The former head of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Abbotsford, B.C. is caught up in a religious storm in India fuelled by the World Hindu Council which wants all foreign Christian missionaries to be expelled from the country.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, is also calling for a comprehensive law to ban religious conversions in India as part of a new campaign to stem the "increasing" number of conversions around the country.

 

Mohan Joshi, national secretary of the council told Asia News: "The law should have provision to penalize foreign nationals and organizations engaged in conversion."

He suggested a fine of 1 million rupees or C$26,500, and 10 years of imprisonment.
Joshi is using the case of Canadian Pastor D. Ronald Watts and his wife, Dorothy Watts, claiming the duo, who lead the Seventh-day Adventist Church in South India, had allegedly forced more than 1 million Hindus to convert to Christianity.

 

The state of Tamil Nadu, on the southern tip of the country -- intends to prosecute Watts and his wife and force them out of the country, reported the Adventist News Network.
Watts served for five years as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church based out of Abbotsford, B.C., from 1981 to 1986.

The couple lives in a missionary compound of 40 to 50 families who are almost all Indian, and are also involved in several humanitarian aid projects and the establishment of churches in India.

 

"We have schools for the blind and deaf, 250 high schools throughout the country and a number of orphanages," said Watts in a recent interview.

 

"[The accusations are] all a joke, all bogus, and there's no evidence," said Pastor Watts.

"I am a church administrator, not a missionary.

 

"I am not directly involved in evangelism; I work with the church budget."

Anti-conversion laws exist in several Indian states, and prison terms and fines are imposed against anyone who converts Indians "by force, fraud or allurement."

 

Under these laws, any gifts or material benefit received by a Christian convert could be considered "allurement to convert," threatening missionary ability to provide essentials for locals in need.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church currently has about 350,000 members in India, a country with a population of about 1 billion.

 

Hindu fundamentalists have been known for their extremism in the past.

In January 1999, Graham Staines, an Australian missionary to Indian lepers, was murdered along with his two sons--Phillip, 11, and Timothy, 6--by a large mob of militant Hindus.

 

They had gone to a Christian camp in the jungle, where Graham was ministering.

In another part of India, Voice of the Martyrs Canada reports that Hindu militants attacked a Christian compound in Bihar State recently.

 

It's the second time in the same month that a mob has hit them. Several of the staff were brutally beaten in the attack on September 25th.

John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, told Compass in response to the demand for a nationwide anti-conversion law: "Such laws are against the constitution, and they violate international covenants to which India is a signatory, including the United Nations charter."