MUMBAI – Two incidents involving Catholic priests in recent days illustrate the increasingly complex situation for Christians in India facing a rising tide of Hindu nationalism, with one priest arrested under the country’s controversial anti-conversion laws and another suspended for joining the right-wing BJP party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In one case, a priest in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was detained and eventually charged after going to a local police station to inquire about a church employee who’d been arrested after a complaint from a member of a militant Hindu nationalist group regarding prayers being offered in a private home. According to observers, local police were originally looking for the employee’s brother, who is also a Christian pastor, based on a complaint from a member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization. Eventually four members of the family were arrested, and, when they phoned Father Sebastian Francis Babu for help, he too was taken into custody. Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, told Crux that the arrests amount to “sheer harassment of Christians.” “The accusation of conversion is baseless,” Mathias said, ascribing the arrest of Babu to “sheer high-handedness of the police, who are simply under control of

In a Washington Post article titled Identity, not ideology, is moving the world, political analyst Fareed Zakaria noted that while a healthy nationalism has historically contributed to the expansion of liberty and democracy, there is a global trend where right-wing figures are meeting people's need for stability and identity in a rapidly changing world. Zakaria described this force as "a strange mixture of insecurity and assertiveness" among those in positions of power. In India, the rise of the Hindu right wing has faced criticism, with concerns about increased mob violence against religious minorities and the normalisation of hate speeches targeting Christian leaders and institutions through mass media. Fortunately, in April 2023, the Supreme Court of India recognized hate speech as a serious offense that could threaten the country's secular fabric. In August 2023, Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti emphasised that any reluctance to act against hate speeches would be viewed as contempt of the nation's highest court. Unfortunately, these directives continue to be disregarded by organisations and individuals, including the "Legal Rights Observatory" (LRO) and authorities like Priyank Kanoongo, Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), who employ platforms like Twitter to defame Christian and Muslim leaders. Dr.

India (MNN) — A two-year-old’s birthday party with his Christian parents suddenly turned into a frightening moment for the family. The father, Raxit, mentors Children’s Bible Club leaders with Mission India and hosts church services in his home. Mission India’s Regan Miller says, “[Raxit] had a group of believers over to his house to celebrate his son’s birthday, and a group of anti-Christian extremists just barged in loudly and were aggressive and using inappropriate language and behavior. They were just about to start pelting people with stones, and they only stopped because they saw a security camera.” Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. “The police in the area actually favored the anti-Christian activists and filed a case against Raxit,” says Miller. “He’s had his church disrupted on Sundays before or just had people protest his services. But this is kind of a next-level event.” Threats and targeting of Christians has grown more common in India over the last decade. Raxit’s story hits home for Mission India as they support local believers in ministry. The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) is coming up Sunday, November 5. It’s really a key time to focus prayer for our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters as they proclaim the Gospel in

Christians in a southern Indian state have urged the provincial government to end discriminatory education policies that adversely impact Christian-run schools receiving state funds.   The Christian community runs around 6,000 of the estimated 8,403 schools in Tamil Nadu that receive government aid, and hence are referred to as “aided schools.”   “Most of them are in villages where the government is unable to provide education for want of infrastructure,” said Father Antonysamy Solomon, secretary of the education commission of Tamil Nadu Bishops Council (TNBC). He said the roughly 6,000 schools, which include close to 2,500 Catholic schools, have played a pioneering role in educating several generations in Tamil Nadu for more than a century.   “The government agreed to provide aid because of the community’s contributions. But it is discriminating against us and favoring only government schools now,” Father Solomon said.   The state government provides breakfast for students in primary schools run by it. Students passing out from the 37,211 government schools also benefit from a 7.50 percent special quota in admissions to higher education courses like medical and engineering.   A monthly stipend of 1,000 rupees (US$12) has been announced recently for female students from government schools to help them pursue higher education.   “The same privileges are not extended

The Archbishop of Imphal, in Manipur, India, says that violence is still raging in the state and that the response of the central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is insufficient. Violence in Manipur, India continues to rage “here and there,” four months after its initial outbreak in May, according to Archbishop Dominic Lumon of Imphal. Speaking by phone with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the archbishop said that the situation could continue like this for months, unless the central government seriously intervenes. “We are hoping that the central government steps in. If it says ‘stop,’ I think that the violence will end, but if nobody intervenes, it will carry on.” But the government’s silence is deafening. Since the crisis began, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not visited Manipur, and he has barely commented on it. “So far, we have not heard him say much, and it has been more than four months. Only once did he make a statement, when videos came out of two girls being paraded around naked. But on the violence in general, he has not said anything.” In May, ACN sent emergency aid for victims of the attacks and has remained in touch with the local Church. Interethnic

A pastor in India is in jail on fraudulent claims that he broke the country's "anti-conversion" laws by sharing the Gospel with people, although there is no evidence that he did anything wrong. Pastor Bajarang Rawat, 47, faces charges of converting people by "allurement" even though police could not find any witnesses to testify against him, and the only evidence they presented to the courts was his Bible, Morning Star News reports. Rawat was arrested on July 16 and charged at the Loni Katra police station under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 for an "attempt to convert…by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by fraudulent means," the outlet reports. The next day police drove him to the courts and the judge asked what was the reason for his arrest. They told him they had confiscated a Bible from him. "Reprimanding the policemen, the magistrate told them that it was not a crime to possess a Bible and that he himself has a Bible at home," Pastor Rawat told Morning Star News. "The policemen stood silent, but even after this conversation, I was sent to jail." It is one of the latest examples of how Hindu extremists in India

NEW DELHI — Not even a judge’s reprimand of police spared an impoverished pastor in India from being jailed on baseless claims of fraudulent conversion, one of the latest examples of how Hindu extremists misuse “anti-conversion” laws. Pastor Bajarang Rawat, a 47-year-old convert from Hinduism in Mohanlalganj, Lucknow District in Uttar Pradesh state, faces charges of converting people by “allurement” even though police could find no witnesses against him, and the only evidence they presented was his Bible, the pastor said. “Reprimanding the policemen, the magistrate told them that it was not a crime to possess a Bible and that he himself has a Bible at home,” Pastor Rawat told Morning Star News. “The policemen stood silent, but even after this conversation, I was sent to jail.” Released on bail on Aug. 7, Pastor Rawat was arrested on July 16 and charged at the Loni Katra police station under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 for “attempt to convert … by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by fraudulent means.” The next day police drove him to the District and Sessions Court, Barabanki, where the judge asked the reason for his arrest and was told they

Christians are facing increasing persecution and violence in the world’s most populous nation – India – and we’re taking direct action to defend them from this rapidly deteriorating human rights situation. Through our affiliate office in Strasbourg, France, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), the ACLJ is again before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). We have filed several reports with the UNHRC detailing serious human rights violations in several countries. While these countries are from different continents, one thing is sadly common among all of them – the persecution of Christians. One of the countries where the persecution of Christians is daily increasing is India. India recently made headlines “again” for its unwillingness to stop violent attacks by Hindu mobs against Christian minorities. We wrote about the shocking video made available on social media in which a mob of men from the Meitei tribe (predominantly Hindus) armed with sticks, saws, and other weapons humiliatingly paraded through the streets two women from the Kuki tribe (predominantly Christian) after the mob had attacked their village in the state of Manipur. This mob attack resulted in over 140 deaths, the destruction of hundreds of homes and churches, and the displacement of over 60,000 people. Even

Christian leaders in India said that a Sept. 21 meeting with the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) did little to reassure them that the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is serious about addressing the ongoing persecution of Christians in the country. “While the positive is that there is some conversation, I do not set hopes very high,” said John Dayal, an outspoken Catholic activist and spokesperson for the United Christian Forum (UCF), a human rights organization that runs a toll-free service to record atrocities against Christians and extend support to the victims. Iqbal Singh Lalpura, chairman of the NCM, met last week with Dayal and a delegation that included UCF president Michael Williams, coordinator A C Michael, Tehmina Arora of Alliance Defending Freedom, and Siju Thomas, a lawyer. The commission, which acts as the watchdog of minority rights in the country, “has asked us to submit more details of the issues we have raised in the letter to the prime minister,” the UCF said in a press release following the meeting. The UCF press statement also noted that commission chairman Lalpura, a former leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), assured the delegation that the commission will work to address cases of

The National Commission of Minorities assured the Christian community that they shared the same rights as the majority community in India A delegation representing Christian community met the Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), Iqbal Singh Lalpura, on Thursday and shared their grievance pertaining to false accusations of forced religious conversion, as well as attack on churches in Manipur along with other relevant concerns of the community. The delegation from the Christian community included A.C. Michael, President of Federation of Catholic Associations of Archdiocese of Delhi and National Coordinator, United Christian Forum, Michael Williams, Siju Thomas, John Dayal and Tehmina Arora. Among their major concerns, the community representatives pointed about attacks on churches in Manipur. They also expressed displeasure about police in various states slapping charges of forced conversion on members of the community. They also pointed out recent and frequent attacks on Christian institutions and shutting down of churches. “There is very less data available on communal attacks against Christians in India,” the delegation added. Responding to their grievances, Mr. Lalpura said that citizens of minority communities of India have all the rights that are available to the majority community, including the right to practice their religion. “We have to be vigilant of