A complaint has been filed with the Ministry of Home Affairs against John Rose Austin Jayalal, the National President of the Indian Medical Association, seeking action against him for abusing his power and resorting to proselytization during the pandemic.

Legal Right Protection Forum, a legal-activism group, has written a detailed letter to the centre demanding strict action against Johnrose Austin Jayalal, accusing him of using the Covid-19 pandemic to convert patients to Christianity. 

In its complaint, the LRPF sought revocation of Medical Practitioner’s License of IMA President John Jayalal, alleging that the controversial doctor has openly declared his intention of splitting human beings into Christians and non-Christians and converting the latter to Christianity using every available opportunity.

The legal-activist group asked the government to stop all funds to IMA until John Jayalal is removed from his position as President. Dr Johnrose Austin Jayalal was appointed as the national president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) for the year 2020-2021 at its 95th annual national conference held in December 2020.

According to the Communemag report, the LRPF has alleged that the president of the IMA is using his position to propagate Christianity. Instead of treating the Covid-19 pandemic as a humanitarian catastrophe, Dr Jayalal and his team of evangelists were rubbing their hands and treating the pandemic as an opportunity to spread the Gospel in new ways to more and more people, the complaint read.

“This is nothing short of a vulture-like approach to human suffering, death and devastation. In the weakest moments of their life, instead of giving comfort and solace to the suffering millions, Dr Jayalal and his team of rabid evangelists are making grandiose plans to exploit the sufferings of fellow humans by converting them to Christianity. It is also shocking that as a medical doctor, instead of relying on his medical skills, he has chosen to thrust the fear of God into people suffering from the Covid-19 Pandemic,” the complaint filed by LRPF said.

Jayalal claims “Hindu nationalist government” is against modern medicine

The LRPF has pointed out two interviews given by Jayalal where he had expressed strong views about proselytizing Hindus. The complaint mentions Jaylal’s interview with Haggai International, where he says that the “Hindu Nationalist government” wants to destroy modern medicine.

“Please keep this in your international prayers. If everything goes their way, we will not have pure modern medicine courses in India by 2030,” he says in the interview as per the complaint filed by LRPF.

“They want to make it one nation, one system of medicine. Next, they will want to make it one religion. This is also based on the Sanskrit language, which is always traditionally based on Hindu principles. This is an indirect way for the government to introduce the language of Sanskrit and the language of Hindutva into the minds of the people,” Jayalal had said in that interview.

Church takes care of people, not the government: Dr Jayalal

In another int erview to Christianity Today, Jayalal had said that it was the Church that took care of the poor people, implying that the government did not do anything.

Further, Jayalal claims that they have been organizing hunger strikes, protests and also simultaneously fighting in the Supreme Court against non-allopathic systems of medicine.

Promoting the proselytizing activities, Jayalal said that Christian doctors should be engaged in both ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’ healing and called for more Christian doctors to work in secular institutions, mission institutions, and medical colleges.
“I am working as a professor of surgery in a medical college, so it is also a good opportunity for me to carry on the principles of Christian healing there. I also have the privilege of mentoring graduates and the interns,” he said in an interview with Christianity Today.

As per Jayalal, proselytization is easy in India as the country is a polytheistic society. “One of the things we must always remember is that Hinduism or Hindutva is different from other religions because of polytheism. They accept different gods. They have no difficulty in accepting or proclaiming that Jesus is one of the gods or Muhammad is one of the gods. So religious restrictions are less when comparing them with systems of other countries. I personally feel that it is healthy in India,” Jayalal has been quoted saying.

Covid-19’s silver lining is that Christianity is growing: Dr JA Jayalal

In his interview with Christianity Today, Dr Jayalal saw a silver lining in an otherwise dreary and bleak coronavirus outbreak. According to him, despite the hardships, difficulties, and restrictions that came in the wake of the pandemic, Christianity was growing.
“I am able to see, even amid persecution, even amid difficulties, even amid the control by the government, even among the restrictions we face in openly proclaiming the message, by various means and ways, Christianity is growing,” he told CT.

According to Dr. Jayalal, it was only because of people’s unwavering faith in Jesus Christ, a crisis as grave as the coronavirus pandemic had been averted. “It’s only the grace of God Almighty that helps us to get over the crisis and stay safe, and it was his grace that protected us. Through night-time prayers, family prayers, Christians began shifting from materialistic things to blessings in heaven. They began to concentrate more on that,” he said.

Not just Christian evangelism, Dr Jayalal is known to harbour extreme hatred towards the ruling dispensation as he has consistently targeted the leaders of the Bhartiya Janata Party including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath by sharing misleading claims, cartoons and hashtags revealing his ideology.

Here is a glimpse of Jayalal’s social media posts, where he has openly expressed his visceral hate for Hindus, especially PM Modi.