New Delhi: In an appeal to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, more than 400 Christian leaders and 30 church groups have called for urgent action to address rising violence and systemic challenges faced by the Christian community in India, which is estimated to make up 2.3 percent of the population.
In a letter dated 31 December, they have cited data to make their point, saying that the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) recorded over 720 incidents targeting Christians till mid-December last year, while the United Christian Forum (UCF) recorded 760 incidents up to the end of November. Further, 14 attacks against Christian gatherings were reported this Christmas season.
“Rising hate speech, especially from elected officials, has emboldened acts of violence against Christians. Mobs disrupt peaceful Christian gatherings and threaten carol singers with impunity,” states the letter, accessed by ThePrint.
“It saddens us deeply that almost all political leaders… in the Union government and the states have chosen not to condemn them (acts targeting Christians),” adds the letter.
It also highlights the ethnic violence in Manipur that has continued over the past 20 months, saying it has claimed at least 250 lives, displaced thousands and led to the destruction of over 360 churches.
The subject of systemic challenges, including the “exclusion of Dalit Christians from Scheduled Caste (SC) status and the misuse of anti-conversion laws” has also been raised in the letter.
The letter states harassment of the clergy, arrests without bail, and the revival of restrictive laws in states like Uttar Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh as key concerns.
Signatories to the letter include prominent Christian leaders such as Thomas Abraham, David Onesimu, Joab Lohara, Richard Howell, Mary Scaria, Cedric Prakash S.J., John Dayal, Prakash Louis S.J., Zelhou Keyho, E.H. Kharkongor, Allen Brooks, K. Losii Mao, Akhilesh Edgar, Michael Willams, A.C. Michael and Vijayesh Lal.
The signatories have called on the President and PM for swift investigation into attacks on minorities and regular dialogue between the government and faith communities.
“Inclusivity isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s an economic necessity,” notes the letter, urging the government to uphold constitutional guarantees and ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all citizens of India.
Speaking to ThePrint, Christian political activist and human rights activist John Dayal said that over the past decade, violence against Christians in India has seen an exponential rise, paralleling the broader targeting of religious minorities, notably Muslims.
He said that he had found a disturbing trend of growing hostility towards Christians during major festivals like Easter and Christmas in a study that he had conducted in 2023. Such hostile acts included physical attacks on priests, worshippers and churches, as well as systemic ostracisation of the community in tribal and rural areas, he alleged.
Michael Williams, UCF president, told ThePrint that through the letter, the Christian community was hoping to have a dialogue with the PM and reach some level of understanding. “Moreover, if the violence continues, the community will take the matter to court,” he said.
“The PM is also the prime minister for Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Jews and everybody else who lives in India. He is the democratically elected leader. So for us who are believers of the Constitution, we need to believe that the prime minister will play a positive role in nation-building,” he asserted.
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‘Image of Christian community being sullied’
According to Dayal, there is a consistent “hate campaign” in India which can sometimes be singular, in that only Christians are targeted, or can be mixed, with the targeting of Muslims by “Hindu right-wing groups including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishva Hindu Parishad and others”.
“They say they will cleanse India of Muslims and Christians,” he said.
In tribal and rural areas, he alleged, “Christians are not allowed to stay or not allowed to own land or not allowed food… or worse, they can’t even bury their dead”.
The violence has been documented by the UCF and the EFI and underscores the scale of the crisis, pointed out Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of EFI.
“The numbers, stark and alarming, reflect only the tip of the iceberg as countless cases remain unreported,” he said.
According to Lal, the problem has become so deep rooted that nowadays, ordinary people who have been “brainwashed by propaganda” are part of it.
“Today, if you ask anybody what they think of Christians, they’ll say, oh, these people get foreign money and they convert,” he said, adding that the image of the Christian community in India is being “sullied by the right-wing”.
‘Word conversion has been used as a very convenient bogey’
According to the UCF, Christians are facing varying degrees of violence and discrimination in 23 of India’s 28 states, with Uttar Pradesh leading with 182 incidents, followed by 139 in Chhattisgarh.
Religious conversion is a controversial subject in India. One of the biggest factors behind attacks on Christians over the years has been the right-wings’ claim that the community was trying to convert poor Hindus to the religion by offering them money—a claim that is denied by the Christians.
Meanwhile, members of the Dalit community have historically been known to convert to Christianity to escape the caste hierarchy of Hinduism.
“The word conversion has been used as a very convenient bogey,” Lal told ThePrint, adding that even talking about the Christian faith in public has become risky nowadays.
“The Constitution recognises the right to preach, practice, and propagate. The propagate clause was specifically put in for religions like Christianity which believe in propagating the faith. It is subject to certain conditions like public order and morality and we fully recognise that. But it has been blown out of proportion by right-wing Hindu forces,” he said.
This, he alleged, has led to a change in public perception about the Christian community which was once seen as a contributor to society through schools and hospitals. “Today, we are maligned as conversion agents,” Lal remarked.
According to Christian activists, central to this persecution has been the use of anti-conversion laws, primarily in BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. These laws, ostensibly designed to prevent forced religious conversions, have become tools for harassment, they say.
“Over 100 people in Uttar Pradesh have been in jail for nearly a year, accused under these laws without evidence,” Dayal said.
Chhattisgarh, he added, presents a particularly harrowing picture where Christians in the tribal Bastar region face “eviction, violence, and denial of basic rights”. “Families are given three options: renounce Christianity, leave the village, or face death,” Dayal told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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Any individual or institution receiving money from a theocratic dictatorship must not be treated as member/ institution of minority community.
Christianity has mostly been rejected in Europe. Churches are empty and the clergy is caught in sexual abuse allegations. Most parent in Europe are reluctant to send their children to church for this reason.
And that is why they now focus on India to convert people here by hook or crook
Christian leaders should blame themselves for the current state of affairs.
Being a resident of Assam, I know firsthand the deplorable situation prevailing in all Christian majority north-eastern states. Be it Mizoram or Nagaland or Meghalaya, the non-Christian people are harassed and intimidated on a daily basis by the converted Christian folks. Most of these tribal people disown their distinguished history, culture and heritage. The widespread conversion activity of missionaries have resulted in deracinated generations of tribals who are suffering from an identity crisis. This has also resulted in a surging drug abuse problem in all these states.
The Christian leaders must abstain from their pernicious conversion activites and serve Indian society selflessly – nishkama karma.
Else, they can pack their bags and leave for greener pastures elsewhere.
We Indians are not heathens who need salvation.
Christian leaders must introspect.
Is converting hundreds of thousands of Telugus in Andhra Pradesh, Sikhs in Punjab (especially the sensitive border districts) and tribals in the central Indian states amount to nation-building?
Is this what they mean by “positive contribution to nation building”?
They are simply exploiting the deep fissures within Hindu, Sikh and tribal societies. And in doing so, deepening the divide and creating an atmosphere of insecurity.
For example, in Meghalaya, most of the Khasi tribe has converted into Christianity and thereby have abandoned their own indigenous religion, customs and rituals. Such deracination hollows out the soul of a community.