INDIA

The Republic of India is the world’s largest democracy, comprising 28 states and eight Union Territories and is a land of diverse ethnicity, religion, language and geography. Over 430 languages are spoken, with Hindi and English the main official languages. The capital is New Delhi and the most populous city is Mumbai. While the vast majority of Indians are Hindu, its Muslim population of 14% (around 172 million people) makes India the country with the third largest Muslim population in the world.

Despite its nuclear power, space industry and booming IT sector, India also has hundreds of millions of rural poor and urban slum-dwellers and suffers from inadequate infrastructure and widespread corruption.

Christians in India

Christianity is believed to have reached India in the first century and has an honoured legacy of charity, schools and hospitals. India’s constitution guarantees religious freedom and Christians enjoy freedom in much of the country, but in rural areas they face increasing persecution from Hindu extremists motivated by Hindutva (Hindu nationalist ideology), while the introduction of “anti-conversion laws” in several states has led to increased violence against Christians including church burning, property destruction and beatings. The laws are intended to prevent Hindus converting to other religions but extremists misuse them by attacking Christians on false accusations of forced or fraudulent conversion. Attackers generally act with impunity and are rarely arrested.

There has been an upsurge in persecution of non-Hindus since the 2014 landslide victory of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Prime Minister Modi and the BJP were returned to office in 2019, causing concern among religious minorities, and while the BJP failed to win a majority in the 2024 general election, the party is leading a coalition with Narendra Modi serving his third term as prime minister.

Persecution incidents 2024

The United Christian Forum, a New Delhi-based human rights group, reported 834 anti-Christian incidents in 2024, an increase of 100 on the figure for 2023 and a huge increase in the ten years since 2014, when 127 incidents were recorded. The 2024 figure includes 149 physical attacks, 209 property damage incidents and 798 cases of intimidation, threats or harassment – many incidents involved a combination of these.

The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission reported 640 documented cases in 2024 (a figure it described as “only a part of the actual total”) – an increase on the 2023 total of 601 cases and more than four times the number of cases documented in 2014. The EFIRLC total for 2024 includes four murders, 255 incidents of threats and harassment, 129 arrests, 76 incidents of physical violence, 60 of gender-based violence, 46 of disruption of worship services and 41 of vandalism.

Each violent incident often results in widespread suffering (one church attack, for instance, affects multiple individuals) and incidents are underreported due to fear of reprisals and lack of confidence in the justice system.

Dalits

Hindus who convert to Christianity face persecution, especially those from low castes. The ancient Hindu caste system is still a major factor in Indian society, especially in rural communities where there is far less social mobility than in cities. Discrimination based on caste is constitutionally illegal but persists throughout much of India.

The caste system assigns each person a place in the social hierarchy from the privileged Brahmins at the top to the downtrodden Dalits at the bottom. There has been huge growth in Christianity amongst Dalits and tribal Indians and nearly 80% of Indian Christians are from Dalit or tribal backgrounds.

Only Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh Dalits qualify for the government’s affirmative action benefit system, which was designed to redress the socio-economic exclusion of the “Scheduled Castes” and makes them eligible for free education and reserved jobs in the government and seats in state legislature. Converts to Christianity or Islam are deemed to have left the caste system and are excluded from benefits.

In October 2022 the Indian government announced that it had formed a commission to review the issue of excluding Dalits who have converted to religions other than Buddhism and Sikhism. The commission was due to submit its report in 2024, but was granted an extension due to delays in carrying out its fieldwork.

Church in Chains in Action

In March 2025, Church in Chains wrote to the Indian Ambassador to Ireland seeking a meeting to discuss  the ongoing attacks, harassment and threats on Christians and calling for the Indian government and law enforcement agencies to take decisive action in ensuring justice for victims of religious violence including:

1. Ensuring police protection for Christian communities at risk of attacks.
2. Holding extremist groups accountable for instigating and perpetrating violence.
3. Preventing the misuse of anti-conversion laws against innocent individuals.
4. Improving legal safeguards for victims of religious persecution.
5. Ensuring fair and unbiased legal proceedings in cases involving religious minorities.

In July 2020, Pamela Coulter (Advocacy Officer) and David Turner (Director) were invited to present the Indian Ambassador to Ireland, Mr Sandeep Kumar with the petition signed by seventeen TDs and Senators expressing concern about the growth of attacks on Christians by Hindu militants.

 

 

(Sources: All India Christian Council, Asia News, Barnabas, Christian Solidarity International, Compass Direct News, Evangelical Fellowship of India, Library of Congress – State Anti-conversion Laws in India, Morning Star News, Open Doors, Operation World, Persecution Relief, Release, The Hindu, United Christian Forum, Wikipedia, World Watch List, World Watch Monitor)