The ultimate aim of the Hindu nationalist group, affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is to make sure that Christianity and Islam “cease to exist” in India, reports the Washington Post. Debates over coerced religious conversions stymied India’s parliament this month, reports World Watch Monitor (WWM).

A plan to convert 5,000 Indian Christians and Muslims to Hinduism on Christmas Day has been canceled by local officials. But organizers insist the conversions are merely postponed, and plan to protest Christmas baptisms at churches instead.

The ultimate aim of the Hindu nationalist group, affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is to make sure that Christianity and Islam “cease to exist” in India, reports the Washington Post. Debates over coerced religious conversions stymied India’s parliament this month, reports World Watch Monitor (WWM).

“Religious conversion is a matter of personal choice and the law permits it,” said Abhishek Prakash, the district magistrate of Aligarh where the conversions were to take place, according to the Times of India. “However, if certain groups deliberately try to provoke communal sentiments by misusing this provision, then we will certainly not allow this to take place.”

Shortly after Aligarh officials intervened, news broke that Prime Minister Narendra Modi (winner of Time magazine’s reader poll for Person of the Year) had ordered lawmakers from his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of which the RSS is an ideological wing, to rein in their pro-Hindu agenda, reports Reuters. The directive comes several weeks after Christian leaders in Nagaland, one of India’s most-Christian states, used Modi’s visit to their state to petition his government to better protect them, reports Morning Star News (MSN).

Asia News reports the fundraising for the mass re-conversion advertised thatChristian converts “cost” 200,000 rupees (US $3,200) per person, while Muslim converts were more expensive: 500,000 rupees (US $8,000). One possible reason: Christians selected for conversion, which often involves food and financial incentives, were identified from 40 slums, while the Muslims were descendants of higher castes, reports the Economic Times.

Aligarh’s 200-million person state, Uttar Pradesh, has recently been home to a string of alleged “re-conversion” incidents. In August, Hindu radicals claimed that they had turned a Seventh-day Adventist church in Asroi village in Aligarh district into a temple after they allegedly “re-converted” its 72 Christians to Hinduism. WWM cautioned such events are often propaganda, and Adventist News Network disputed the claim, reporting that a visiting delegation “found no evidence that the church had been disturbed.” However, an internal commission organized by the church later found that the Christians had indeed “reconverted of their own will because of little support from leadership.”

Later that month, police illegally detained a dozen pastors on false charges that they were “converting Hindus to Christians.” WWM reported the details.

The RSS has made calls for a single-faith country and is behind many of recent attacks against Christians, claim religious freedom watchdogs.

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