Guwahati: The Christian community is at unease with the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024, which was tabled by the Himanta Biswa Sharma government in the assembly Wednesday.
The proposed legislation aims to criminalise any act of “magical healing” that exploits people.
There is no such term as “magical healing” in Christianity, said Archbishop of Guwahati Archdiocese, John Moolachira, who’s also the President of the Assam Christian Forum.
“We only heard about this phrase (magical healing) for the first time in the Assam Assembly. We don’t simply go around healing — it is part of our prayer. We have healing prayers like every other religion — when sick people come, we pray for them — individually, or by making them stand together in a group. We don’t do magic to heal people. Why is the government making it illegal and punishable is what we don’t understand,” the Archbishop told ThePrint Thursday.
“We don’t approve at all of what the government is trying to do.”
The bill was introduced in the state legislative assembly by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pijush Hazarika on behalf of Sarma, who had earlier said it was needed to “ban magical healing practices with the explicit goal of curbing evangelism”.
“No person shall take any part in healing practices and magical healing propagation for treatment of any disease, any disorder, or any condition relating to the health of a person directly or indirectly giving a false impression of treatment,” it reads.
On 10 February, the Assam Cabinet approved the introduction of the bill in the assembly, with Sarma alleging that purported magical healing practices were being conducted to carry out religious conversions among tribal people in the state.
Assam Christian Forum spokesperson Allen Brooks told ThePrint that Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees the people of their right to practice religion and that such allegations against Christians undermine this constitutional protection.
Though not decided yet, the forum is contemplating all options, including approaching court against the legislation, he said.
“You are casting apprehensions on a particular community. Irrespective of any faith we belong to, when somebody is sick or in pain, we always turn to God for healing. God intervenes for the humans, and if this intervention is termed magical, where will the poor go?” Brooks contended.
While Section 3 of the bill states that the government is empowered to ban evil or magical healing practices, Section 4 allows ban on misleading advertisements and false claims related to such healing.
Further, Section 5 empowers the government to punish any act or promotion of such practices, and Section 6 extends this to include imprisonment for a year, extendable up to three years, or a fine of Rs 50,000, or both.
The bill specifies “evil practices” as any act of magical healing by any person primarily to exploit common people.
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‘No sense of security for Christians’
The Assam Christian Forum questioned why “fringe elements” have not been arrested despite issuing threats to the Christian missionaries.
Earlier in February, a little-known Hindu outfit, Kutumba Surakshya Parishad, threatened Christian schools to remove all Christian symbols, including photographs and idols of Jesus and Mary, from school premises within a fortnight. It issued an ultimatum asking priests and nuns to discard their religious habits or robes.
Satya Ranjan Borah, the parishad president, told the media in Guwahati that their objective is to check on conversion activities in schools practiced by Christian missionaries.
Asserting that the government has failed to provide a sense of security for the Christians against such acts, Brooks said that “fringe elements” were “spewing venom in public”.
“… that Christian schools are forcing conversions, that nuns and priests must give up their holy robes, that statues of Christ be removed from Christian institutions. Who is he to issue such ultimatums? And he still remains scot free,” he said, without naming anyone.
The Archbishop also reiterated that there was nothing sinister about the religious symbols in the schools.
“All Christian schools have a moral influence on the students… Because we uphold morality wherever we are, and we are strict about it. We may have a statue of Jesus and Mary in some schools, but nobody is telling any student to bow down before them. It is an identity signifying that it’s a Christian institution,” the Archbishop told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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