Villagers Object, Christian Man Remains Unburied For 3 Days In Chhattisgarh

A controversy has erupted in Kodekurse village of Chhattisgarh's Kanker district after villagers refused to allow the burial of a 50-year-old Christian convert, Manish Nishad. His family has been moving the body between villages for three days, unable to perform the final rites due to opposition from the villagers.

Nishad, who had converted to Christianity, died during treatment in Raipur on Tuesday. When his family brought the body home for burial on their private land, villagers objected, saying those who had left the traditional faith could not be buried within village limits. Police intervened but failed to broker peace. The Christian community then surrounded the Kodekurse police station, demanding the right to bury the body. Police later shifted the remains to the Kodekurse hospital mortuary.

On Friday, the family, accompanied by a police team, transported the body to Charama, hoping for a peaceful burial. However, members of a Hindu organisation stopped the vehicle, saying they would block the funeral. With tensions rising, the body was taken to Raipur, where it remains unburied as of the third day after Nishad's death.

Mohan Gwal, pastor of Anugrah Prayer Hall, Charama, said, "We only wanted to bury him on his private land. There's no alternate arrangement. The administration has not taken any initiative. This isn't the first incident, but unless land is provided, we will not bury him elsewhere."

District Panchayat member Devendra Tekam justified the villagers' stance "Kodekurse follows traditional customs. The community has its own burial system. If the body must be buried, it should follow village tradition; otherwise, it should be taken outside the village."

Villager Raghunandan Goswami added, "He left his original religion. We told the administration that unless they return to the old faith, we won't allow burial here. This is a Fifth Schedule area, and we are following our customs."

The case echoes several earlier incidents in the tribal belt of Chhattisgarh. In July 2025, violence broke out in Jamgaon village of Kanker when locals protested the burial of another Christian man. Mobs also vandalised churches and attacked homes. Earlier this year, a similar conflict in Bastar over a pastor's burial reached the Supreme Court.

In January, NDTV had reported on the case of Ramesh Baghel's father, a pastor from Bastar whose cremation dispute escalated all the way to India's highest court. Baghel wanted to bury his father near ancestral graves in the village, but villagers objected. On January 7, the Supreme Court ordered that the pastor be buried in a cemetery in Jagdalpur, about 35 km away.

A two-judge bench was split - one judge supported burial in the ancestral village, the other held that last rites should occur in a designated cemetery. The village comprised several tribal communities: Kalhar, Raut, Kumhar, Maria, Bhatra, Halba and Dhurva, along with Dalits from the Mahara caste. Panchayat officials argued that the issue was not only religious but tied to tribal identity and reservation rights.

Citing the Fifth Schedule (a framework for the administration of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes) and the PESA Act [Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act], they maintained that bodies can be buried only in designated community areas. In February 2024, the gram sabha passed a resolution declaring that anyone who abandons traditional religion and adopts another faith would lose the right to be buried in the village cemetery.

Many villagers view Christian burial customs as a challenge to their orthodox tribal practices, deepening rifts between faith and tradition in the state's heartland.

Progressive Christian Alliance state coordinator Simon Digbal Tandi said that although two Christian cemeteries exist in Kanker -  one Roman Catholic, the other Mennonite - they no longer accept burials due to space shortages and gram sabha objections. A plot allotted to the Christian community in 2023 is also under dispute.

"Even where land was allotted, local panchayats have objected. The administration has failed to provide a lasting solution," Tandi said.