Christians in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh staged a moving protest on May 4, 2025, when they were denied the right to bury a young accident victim according to their faith, adding to a troubling pattern of religious discrimination in the region.
Ajay Baghel was seriously injured in a road accident on April 21, 2025, and subsequently admitted to Dhimarapal Medical College Hospital for treatment. After several days in the hospital, he succumbed to his injuries. When his family attempted to conduct a Christian burial, villagers from Dashapal objected, insisting that Baghel and his family were originally from the Adivasi (tribal) community before converting to Christianity. The villagers claimed that as former Adivasis, the deceased should follow traditional tribal funeral customs at the village cremation ground.
In response, the bereaved family and Christian community members placed Baghel's body in a coffin and carried it to the main road where they staged a determined protest by blocking traffic on Saturday, May 4. Despite heavy rainfall, the protestors remained steadfast for hours, prominently displaying placards and chanting "We want the Constitution, we want burial grounds."
As per reports, upon receiving news of the roadblock, Bakawand Block SDM Rishikesh Tiwari, Tehsildar Jageshwari Gawde, and Station In-charge Domendra Sinha rushed to the scene. The officials made extensive efforts to persuade the demonstrators to end their protest, but the Christian community members remained firmly seated on the road well into the evening.
After hours of negotiations and considerable persuasion, the standoff finally concluded when arrangements were made to transport Ajay Baghel's body to Karkapal in Jagdalpur, where it was ultimately buried in the Christian community cemetery.
This latest happening is in a long line of similar incidents in Bastar where Christians are denied burial in their villages and forced to transport their deceased to distant locations like the Karkapal cemetery in Jagdalpur.
The villagers in Dashapal, led by their sarpanch (village head), had explicitly refused to allow Christian burial rites to be performed in the village's burial ground. Meanwhile, the Christian community is slowly becoming vocal about their constitutional rights, asserting that preventing burial based on religious identity constitutes a violation of their fundamental freedoms.
The protest also brought to the forefront, the broader demand from the Christian community for dedicated burial grounds in every village. This has been a longstanding request that the state government has yet to address comprehensively.
The January 2025 case of Ramesh Baghel became a national flashpoint for religious freedom when he petitioned both the Chhattisgarh High Court and the Supreme Court of India seeking permission to bury his father, Pastor Subhash Baghel, in Chhindwada village, their ancestral home.
After keeping his father's body in a hospital mortuary for 20 days while petitioning both the Chhattisgarh High Court and the Supreme Court of India, Ramesh was ultimately forced to bury his father around midnight on January 27 at a cemetery 25 kilometres away from their village.
Christians in Bastar face not only burial restrictions but comprehensive social and economic isolation. Village councils have imposed fines on residents who interact with Christian families, denied them access to the government-run public distribution system for subsidized food, and prevented labourers from working on their land.
At the heart of this dispute lies the issue of religious conversion. As per media reports, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnudeo Sai has attributed these conflicts directly to conversion activities, stating that the cause of the dispute is conversion, and until it stops, conflicts over burials will continue to increase. Opposition parties have countered that the BJP is inflaming conversion issues and have urged the government to find middle ground.
