Some three and a half millennia ago, Israel – a man, not the nation – told his son Joseph: “Bury me not in Egypt, but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place.” And Joseph said, “I will do as thou hast said.”

This is one of the more sombre but moving moments in the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis.

Chhattisgarh Adivasi Ramesh Baghel, a latter-day Joseph, could not keep his word. He wanted to inter his dead father in their village, Chhindwara, next to the graves of their elders – Christians for three generations.

The neighbours and the village panchayat leaders objected, saying the graveyard was now exclusively for Hindus and people professing their traditional religion. They threatened force if the body was not removed from his house and taken to the Christian graveyard some 45 km away.

The police, the local administration, the lower court, and the state high court more than agreed, offering state help and money if only he would agree to take away his father’s body. Ramesh Baghel would not budge and his lawyer, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, moved the Supreme Court.

With the body in the government mortuary for 20 days now, the Supreme Court on Monday laid what, in old English, would be called a “curate’s egg” – very good in parts, but only in parts.

Justice RV Nagarathna’s ruling had a touch of life. She had indicated this when she saw the photographs of Christian graves in the village burial grounds. So why were the village elders protesting and threatening now, she asked.

“Our tradition teaches tolerance,” she said. “If philosophy tolerates breaches, our constitutional practices should not. Let us not dilute it.” Quoting Gandhi, she added, “Our existence is momentary if we shatter the chains of egotism and melt into the ocean of humanity. We share his dignity.”

She urged the state and authorities to realise the importance of these valuable thoughts and, with that, set aside the judgment of the High Court.

But Justice Satish Chandra Sharma thought otherwise. He ruled that the matter of public order was very real. Maintaining public order was paramount in the larger interest of society.

In normal times and under normal circumstances, when two judges differ radically, the matter would go to the chief justice for a majority decision. But with the body rotting in the mortuary for nearly three weeks, the two judges reconciled their differences and issued a common operational order, directing the government to assist in transferring and transporting the body to the designated cemetery in a distant village.

They also ordered ample security to prevent any untoward incidents.

For Ramesh Baghel, with no political resources other than the arguments his counsel put forth in the Supreme Court, there was no option left. This was a matter of no appeal. Whether he liked it or not, it was now clear that the senior Baghel would be buried far away from his people, in a lonely grave in a distant land, so to speak.

And therein lies the real point of this entire controversy. The legal process has been exhausted. Everybody agrees that there were Christian graves in the village long ago. There is no earthly reason why, suddenly, the villagers should turn against one of their own simply because he chose to follow a different god.

But in Chhattisgarh, this story has many dimensions. Data from the Evangelical Fellowship of India, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, and the United Christian Forum show that Chhattisgarh has become an epicentre of a new experiment in the social ostracization of tribals and Dalits who become Christians.

This is over and above the weight of the state, which backs the so-called Freedom of Religion Acts and bans all conversions to Christianity or Islam unless the individuals concerned can prove that no force was used against them and that they were not induced to change their religion.

This business of “inducement” itself has no legally defined definition. In Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, a prayer at the bedside of a sick person is deemed an inducement. A birthday party for a child is deemed an inducement. Medicines in a Christian hospital in Uttar Pradesh are deemed an inducement. The promise of salvation in Jesus Christ is deemed a threat.

Even the offer of life in heaven – which is not a tangible justiciable entity, of course – is deemed more deadly than an inducement and a threat, as it allegedly disparages or shows hatred against Hinduism or any other religion deemed to be local.

With definitions being warped, changed and moulded to suit the occasion, and with the police, the panchayat raj system and even senior courts of the state playing along with the political arguments of local elements, communities have been given a free hand to turn neighbour against neighbour.

It is on record by human rights organisations and Christian groups that religious persecution of their faithful is widespread. There have been cases where Christian converts were denied water from the common well, tube well or hand pump. They have been denied grain from the government fair-price shop. Employment is out of the question for them.

Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality before the law, while Article 15 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion, caste, or creed. The denial of burial rights to the deceased Christian man on the basis of his religion is a blatant violation of these provisions.

In the recent past, Alliance Defending Freedom recorded cases from villages in Chhattisgarh like Narayanpur and Kokhameta, where Christians were being socially ostracised. Christians from Kokhameta have to travel 32 km to Narayanpur district to worship in safety. Christian lawyers from Delhi and the state capital, Raipur, helped them file a complaint with the local police station. The complaint was rejected – not surprising, because in this village, Christians are not even allowed to enter the police station.

In the 2024 Red List of Persecution published by the United Christian Forum, Chhattisgarh ranks next only to Uttar Pradesh in the persecution of Christians. “If the trend is not stopped immediately by political will and concerted government action, it will threaten the identity and existence of the Indian Christians,” the forum said a few days ago.

The number of attacks against Christians has increased dramatically, from 127 in 2014 to 834 by December 2024. The 209 cases in Uttar Pradesh and 165 cases in Chhattisgarh in 2024 are only a fraction of the total. Across India, the United Christian Forum says, crimes maybe three to ten times higher at the grassroots.

John Dayal is a veteran journalist and human rights activist.