
Besides the punitive provisions, the bill empowers police “to enter and inspect any practices throughout the local limit of jurisdiction of such person where he has reason to imagine that an offence under this Act has been or is more likely to be committed.” It gives officers a free hand to seize any commercial, record, or document as evidence.
Healing meetings are common in India and have drawn many individuals to Christ after they’ve personally experienced healing or have watched their family members recuperate. Local Christians can recount testimonies around the facility of healing for the church. (They shared responses anonymously with CT out of security concerns.)
One leader saw how healings may be an entry point for the gospel, attracting people on the lookout for a solution for his or her physical suffering.
“Signs and wonders abound, and lots of people come to know Jesus as healer first, after which as they walk with him as their Lord and Savior,” he said. “But to call this a conspiracy or magic can be belittling it. It definitely just isn’t evil, however the grace of God.”
A convert shared how transformative healing ministries were for her within the three years since she began attending church.
“My family was surrounded with bouts of sicknesses and illnesses. Since I actually have begun to follow Christ and my family has joined me, we now have gotten rid of the bondage of illness,” she told CT.
Hindu right-wing groups have for years alleged that Christian groups are engaging in unethical conversion tactics under the guise of “healing crusades” in India. They have accused Christians of promoting superstitious beliefs, making false claims about miraculous healings, and using deception to convert people, especially from economically disadvantaged communities, to Christianity.
The Organizer, a weekly publication related to the BJP, ran a special report expressing that the Assam bill will thwart Christian missionaries from luring “villagers with magical healing” and can prevent them from converting tribals.
The Assam Tribal Christian Coordination Committee (ATCCC) has appealed to the federal government to review the bill, expressing concerns that its current wording could possibly be misused to focus on the Christian community.
Like other local Christians, the ATCCC stated that the bill mustn’t link “magic healing” with proselytization or conversion, because the Christian church goals to share Jesus’ teachings of affection and peace.
The committee urged the chief minister to make sure the bill’s integrity and to take care of the secular principles of the country’s structure while passing it, fearing that its current form may lead to more harm than good.
The Angami Baptist Church Council (ABCC) from Nagaland condemned the Assam bill as an try and goal Christian humanitarian work by misleadingly equating divine healing with “magic” used for conversions. It stated Christian healing combines science and prayer, not magic.
The council urged the “sister states” of northeast India to advertise peaceful coexistence as an alternative of sowing division through such discriminatory laws.
A pastor in Guwahati, Assam’s largest city, believes that even when the ban is brought into motion, it’s going to not stand for long.
“In Assam, we now have each tribals and non-tribals who is not going to obey the law that’s being imposed within the state,” said Kamleshwar Baglary of Harvest Baptist Church.
He believes that migrants from other states are chargeable for the recent political mayhem in Assam.
“Most of the people utilized by the Hindu fundamentalist organizations are paid staff to execute their plan within the state,” Baglary said. “They cannot rule in Assam with their ideologies.”
While responding to the bill, the ACF also expressed concern over demands by pro-Hindu, right-wing groups like Sanmilito Sanatan Samaj and Kutumba Surakshya Parishad, which have demanded that schools remove Christian symbols like statues of Jesus and Mary, alleging that the institutions are getting used for religious conversion activities.
The situation has escalated with anti-Christian posters being pasted on the partitions of several Christian schools, including Don Bosco School, St. Mary’s School, and Carmel School. These posters function an ultimatum to remove religious symbols inside a particular timeframe. The Assam healing laws has only added fuel to the fireplace.
Brooks, the ACF spokesman, has defended the faculties as providing equal opportunities beyond caste, creed, and gender, and has clarified that ACF’s healing prayer services are usually not intended for conversion.
He argued that the brand new law unfairly targets the Christian community’s practices and undermines their long-standing service to the society of Assam. Christian missions have helped preserve the Assamese language and have established educational institutions which have produced many notable figures, including former chief ministers and chief justices.
“Our destiny as a nation lies in our diversity, while respecting one another’s individuality,” he said.
