Photos: Month After Exodus, Fearful Tribal Christians Return Home in Narayanpur

Even as tribal Christians in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur returned to their homes, they fear being outcast again.

A month after they were allegedly forced out of their homes in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district, tribal Christians have started returning to their villages. However, they say things are not the same as they now live in fear of being outcast again.

(Photo: Raunak Shivhare/The Quint)

A month after they were allegedly forced out of their homes in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district, tribal Christians have started returning to their villages. However, they say things are not the same as they now live in fear of being outcast again. "Scared to leave their homes" or even "sleep alone at night" after the violence, a few villagers in Narayanpur's Remawand village are staying together at Ramala's home. Ramala, a widow who lives alone, is photographed at her home here.  

Budhni Salam (left) is photographed with Sukh Dai Salam and her kid in Remawand village. All three of them are spending their nights in Ramala's home.

"We were forced to leave our home and run for our life. First they attacked us... then they warned us of further violence if we didn't return to 'tribal ways' of worshipping. On 23 December, we fled from our home," said 43-year-old Baiju Nath Salam (right), a tribal who converted to Christianity a few years back. "Even though we are in our village, we don't sleep at our home. We are sleeping together at Ramala's because we don't feel safe."

A fact-finding team led by the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, and comprising other members of the civil society, found that "there was a series of attacks in about 18 villages in Narayanpur district and 15 villages in Kondagaon district displacing about 1,000 Christian adivasis from their own villages".  Many had walked hundreds of kilometers to take shelter at an indoor stadium in Narayanpur.

"They asked us to either give up our faith in Christianity or leave the village. I left my home along with my wife and two kids, and took shelter in the indoor stadium in Narayanpur. Our crops have been destroyed. Our children had to leave their education. It's a huge loss for us which people in power wouldn't understand," 50-year-old Nagnu Korram, who was among those expelled from their homes in Remawand village, told The Quint. 

Many women The Quint spoke with said they still fear for their children, and they have been cooking together to avoid leaving anyone alone.

"We were not able to harvest rice. We lost our crop this year. When we were told to leave our homes and never come back, we went to our uncle's house in Narayanpur, but he was scared too, and so we had to shift to indoor stadium," said 17-year-old Ranjeet Mandavi from Narayanpur district's Devgaon village.

Twenty-year-old Fagnu Usendi, whose family was one of the 14 families who were expelled from Borawand village of Narayanpur district, spent his day sorting out their belongings which were stacked at Panchayat Bhawan, in Borawand village. Fagnu said that his family could recover only a meagre percent of their belongings, and that too, in dilapidated conditions.

Children suffered the most, many villagers said. They were forced to miss out on their studies. 

Around 300 people were forcefully evicted from their homes and took shelter at the indoor stadium in Narayanpur on 19 December. In this photograph, dated December 2022, tribal Christians are seen taking refuge from anti-Christian violence. 

Even as tribal Christians returned to their homes after almost a month, the eerie silence sets apart their dwellings from the rest of the village. 

A month after they were allegedly forced out of their homes in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district, tribal Christians have started returning to their villages. However, they say things are not the same as they now live in the fear of being outcasted again. 

The Quint visited a few villages in Narayanpur a month after the exodus.

On 18 December 2022, around 300 people from over a dozen villages were allegedly evicted from their homes and chased out of their villages for converting to Christianity. They walked hundreds of kilometers to take shelter at an indoor stadium in Narayanpur.

Even as hundreds remained lodged at the indoor stadium, an anti-Christian rally reportedly led by the Bharatiya Janata Party's Narayanpur district president Roop Sai Salam and others turned violent and vandalised a church and desecrated statues, and attacked the local police, in Narayanpur – further sidelining the tribal Christians.