Record Anti-Christian Violence in India Spurs Calls for Action
Christians in India are experiencing a rise in persecution, according to a new report that has documented 745 instances of alleged violence against members of the minority community—an all-time high—during the first 11 months of 2024.
The report, released by United Christian Forum (UCF), claims that anti-Christian violence across the Hindu-majority South Asian nation has risen steadily over the past decade, accompanied by apparent indifference from officials toward the victims.
Just 47 of the reported cases from January through November 2024, for example, have resulted in formal police action, UCF said in a December 20 news statement.
The incidents include acts of physical violence, murder, social boycotts and the desecration of religious symbols, according to UCF, a New Delhi-based organization that monitors violence against Christians in India while upholding fundamental freedoms, justice, liberty and equality.
Religious sites have been particularly vulnerable, with several instances of desecration and disruptions to worship services, the watchdog noted.
Titled Violence Monitor Report 2024, the document notes that in 2014, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was swept to power in India, there were 127 recorded incidents of violence against Christians.
The latest incidents, reported on a toll-free helpline that UCF set up in January 2015 amid a disturbing surge in violence against Christians in India, cast a spotlight on wider concerns over the Indian government’s insufficient response to religious violence.
UCF National Coordinator A.C. Michael told journalists at the December 20 news conference that the 2024 report excludes attacks on Christians and churches in Manipur, a far-eastern Indian state where sectarian violence erupted on May 3, 2023, resulting in over 250 deaths and the displacement of 60,000 people, the majority of them Christian.
“It has become increasingly difficult for the Christian population to practice their faith in India, Michael said. “What we are witnessing,” he added, “is a systematic rise in violence and intimidation.”
The persecution, Michael pointed out, is carefully orchestrated by certain groups. “Organizations targeting Christian beliefs are systematically carrying out these acts,” he told journalists at the news conference. “This is not random—it’s a well-planned campaign against a particular faith.”
A former member of the Delhi Minorities Commission, Michael called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to establish a national-level inquiry to address the increasing incidents of persecution against the Christian minority in India. Christians make up just 2.4 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people.
In its 2024 annual report on the state of religious freedom in India, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) noted that in 2023 non-government organizations (NGOs) reported 687 incidents of violence against Christians.
Members of the community continue to be detained under various state-level anti-conversion laws, the USCIRF report quoted NGOs as saying.
In January 2024, the report stated, Hindu mobs attacked Christians in Chhattisgarh, a central Indian state, where churches were destroyed or vandalized and attempts were made to “reconvert” individuals to Hinduism. An estimated 30 people in Chhattisgarh were beaten for refusing to renounce their faith, the report found. The state witnessed 139 incidents of anti-Christian violence in 2024, the second-highest in the country after Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where 182 cases were reported.
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