Home News Report reveals growing incidents of violence against Christians in India

Report reveals growing incidents of violence against Christians in India

At least 145 incidents of violence targeting India’s Christian community have been documented in just the first half of 2021

A report released this week by a religious group in India revealed the growing number of incidents of violence against Christians in the country.

The recently published by the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India documents 145 incidents of violence targeting India’s Christian community in just the first half of 2021.

Titled “Hate and Targeted Violence Against Christians in India: Half Yearly Report 2021,” the report claims that most incidents were perpetrated by non-state actors “operating in an environment of targeted hate.”




The report documents three “religiously motivated murders,” 22 attacks on churches or places of worship, and 20 cases of ostracization or social boycott in the first six months of 2021.

The state of Madhya Pradesh reported the most cases with 30 documented cases of violence while Uttar Pradesh came second with 22 documented cases.

Both states recently enacted anti-conversion laws, “likely inciting more incidents of violence against Christians,” says the report.

The report notes that the pandemic “seems to have given the police a ruse not to register cases” and that “access to courts for relief was restricted.”

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“The violence was also facilitated by the absence of civil society on the streets as activists were unable to travel because of lockdown restriction and because of the collapse of the media,” it adds.

The report also notes that since taking power in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party “has overseen a political regime in which religious intolerance has become a social norm and attacks on minorities are tolerated, if not encouraged.”

In 2014, the Evangelical Fellowship of India recorded 147 incidents of violence targeting India’s Christians.

The same number of incidents is now being reported in just six months in which strict lockdowns were enforced in many areas of India.

Picture shows a church in the village of Raikia, in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, some 300 km southwest of the state capital Bhubaneswar, after it was destroyed by Hindu hardliners on Aug. 31, 2008. (Photo by Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP)

New wave of attacks against Christians

Rights group International Christian Concern (ICC), meanwhile, condemned what it described as a “new wave of persecution” in India’s Uttar Pradesh state in recent weeks.

The group said at least 30 Christians have been falsely accused of engaging in forced religious conversions and were arrested in the past month.

“This new wave of persecution was triggered in late June after two Muslim men were arrested and charged under the state’s new anti-conversion law,” reads an ICC report.

Hindu nationalists reportedly claimed that the two Muslim men were involved in the forceful conversion of more than 1,000 people.

Using the incident as “an opportunity for political gain,” politicians belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party lauded the arrests and warned against fraudulent conversions of Hindus to non-Hindu faiths.

“Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion laws provides a legal cover for radical Hindu nationalists seeking to persecute Christians,” said William Stark, ICC’s regional manager for South Asia, in a statement.

“If the government of Uttar Pradesh allows this to continue, radical Hindu nationalists will know they have absolute impunity to harass Christians and close down their places of worship,” he added.

ICC reported that the attacks on Christians in recent weeks have been justified by accusing the victims of engaging in fraudulent conversions.

“This is a grave situation for Christians in the state,” the report quoted a local church leader, who requested anonymity.

“The number of incidents and arrests in recent weeks shows increased persecution in Uttar Pradesh,” he said, adding that the attacks are “mainly perpetrated by the hardcore Hindutva activists who enjoy the support of the politicians.”

In states where similar anti-conversion laws are enacted, including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, they are widely abused, said the ICC report.

Radical nationalists falsely accuse Christians of forcefully converting individuals to Christianity to justify harassment and assault, it added.

Local police often overlook violence perpetrated against Christians due to false accusations of forced conversion, read the report.

ICC said that to date, no individual has been convicted of forced conversions in India despite the fact that some of the anti-conversion laws have been in force since 1967.

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