Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
India’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, and the country has a distinct form of secularism that strives to treat religious traditions equally. However, the influence of Indian secularism has waned since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.
Although interreligious tensions have been a major issue in India, dating back to the independence movement and the 1947 partition that created the independent nations of India and Pakistan, the political, social and cultural influence of Hindu nationalist groups – collectively known as Sangh Parivar (family organisation or association), like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organisation, RSS) – have grown dramatically since Modi’s election. Members of various Sangh Parivar organisations now hold senior positions in the government, the military, and academia.
According to the Constitution of the Republic of India, religious freedom is guaranteed by Article 25, which states that “all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion.” Furthermore, Article 27 states that no one may be compelled to pay taxes intended for the promotion or financing of a particular religious denomination. The constitution devotes a distinct clause, Article 26, to safeguarding the freedom of “every religious denomination” to “establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes” and to “manage its own affairs in matters of religion.” In addition, Article 30 defines the right of minorities, including religious minorities, to establish and administer their own educational institutions.
Despite India’s official secular status, various governments, at both federal and state levels, have enacted laws that restrict the religious freedom of individuals and groups. One of the areas in which governmental and administrative restrictions on the freedom of religious institutions have become significantly more severe in recent years is foreign funding for religious groups, specifically the Foreign Contribution (Regulation Act (FCRA).
With increasing frequency since 2014, Indian authorities have frozen the bank accounts of different organisations, using the 2010 FCRA to prevent them from accessing funding to carry out their operations. Many opponents believe that the current government has used the 2010 FCRA selectively to target non-governmental organisations affiliated to minority religious communities, shutting down, for example, Christian humanitarian and development organisations. Existing regulations based on the Indian Penal Code (IPC) allow the government to treat religious NGOs with greater – and inequitable – severity.
In 2020, the central government used the FCRA to further extend its control over civil society groups; specifically, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) revoked the foreign currency licences of four Protestant organisations and one Catholic institute, the Don Bosco Tribal Development Society. Founded in 1976 by Salesian missionaries, the latter serves the tribal and other marginalised communities in Tamil Nadu. With the loss of its foreign currency licence, it can no longer receive donations from foreign sources, including officially recognised Catholic agencies, to pursue its mission. As in other cases, the MHA may reject an organisation’s FCRA application if the recipient is judged to be engaged in creating communal tensions or disharmony. As of September 2022, the government had extended the validity of the FCRA NGO registrations until 31 March 2023. Since 2017, the Indian government cancelled over 1900 non-governmental organisation licenses.
Because of the traditional veneration of cows by Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists, there is widespread social aversion for beef consumption and the slaughter of cows. Cow protection has been an important and sometimes controversial political issue for centuries, and currently around two thirds of Indian states have laws that regulate, circumscribe, or prohibit cow slaughter. What is more, the Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutionality of these laws. Advocacy for legal prohibitions against cow slaughter has been a special feature of social and political groups promoting Hinduism, such as Hindu nationalist groups, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Another concrete way the BJP facilitates social restrictions of religious freedom is through anti-conversion legislation. Several states have passed Freedom of Religion Acts (or, as their critics call them, “anti-conversion laws”). These are state-level statutes designed to regulate religious conversions allegedly accomplished through forcible and fraudulent means.
The basic structure and content of these laws vary only minimally between states, as newer laws tend to be modelled on earlier statutes adopted in other states. Odisha was the first state in India to enact a Freedom of Religion Act (1967), followed by Madhya Pradesh (1968), Arunachal Pradesh (1978, though it has yet to frame its rules), Chhattisgarh (2000), Tamil Nadu (2002, repealed two years later), Gujarat (2003), Rajasthan (2006, not yet signed into law by the state governor), Himachal Pradesh (2006, repealed in 2019 but replaced by a new law soon after), Jharkhand (2017), and Uttarakhand (2018).
In August 2019, the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 2019 was unanimously approved by the state’s legislative assembly, proposing “stringent punishments – up to seven years in jail compared to the three years under the existing law” – for those convicted of forced religious conversion. On 13 August 2022, an amendment bill was passed forbidding “mass conversion” and increasing the maximum punishment to ten years imprisonment. In June 2020, Manohar Lal Khattar, the Chief Minister of the northern state of Haryana said that his state would implement a bill to prevent what he called “forced conversions”. In March 2022, the Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill 2022 was passed. Indian National Congress leader Kiran Choudhary stated that the bill is “scary…and would deepen the communal divide” and reacted by staging a walkout. In September 2022, the Karnataka state government also passed an anti-conversion law, Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, despite strong opposition from Christians and opposition parties. A prison sentence of three to five years and hefty fines serve as the punishments for illegal conversions.
The prejudicial intent of these laws is made evident by the fact that they have never been used to investigate or prosecute Hindus, even in situations when members of the majority have been accused of offering explicit financial inducements for conversion to Hinduism.
These laws disadvantage minority faiths. This became evident in 2015 when the Supreme Court of India ruled that a person who “reconverts” from Christianity to Hinduism is entitled to certain benefits (of which Christians are normally excluded) if the convert’s forefathers belonged to a Scheduled Caste and the community accepts the convert back after “reconversion”.
Because anti-conversion laws are often passed at the behest of Hindu nationalist groups who fear that India’s Hindu character is under siege due to the growth of competing faiths, the laws disproportionately target religious minorities in the states where they reside. Muslims and Christians are especially affected and burdened because both of these faith traditions engage in missionary activity. These prohibitions provide opportunities for local officials and Hindu supremacist organisations to harass and intimidate members of minority communities.
Muslims in India have been increasingly at risk since the Hindu nationalist leader, Narendra Modi, won a resounding re-election in April-May 2019. Within five months, India’s BJP-dominated central government took two significant steps concerning the rights of India’s Muslim-minority community. In August 2019, it stripped India’s Muslim-majority-state, Jammu and Kashmir, of its special autonomy embodied by Article 370 of the constitution, and in the process, jailed dozens of its political and civil society leaders, without cause or trial, and subjected the entire state to an Internet shutdown that lasted months. In December 2019, the Parliament of India passed a Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that expressly excluded Muslims from a select group of neighbouring countries from applying for refugee and citizenship status on grounds of religious persecution.
The Indian Penal Code (IPC) includes an anti-blasphemy provision. Section 295A penalises insulting the religion or religious beliefs of any class of citizens, if such insult is made with the “deliberate and malicious” intent to “outrage the religious feelings.” This law has been applied at times against Christians (Indian and foreign) who allegedly criticise Hinduism in the course of their evangelising work.
Incidents and developments
The Christian community in India continues to face targeted violence and hate crimes. In 2021, the Religious Liberty Commission recorded 505 incidents in which Christians across the country were attacked, intimidated, or harassed up from 279 in 2020. The United Christian Forum for Human Rights (UCFHR), which runs a helpline, collected data that revealed that approximately 302 attacks against Christians occurred from January to July 2022 alone.
The spread of Hindutva philosophy espoused by the Hindutva group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is, to a large extent, a principal cause of this growing persecution against Christians. Hindutva, a right-wing form of Hindu nationalism, essentially regards India as a Hindu country intolerant of other religions or cultures. The BJP, which took power in 2014, subscribes to this ideological approach and its political success has facilitated religio-nationalist rhetoric and action.
Christianity in India has grown among many different groups, however, especially within tribal communities in rural India. Alarmed by the growing numbers of tribal converts to Christianity, Hindu extremists started campaigns to “reconvert” tribal Christians. Reports indicate that Hindu extremists attack Christian places of worship often with the tacit support of local government authorities. Police and law enforcement either downplay the attacks or look the other way. Although too many attacks to enumerate individually, representative cases include the following:
On 26 January 2021, a group of men shouting Hindutva slogans entered the Satprakashan Sanchar Kendra Christian Centre, Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Pastor Manish David said: “They kept beating us, pulling out hair.” Police arrived and arrested nine elders, including Pastor David, charging them under new legislation restricting religious conversions.
In July 2021, Father Stan Swamy, an elderly Indian Jesuit who was jailed for 7 months, died. Father Swamy, along with 15 others was charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for criticizing government policies in October 2020. In March 2022, a United Nations working group urged the Indian government to conduct independent probes into the incident and labelled Swamy’s death as a “‘failure’ on part of India’s government that would ‘forever remain a stain’ on the country’s human rights.”
In September, police in Uttar Pradesh beat two Christians in custody with lathi, heavy iron-bound bamboo sticks. Sabajeet and Chotelal from Sultanpur District were accused under the state’s 2020 anti-conversion laws. They were told by the station chief that they had betrayed India by converting to Christianity. They were released later that night without charge.
In October, listeners were urged to kill Christians by Hindu religious leader Swami Parmatmanand during a mass rally in Chhattisgarh’s Surguja district. He said: “Behead them – those who come for conversion.” As he counselled violence, local BJP political leaders including Ramvichar Netam and Nand Kumar Sai were with him on stage. The latter was videoed applauding the swami. The Bandh Karo Dharmantaran (Stop Religious Conversions) rally was organised by Sarwa Sanatan Hindu Raksha Manch, a loose coalition of Hindutva groups.
In October, Mohan Bhagwat, head of the RSS warned Hindus about the “unnatural growth” of the country’s Christian and Muslim populations, before telling hearers at his annual speech during the days of Navaratri (a festival honouring the Hindu deity Durga): “Illegal immigration in bordering districts and conversions in [the] northeast have changed the demographics further.”
On 6 December, the St Joseph’s School in Ganj Basoda, Madhya Pradesh State was ransacked by a mob of around 500 Hindutva extremists; school authorities had previously requested police protection. School principal Brother Anthony Pynumkal said that around midday a mob armed with iron rods and stones arrived. They chanted “Jai Shri Ram” while vandalising school property. The incident was preceded by accusations posted by “Aayudh” on YouTube that the school was converting Hindu students. The post showed photos of eight Catholic children receiving Confirmation and First Holy Communion at the parish church, but it was alleged to show the conversion of Hindu pupils at the school. The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church’s Malabar Missionary Brothers run the school, which today has 1,500 students, of whom less than one percent are Christians. Father Maria Stephen stated: “The police indirectly supported the mob. The school administration submitted an application for protection a day before, but they did not take it seriously. There was a feeling that the superintendent of police did not like the Christians.” The vandals destroyed school property for more than an hour before police finally intervened.
In December, Missionaries of Charity nuns were accused of attempting to convert others to Christianity, and were charged under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003. The case was dropped in March 2022 as there was no basis for the charges.
In December 2021, Tejasvi Surya, National President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) and an MP Bengaluru South, stated that prohibiting conversions was not enough and that a large-scale reconversion was necessary. He claimed that “every temple must have a target for reconverting people to Hinduism. We should convert even the Muslims of Pakistan back to Hinduism”. He withdrew these statements later in the month after his comments received significant backlash on social media.
On 9 January 2022, a house church was attacked by a 200-strong mob in Kondagaon District, Chhattisgarh. Hindutva extremist Sanjith Ng broke into the house in Odagoan village where the service was taking place and attacked members of the congregation. He dragged Pastor Hemanth Kandapan outside, where the minister and Christian man Sankar Salam were beaten. Both needed hospital treatment for their injuries. The pastor alleged police were present but did not intervene. Members of the mob claimed the Christians were illegally converting Hindus and said they would kill Christians if they continued to meet in the village. The following day, senior members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) made Christian villagers attend a Ghar Wapsi reconversion event. It was reported that one woman, Sunderi Bathi, was forcibly converted to Hinduism.
On 2 March, a candle-lit protest along the roads between Catholic churches in Mangaluru and Dakshina Kannada highlighted attacks on Christians following the introduction of anti-conversion legislation by Karnataka’s state government in December 2021. Among the attacks in February were the illegal demolition of the hall attached to St Antony’s Church, which had been on that site for more than 40 years, and the destruction by authorities of a 20-foot (six-metre) high statue of Jesus set up in Gokunte village in 2004.
In April, on the evening of Maundy Thursday, 55 Christians were detained for “illegal conversions”. A 200-strong mob stopped more than 70 members of the Evangelical Church of India from leaving the grounds of their nineteenth-century church in Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh. When police arrived, they questioned the Christians for three hours before charging and taking 55 to the station. 26 men were kept overnight in cells and taken to court the following day: 17 of these were remanded in custody before being released on Holy Saturday. Police reportedly withdrew all conversion charges but charged them with violations of the Penal Code. Church sources said Hindutva leaders: “portrayed [the service] as a religious conversion activity and those who attended it were harassed for no fault of their own.”
In May at least 30 Christians were jailed in Uttar Pradesh State – including 20 in the last week of the month – on charges of forced conversion.
On 31 May, a mob dragged a Protestant pastor out of the prayer hall where he was leading worship in the Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Police arrested the pastor under section 295a of the Indian Penal Code (deliberate and malicious acts, aimed at outraging religious feelings). He was released on bail on 3 June.
A petition was filed in June 2022 on behalf of Peter Machado, the Archbishop of Bangalore (Bengaluru), the National Solidarity Forum (NSF) and the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) which stated that the government failed to take necessary action against those who incited violence and hate speech against the Christian community. Despite the Union government claiming that the allegations were “falsehoods and self-serving,” the Supreme Court of India requested the Ministry of Home Affairs to obtain information from the eight states mentioned in the petition, as well as detailed instances of attacks on Christians from the petitioners.
In several states, attacks on Muslims and Christians in the name of cow protection have increased in the past few years. These cow vigilante attacks largely target Muslims and Dalits (previously known as untouchables or pariahs), as well as indigenous Christian communities in rural areas whose livelihoods are linked to farming and raising cattle. In April 2022, three Muslim men were injured, one Hindu man killed, and one injured, over suspicion of cow slaughter in Delhi. In June 2022, a Muslim man was brutally tortured in the State of Uttar Pradesh by law enforcement for having ties with a gangster involved in cow slaughter. In August 2022, “cow vigilantes” beat to death a 50-year-old Muslim man while two Muslim men were injured transporting cows in the state of Madhya Pradesh. They were attacked despite claiming that they were only taking the animals to sell them at an animal fair. These are only representative of the numerous similar targeted incidents that occurred within the reporting period.
In September 2021, the National Kamadhenu Commission, which is responsible for the welfare of the cow, issued a syllabus stating that, “Jesus Christ said that killing a cow is like killing a human being.” The Commission set up an online exam for students to raise awareness about the importance of cattle, and claimed that cow slaughter has led to earthquakes, and due to the infiltration of Christian missionaries, has caused Africa to become arid. The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) called for the removal of the quote fearing that it would fuel radical Hindu groups to carry out future killings.
Many Hindu extremists use “Jai Shri Ram” as a rallying “war” cry when they attack Christian villagers for allegedly engaging in cow slaughter. The chant, traditionally a greeting among traditional Hindus, has also preceded several attacks against Muslim men. Muslims have also been forced by extremist Hindu lynching mobs to chant the slogan.
Reports of unrecognized madrasas (religious Islamic schools) having terrorist links have caused such institutions to be demolished in the State of Assam. In August 2022, a madrasa in the Bongaigaon district was demolished for allegedly carrying out “jihadi activities”. Following this incident, the Uttar Pradesh government decided to conduct a survey on unrecognised madrasas in the state. Persecution of Muslims has become so extreme under the leadership of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, that Muslims themselves voluntarily demolished a madrasa in Goalpara in September 2022 to prove that they did not engage in jihadist activities despite the local law enforcement lacking a rational excuse for the demolition.
In December 2019, the lower and upper houses of the Indian parliament passed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was followed by widespread violence and unrest in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Assam, and on several university campuses. In February 2020, at least 27 people were killed and more than 200 injured in north-east Delhi after protestors clashed with the police. The CAA has drawn sharp criticism from national and international scholars and activists because it makes religion the sole criterion for granting citizenship to irregular migrants and refugees from India’s immediate neighbours. The Supreme Court of India set the date of 31 October to hear the 2022 petitions challenging the law. In October, however, the Ministry of Home Affairs was granted a further extension – its seventh – to complete rules for the CAA. At a 24 November news conference, Home Minister Amit Shah stated the rules of the CAA were “under construction” however delays were introduced “due to the pandemic”. The home minister, however promised that the “CAA is a law of the land and those who are dreaming that CAA won’t be implemented are mistaken, it will be implemented”.
Prospects for freedom of religion
While India may commonly be perceived as a multi-religious democracy with a rich history of religious diversity and pluralism, increasing religio-nationalist incidents have placed it on a global watch list for violating the basic religious freedoms of a large part of its citizens. The rising level of restrictions on Christians and other non-Hindu religious minorities, accompanied by religiously motivated violence, impunity, intimidation, and growing restrictions on the freedom of individuals to practise a religion of their choice, is deeply disconcerting. India is an example of “hybrid persecution”, where both pseudo-legal measures and bloody attacks are perpetrated against Indians with the “wrong” religion.
In 2022, the United States International Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again listed India as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC). In addition, the religious freedom panel recommended to “impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.”
Prospects for religious freedom, therefore, continue to appear negative.
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