AHMEDABAD: Indian police are probing a charity started by Mother Teresa, officials said on Tuesday, in the latest example of growing pressure on Christians under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Authorities in the western state of Gujarat said they were investigating whether the Missionaries of Charity forced girls in its shelter home there to wear a cross and read the Bible.

Modi’s home state is one of several in Hindu-majority India where vaguely worded rules against “forceful conversion” have been put in place, or more strictly enforced, in recent years.

District social officer Mayank Trivedi said that his complaint to the police was based on a report by child welfare authorities and other district officials.

According to the complaint, 13 Bibles were found in the library of the institute and girls staying there were forced to read the religious text.

The Missionaries of Charity, founded in 1950 by the late Mother Teresa — a Roman Catholic nun who lived and worked in Kolkata for most of her life and won the Nobel Peace Prize — denied the allegations.

Activists say that religious minorities in India have faced increased levels of discrimination and violence since Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.

In 2020, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom listed India as a “country of particular concern” for the first time since 2004.

Modi’s government rejects having a radical “Hindutva” (Hindu hegemony) agenda and insists that people of all religions have equal rights.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2021