As the world’s second-most populous country prepares to vote, India’s Christians will probably be joining together in prayer and fasting as they ask for God’s guidance and protection in a nation that’s increasingly hostile to their faith.
Priya Sharma (name modified for security reasons), who partners with Open Doors International, a worldwide NGO network supporting persecuted Christians across the globe, says that many believers are frightened of the growing influence of Hindu-based nationalism across the country.
“Christians are concerned in regards to the forthcoming elections,” Priya, who provides victims of persecution with trauma counselling and other support, said.
“In the past ten years, while the Modi government have been on the helm, now we have seen an uninterrupted decline in democratic and non secular freedom, together with the simultaneous spread of Hindutva (radical Hindu nationalism) ideology.”
With Hindutva radicals viewing minority religions corresponding to Christianity and Islam as alien to the nation, and lots of calling for a “cleansing” of their country, Priya said that India’s Christians are concerned on the prospect of the federal government securing one other term.
“There has been constant fasting and chain prayers for these elections,” Priya says. “If the BJP are re-elected for an additional term, it’s feared that the 2024 elections can be the last general elections within the country. There could be an entire wipeout of democracy. Increased violence and persecution against religious minorities will even escalate.”
Over the past decade, India has seen a marked increase in violent attacks on Christians, with mob violence on the rise in several states where Christians are steadily the victims of mass beatings and destruction of their homes and livelihoods. Women have been subjected to a few of the most severe violence, facing so-called “honour” killings, acid throwing, and the sexual assault of young girls.
Christians also face the specter of the further erosion of their religious freedoms under a re-elected Modi government, with nationalist groups exerting growing pressure to see “anti-conversion” laws which can be currently enforced in almost a 3rd of India’s 28 states entrenched in national law.
While proponents claim the aim of the laws is to forestall attempts to convert people to a different religion (from Hinduism) through “misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by fraudulent means”, human rights advocates say that the laws often act as a pretext for persecution of minorities who’re simply exercising their religious beliefs.
“The lack of proper definition of those terms makes the law ripe for abuses,” Rinzen Baleng of Open Doors said. “These laws are getting used to focus on minorities by vigilantes and fringe groups who now have a free pass to act with impunity.”
India currently sits at number eleven on Open Doors’ World Watch List, a rating of the fifty nations across the globe where Christians face the best persecution and discrimination—seventeen places higher than in 2014.
Polling will happen over the following six weeks, with 968 million Indians eligible to solid their vote. Christians all around the world will probably be following the end result of the election, and continuing to wish for the long run safety of their brothers and sisters in India.
