In June, a mob of Hindu nationalists brutally attacked a group of Protestant Christians in the Eastern Indian state of Odisha for resisting pressure to convert to Hinduism. Such instances of persecution have become more common as Hindu nationalism has increased in popularity.
In 2023, India surpassed China as the most populous nation on the planet. Despite its size, India has been largely untapped by Christianity, its majority population associating with Hinduism. The current state of Christianity in India is challenged by significant Hindu opposition.
Christianity first came to India in the 1st century through the missionary efforts of St. Thomas the Apostle. The historic Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church based in Kerala, India, traces its origins to this early visit. Christianity has survived there across nearly two millennia but without massive growth. As of 2021, the Pew Research Center reports that Christians make up only 2.4% of India’s 1.4 billion population.
The first documented European missionaries to India were Portuguese Jesuits in the 16th century. Since then, there has been a consistent western missionary presence in India. The most famous of these missionaries were William Carey, “the father of modern missions,” in the late 1700s and Mother Teresa in the mid-to-late 1900s.
Despite concerted missionary efforts, it has proven difficult to reach those in India with the gospel message. Hindus make up 79.8% of India’s population and Muslims make up 14.2%. The remaining 6% of India’s population are Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jains.
Religious conversion of any type is exceedingly rare in India. In their 2021 survey, Pew Research Center found that over 99% of the population remains in the religion they were raised in. When conversions do happen, they end up canceling each other out. Hinduism specifically gains as many as it loses. For example, 0.7% of respondents were raised Hindu and now identify with another religion. At the same time however, 0.8% of respondents were raised in a different religion and now identify as Hindu.
The spread of Christianity is also hindered by anti-conversion laws. While there is no national anti-conversion law, 12 Indian states have anti-conversion laws as of 2023. These laws are purportedly in place to prevent people from being forcibly converted but are often abused to falsely charge Christians and other minorities with illegal conversion. This is allowed to happen because of the majority Hindu presence both in the population and in government. These laws are advertised as a protection for Hindus to prevent them from being forcibly converted. Historically, Hindu-background Christians disproportionately originate from lower castes and hold less power than upper caste Hindus.
Christians in India are currently threatened by rising Hindu nationalism. Once a fringe ideology, a decade of rule from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have made Hindu nationalism a mainstream ideology. This is largely due to the influence of the BJP’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which pushes a right-wing Hindutva ideology that envisions a Hindu nation with Christians and Muslims as second-class citizens. A member of the RSS was responsible for the assassination of Mahatma Ghandi. India’s democracy is explicitly secular but this framework is being threatened by Modi and the BJP’s popularization of Hindu nationalism.
In recent years, Christian persecution and violence against Christians has dramatically increased. In 2024, The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC) verified 640 incidents of violence and discrimination against Christians in India, which is four times more than the 147 recorded cases in 2014. Persecution often comes in the form of mob attacks, fueled by Hindu extremism. With the BJP in power and no signs of a regime change, there is no government resistance to the violent persecution of Christians. In February of this year, Hindutva leaders called for a genocide of Christians in three villages within the state of Chhattisgarh. Aadesh Soni, a prominent Hindutva leader called for Hindus to rape and kill all Christians in the villages. Soni defended his statements by accusing Christians of slaughtering cows, which are sacred in Hindu belief.
According to international Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors, there have been more than 950 instances of persecution in 2025 from January to May. For the second year in a row, Open Doors has placed India at number 11 on its world watchlist for persecution as violence against Christians in India has continued to ramp up.
According to a personal source in India (a children’s educational missionary in Kolkata, unnamed for safety) Christian persecution is worse now than it has previously been. From the same source, churches are careful about not drawing attention to themselves and children within a local Christian ministry are scared about displaying their faith when outside the confines of their home.
Hope for Christians in India still exists. Modi and the BJP failed to win the 2024 election outright, instead being forced to form a coalition with other political parties, some of which greatly favor religious freedom. Many Christians hope that this will dampen Hindu nationalism and lessen persecution over time.
Pray for the Christians in India as they face persecution. Pray unceasingly that hearts of India’s leaders would be softened, and that Christians would be able to freely practice their faith.
More from IRD:
Christian Leaders Urge State Department: Address India Christian Persecution
Christians in India: Targets of ‘Saffronization’
Dangers of Religious Nationalism
Comment by David on July 18, 2025 at 6:53 am
Christianity in India is burdened by the fact that it was the religion of the British colonialists. Likewise, Islam was the religion of invaders. The rise of religious parties in India and Turkiye serves as a warning to those who wish to abandon secularism.
The architecturally important Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was built in 527 as a church, then converted to a mosque, and then to a museum. Recently, the government returned the building to religious use and banned non-Muslims from entering the main floor and restricted these to a side gallery. Mosaics deemed inappropriate in a mosque have been covered over. This was a great loss to world art history.
Comment by Sandy on July 24, 2025 at 9:46 pm
I did not realize the persecution had increased this much under Modi and the BJP. This seems a warning for those of us in the U.S.A. to guard against extreme nationalism that tries to take the work of the Holy Spirit into our own hands. Thank you for this reporting which will inform my prayers.