Scholarly Analysis: Christian Response to Persecution in India 

India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, Indonesia

Panel: Findings from South Asia, with Dr. Paul Bhatti, Advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan for Minority Affairs
Moderator: Chad Bauman, Butler University
Speakers: Robert Hefner, Boston University
James Ponniah, University of Madras
Reginald Reimer, Expert on Christianity in Vietnam & Laos
Sara Singha, Georgetown University

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Christian Demographics

Christians constitute a minority religious community in India. The CIA and Department of State both estimate the Christian population at 2.3 percent of India’s total population, or roughly 25 million people, though many believe such figures underestimate the Indian Christian population. Christians are scattered throughout the country, but are more concentrated in the northeastern and southern states. In at least three small northeastern states, and several districts in the south, Christians constitute a local majority. The largest single denomination in India is the RCC, though Catholics are outnumbered by the cumulative total of a variety of Protestant and Orthodox denominations, among which ecumenical Protestant denominations like the Church of North India and Church of South India, and the Syrian Rite churches, are especially prominent.  Pentecostal forms of Christianity are also prevalent and growing rapidly. 

History of the Indian Christian Community

Many Indian Christians believe that Christianity arrived in India as early as the first century with the Apostle Thomas, and Syriac Christianity certainly had a long-established presence in India prior to the arrival of Europeans in the country. However, the contemporary importance of Catholic and Protestant communities dates largely to missionary activity after the establishment of European presence in India. In particular, the Jesuits and other Catholic missionary orders gained access to the Indian interior with the arrival and establishment of the Portuguese in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (although others preceded them), most notably via the missionary presence of Francis Xavier. Protestant missionaries built a presence in India, particularly during the later period of British rule. Contemporary missionary work has continued in India; however, it has been set against rising societal intolerance toward conversion away from Hinduism.

Current Situation

Federal policy in India generally protects religious freedom. Indian law recognizes five minority status religious groups, to which it promises special protection in order to maintain India’s status as a diverse secular republic. Nevertheless, at the state level Christians and other minorities face both legal and societal discrimination. In particular, violent attacks on Christians from Hindu nationalists and the abuse of anti-conversion laws pose serious threats to the ability of Christians in India to actively exercise and share their faith. Anti-conversion laws in principle do not purport to oppose religious freedom; in fact, they claim to guarantee it. These and other “religious freedom” laws usually claim to prevent missionary and proselytizing activity from taking advantage of the poor and socially vulnerable to produce coerced conversions. In practice, however, these laws exist in a climate of antagonism towards conversion away from Hinduism and a long history of tensions between Hindu nationalists and religious minorities, in particular Sikhs and Muslims, but also Christians.

In recent years, as the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has gained influence, this tension has increased, resulting in violent assaults against Christians and in particular those identified as Christian pastors and evangelists. This has included the killing of Christian leaders and lay people, especially in response to the rumored or real conversion of low-caste Hindus to Christianity. Often attackers have not faced official opprobrium, and in many cases, they have been emboldened by the anti-Christian rhetoric of government leaders. Civil society groups have complained that authorities often declined to investigate vandalism of churches, intimidation, and other assaults against Christian groups. This is at least partially tied to a crippling backlog of cases in India’s judiciary, which can require decades to receive review. In 2021, an NGO documented a record 505 violent attacks toward Christians, yet police filed First Information Reports in only a few dozen incidents. Although restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to a reduction in mob violence, a parallel reduction in violence toward religious minorities did not occur. Christians additionally suffered discrimination during the pandemic, as in June 2020, when Hindu groups tasked with disbursing food aid denied aid to Christians. In 2020, in contrast to past years, the government did not present statistics on religious violence to parliament.

Additionally, during 2020, an increase in Hindu social media posts containing accusations of Christian forced conversions and video of anti-Christian violence went largely unchecked. Meanwhile, since gaining the legal ability to designate individuals as terrorists in 2019, authorities have increasingly leveraged the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, an anti-terrorism law, to intimidate, indefinitely detain, and prosecute individuals, often Christian or Muslim, who express dissent towards prime minister Narendra Modi’s regime. In May 2022, the Supreme Court of India suspended a 152-year-old sedition law, under which individuals such as Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest who died in custody in 2021, had been charged. This development, though positive, is unlikely to significantly curb the regime’s misapplication of criminal codes to suppress the voices of Christians and other minorities. In general, then, while the Indian Christian community does not operate in a particularly oppressive legal context, it faces serious societal discrimination often with the tacit cooperation of local authorities, especially as a result of Hindu nationalism.

A Summary of Christian Responses to Persecution in India 

The Indian constitution provides moderate protections of religious freedom, but majoritarian Hindu nationalists demand that their religion be given special consideration while framing “foreign” religions like Islam and Christianity (the latter particularly despised for its association with colonization and globalization) as a threat to the sovereignty and identity of the nation. India’s Hindu nationalists fight to impose certain of their religious norms (e.g., prohibitions against cow slaughter and the consumption of beef) on all Indians through legislation and mob violence.

India has also considered establishing national laws circumscribing religious conversion—used primarily to prevent conversion away from the majority religion—and several states in India have passed them. Christians have been falsely charged and imprisoned, prevented from engaging in worship and/or building churches through the imposition of legal or bureaucratic hurdles, physically harassed, beaten, injured, and killed, in hundreds of documented incidents occurring with particular frequency since the end of the twentieth century. In 2014, Indian elections handed a decisive and stunning victory to the nationalist leaning Bharatiya Janata Party, and to its Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, a man whose support for religious minorities and religious freedom has been weak, to say the least, and whose regime has permitted and even encouraged a pronounced rise in the frequency of incidents of anti-Christian harassment and violence. The waxing influence of Modi’s Hindu nationalist regime has increased anxiety and frustration in the Indian Christian community. Jehovah’s Witnesses remained banned from receiving foreign funding. In September 2020, Modi’s government compelled Amnesty International India as well as five NGOs with Christian ties to cease operations by freezing the organizations’ bank accounts. In January 2022, the government denied permits to receive foreign funds to nearly 6,000 NGOs, including prominent organizations such as the Missionaries of Charity. Although the Missionaries of Charity opposed the denial, they adopted an ameliatory approach, promising compliance and respect for government regulations. Meanwhile, as opposition politicians and human rights advocates voiced outrage, the government reversed its position and the Missionaries of Charity received their foreign funds permit days later.  

Generally, Christians in India attempt to address their situation in a variety of ways. They have reduced the visibility and assertiveness of their evangelistic endeavors, and many have shifted their energies towards social service projects. To overcome legal and bureaucratic hurdles preventing their assembly and/or the construction of worship spaces, congregations increasingly meet in homes or build churches surreptitiously or secure permission for construction by designating the structures “service centers,” “community halls,” and the like.

Indian Christians have also increased their engagement with people of other faiths, investing more energetically in interfaith dialogue, celebrating non-Christian holidays, adapting elements of other religions into Christian belief and practice, and participating in collaborative, interfaith service and civil space projects with the aim of undermining the allegation that Christian charity is merely a pretext for conversion. Christians have also increased their engagement with the political process, ever more fiercely promoting secular values and defending religious freedom, and advocating both rhetorically and legally for those negatively affected by anti-Christian currents. While skeptics abound, even among Christians, many of these efforts can boast of having improved interfaith relations and the lives of Christians in real and concrete (if often quite local and limited) ways.

 

This country profile draws on research by Dr. Chad Bauman and on the report In Response to Persecution by the Under Caesar's Sword project. It was updated by Joseph London at the University of Notre Dame in June 2022.