Maharashtra Churches Scale Back Bible Camps for Children

Several Protestant churches across Maharashtra have cancelled or scaled back their Vacation Bible School programmes for children this Diwali, restricting some to Christian children only, after prayer meetings were disrupted and the state's new anti-conversion law took effect on August 28.

Pastor Anil George of Jeevan Jyoti Ministries in Mira-Bhayandar is still going ahead. He expects around 300 children at his Vacation Bible School from November 9 to 14, and he is preparing the way churches across the state now prepare for everything: with a paper trail.

Five days of songs, games, crafts and Bible stories. That is what Vacation Bible School has always meant in Maharashtra, and for years the children who came were not only Christian children. Friends from other faiths came too, and nobody thought twice about it.

This year, everything is different.

A bishop's warning after a first in Maharashtra

Bishop Prakash D Patole, who leads the Church of North India's Marathwada Diocese, said the advice given to churches this year is unlike anything before it.

"For the first time, this year, we have suggested to the Protestant churches in our state to not hold VBS during the Diwali break."

The guidance is aimed mainly at smaller churches that meet in rented halls, schools and homes. Those congregations, church leaders say, are the most exposed when someone walks in and accuses them of using a children's programme to convert people.

Patole's own church owns its property, and it will still hold its Vacation Bible School. The difference is who can come. This year it is Christian children only, a line the bishop says he never expected to draw.

Nine FIRs after five disrupted prayer meetings

The caution follows a string of Sunday disruptions at prayer meetings in the Mumbai region. People identifying themselves as Bajrang Dal or Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers interrupted gatherings in rented halls, schools and homes, alleging that religious conversions were taking place.

Nine FIRs followed five such incidents between April and July. Seven of them were registered against the organisers and worshippers themselves, a detail that still stings when pastors talk about it. Five of the nine FIRs came from Vasai-Virar alone.

Pastor Ravi Gupta of the Masih Ekta Foundation in Vasai-Virar has faced four FIRs this year. He has decided not to hold a Vacation Bible School at all. When a pastor who has spent his life opening his doors to children decides the safest choice is to keep them shut, something has shifted in the state.

Rev Tennison Peter, executive secretary of the Methodist Churches in Maharashtra, said pastors in the Mumbai region have been advised to stay vigilant and to put up notices saying the programme is for Christian children only. Dr Shakti Waghe, a member of the CNI Mumbai pastorate committee, said many churches in the city are skipping Vacation Bible School this Diwali, though there is no formal mandate from the CNI.

The law that changed the calculation

The Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, came into force on August 28. Under the law, the person who facilitates a conversion must prove it was voluntary, and anyone wishing to change religion must give 60 days' notice to the district authorities.

The penalties are steep. Unlawful conversion can bring up to seven years in prison and a fine of 100,000 rupees, rising to ten years and a 700,000-rupee fine for repeat offenders. The fine is five times higher when the conversion involves a minor, a woman, or a person from a tribal or Dalit community.

Even before the law took effect, pastors had started asking worshippers to sign forms saying they attend services freely. The forms state that attendance is a personal choice, made without pressure, inducement or threat, and churches now keep them on file.

Churches going ahead with Vacation Bible School this Diwali are building the same kind of paper trail around a children's programme. Banners declare the camp is for church children only. Some churches are charging a registration fee of 50 or 100 rupees for the first time, so there is a receipt showing parents sent their children willingly.

It is a strange new ritual for a holiday camp: songs and crafts on one side of the table, signatures and receipts on the other. But pastors say the paperwork is the price of keeping the doors open at all, and most would rather do the paperwork than cancel on the children.

What 300 children in Mira-Bhayandar will still get

At Jeevan Jyoti Ministries, the preparations look familiar. Songs to learn, games to organise, Bible stories to tell, and around 300 children expected over six days from November 9. The goverment paperwork and the notices on the gate are new, but the camp itself is the same one children have loved for years.

The wider picture is harder to ignore. Vacation Bible School usually brings together children aged 5 to 15, and for many of them it is the first time they hear the stories of Jesus told with paint on their hands and a song in the air. This Diwali, in church after church, that door is either closed or open only a crack.

Maharashtra is not the only place where Christians are worshipping under pressure. In Nigeria, church leaders have demanded an end to the killings, as Northern Christian Leaders Demand End to Killings in Nigeria reports, and in Kaduna families are still waiting for loved ones held captive, as in Latest: 17 Kidnapped Worshippers Died in Captivity in Kaduna, CSW Says. In England, a war memorial statue of Jesus was decapitated days before Remembrance Sunday, as Jesus Statue Decapitated at St Alban's Church Warrington War Memorial Vandalised as Hate Crime shows.

The churches that cancelled did not cancel lightly. For small congregations meeting in rented rooms, a single complaint can mean police at the door, a case in court, and a year of explaining themselves. The leaders who made the call say they are protecting their people, and the children they turned away are the cost of that protection.

Yet the camps that are going ahead carry their own message. A church that posts a notice, charges fifty rupees, files a form, and still sings with 300 children is saying something plain: we are not hiding, and we are not going anywhere. Christians around the world are praying with them, as the 26,000 Join Seoul Prayer Rally for CGI 50th gathering showed, and the question now is whether next Diwali the children who were turned away this year will be back in the circle.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.