India: Where the Church is Attacked from Every Angle

Christians in India are increasingly finding that the world’s largest democracy — and recently the world’s largest country overall — is no friend to religious freedom.

India is often celebrated as the world’s most populous democracy. Though true, this factoid does little to protect the millions of non-Hindu religious minorities that call India home. In recent years, religious freedom in the country has rapidly deteriorated in a slide led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the large cohort of Hindu nationalists he encourages and leads.

Population: 1.4 billion (2023 estimate)

Religions: Hindu 79.8% or about 1.1 billion; Muslim 14.2% or about 199 million; Christian 2.3% or about 32 million*

Ethnicities: Indo-Aryan 72%; Dravidian 25%; other 3%

*Official 2011 U.S. Government estimate. Various legal barriers to conversion likely inflate the official number of Hindus and deflate the number of religious minorities.

Types of Persecution

Mob Violence — Communal-level groups violently harass and attack Christian churches and pastors in remote areas of the country.

Government Abuse — In a dozen states around the country, laws claiming to prohibit forced conversions criminalize sharing the gospel.

Barriers to Conversion — Across India, the government prohibits poor Christians and Muslims from receiving government benefits available to similarly-situated Hindus, creating a very real barrier to conversion.

Social Pressure — Communities across the country ostracize their religious minorities and, in some instances, do not even allow them to drink the same water or bury their dead in the community.

Summary

As it fights for greater influence on the international stage, the Indian government seems to be trying to burnish its reputation as a land of welcome and inclusion. Sadly, this narrative bears little semblance to reality.

Modern-day India is awash with religious hatred and the political repression of unfavored religions. Its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, peddles extremist Hindu nationalism and a political philosophy that leaves little room for Christians and other religious minorities.

Hindu nationalists attacking Christian churches and pastors enjoy nearly complete immunity from the Modi-led government as they harass and even kill. They routinely walk free while the survivors of their attacks face trumped-up criminal charges. Less than 150 violent attacks against Christians were recorded in 2014, the year Modi came to power. That number has risen in the years since, with 2022 seeing an all-time reported high of more than 600 incidents, according to civil society leaders in India. In fewer than 40 of those cases, the authorities filed charges against the attackers, while in more than 100, they filed charges against the victim.
Charges against the victims of these mob attacks often center around the idea that they were forcibly converting someone to Christianity. Twelve states have laws outlawing forced conversions, but these laws are phrased to include nearly all minority religious activity, including preaching and community outreach programs. Consequently, vigilante groups feel emboldened to stop church services and other gatherings, often with violence.

In a subtler move to suppress conversion from Hinduism, the Indian government decades ago made Christians and Muslims ineligible for Schedule Caste benefits, a social welfare program that hundreds of millions of Indians depend on for survival. Though some Christians can afford to declare their faith publicly and lose their benefits, many more cannot and are forced to live their faith secretly and in fear.

ICC in India

A tiny minority in an increasingly radicalized country, Christians in India often face severe pressure from their neighbors. Though not universal, there is widespread animosity in India toward Christians for their belief in what is thought of as a foreign religion. Consequently, International Christian Concern (ICC) works with many believers who face communal pressure and even violent mob attacks. In an increasingly common pattern, mobs gather on Sundays to storm local church services and turn pastors into the authorities for supposed forced conversion activity.

ICC helps these pastors and their congregations by facilitating the payment of legal fees, delivering food aid to prisoners and their families, and assisting Christians in developing sustainable livelihoods. In addition to this reactive aid, ICC also trains pastors to avoid persecution in the first place and respond effectively when it does happen. These persecution preparedness trainings have equipped hundreds of pastors across India and continue to have an influence long after they are concluded.

This article was originally published on https://www.persecution.org/2024/09/22/india-where-the-church-is-attacked-from-every-angle/