By Anugrah Kumar.
More than 180 Christian families living in 32 villages in India’s Chhattisgarh state have been denied access to communal water sources, employment and forest produce for three weeks in what community leaders say is a campaign to coerce them into abandoning Christianity.
The affected families live in the Antagarh region of Kanker District, a majority-tribal, or indigenous, area in central Chhattisgarh with extensive deciduous forests, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported.
About 26 families have been barred from using hand pumps, taps, ponds and rivers, while nearly 41 families have been denied work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a federal program that guarantees rural households up to 100 days of paid labor annually.
More than 100 families have been excluded from Tendu leaf procurement, a significant source of income in the region. Tendu leaves, used to roll bidis, are purchased by the state government at minimum support prices. Firewood belonging to four families, totaling about four tractor-trolley loads, was also forcibly removed.
The communities collect forest products, including mahua flowers and seeds, chironji (small almond-flavored seeds used in cooking), amla (Indian gooseberry), tamarind, honey and bamboo, which they consume or sell at local weekly markets known as haat-bazars. Families now fear they will also be prevented from cultivating their agricultural land during the upcoming rainy season and from harvesting lac crops from trees.
Christian community leaders said the boycotts are intended to pressure believers into participating in Ghar Wapsi, or “homecoming,” programs, a term used for organized reconversion to Hinduism.
Representatives of civil rights organizations, including the Progressive Christian Alliance and Jila Masih Astha Samaj (District Christian Faith Society), have filed written complaints with district administrators and police.
The affected communities continued to face hardships at the time of reporting.
The water and livelihood restrictions follow a documented pattern of anti-Christian discrimination in the district. In November 2025, two Christian families in Chhattisgarh were denied the right to bury deceased relatives in their native villages, as previously reported by the United Kingdom-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
In the first case, a man from the Kodekurse area of Kanker District died on Nov. 5 after a long illness. His family was prevented from burying him on ancestral land by villagers who objected to their Christian faith. Police declined to intervene, and the family placed the body in front of a local police station in protest.
On Nov. 6, Christians from nearby villages arrived to support the family, but authorities again declined to act and advised them to seek another burial site. Fearing violence from local Hindu nationalist groups, the family requested a police escort. On Nov. 7, the funeral procession was followed by a crowd for nearly a mile before it dispersed. The convoy was eventually diverted about 124 miles to Raipur, the state capital, where the body was buried in a Christian cemetery.
In a second incident days later, residents of Jewartala village, about 56 miles from Raipur, blocked the burial of Raman Sahu, a Christian convert who died at a private hospital in Raipur. Villagers stopped the family at the village entrance and demanded that funeral rites follow traditional Hindu customs, The New Indian Express reported.
Police were deployed as tensions rose, and district officials attempted to mediate without success. Sahu’s body was kept in a mortuary while negotiations continued. The family was eventually compelled to conduct the burial at Sankra burial ground, away from the village.
Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, a state-level advocacy organization, told media at the time that Christians were being systematically denied burial in their own villages while local officials stood by. He added that the burial sites had been legally designated for such use under existing law.
