From school skit to viral church protest: How a Christmas event was recast as ‘anti-Hindu’

What began as an annual Christmas programme featuring schoolchildren, skits and a science exhibition in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly ended with slogans outside a church and demands for an FIR. 

A student performance, filmed and clipped, was circulated online as evidence of an “anti-Hindu” plot – setting off one of the earliest Christmas-season protests targeting Christians this year. A video that later went viral showed Bajrang Dal workers chanting the Hanuman Chalisa outside the St Alphonsus Church Cathedral as six policemen stood nearby. 

The protestors now claim their demonstration was directed at skits staged during a two-day Christmas programme at Bishop Conrad Senior Secondary School, which is run by the church within its premises. They claim student performances portrayed Hindus in a negative light and misrepresented religious conversion. They say they wanted the police to register an FIR against the church authorities and school management.

Though videos of the skits – some of which were circulated online by Hindutva activists themselves – do not support the claims that they were “anti-Hindu”. Full recordings of the performances, which were originally broadcast live on the school’s official YouTube channel, have been taken down.

Bishop Ignatius D’Souza, a member of the managing committee of Bishop Conrad Senior Secondary School, said there was a copyright issue. “All the performances were being broadcast live on YouTube, but due to copyright issues over video clips related to a series called The Chosen One, based on the life of Jesus Christ, the video was withheld.”

The skits were performed by students at a two-day Christmas event on December 21 and 22. 

The........

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