When the police arrived at the door of a pastor in Uttar Pradesh in February 2024, the first question they asked was “What religion do you belong to?”
The police had received calls from Hindu right-wing groups claiming the pastor had lured locals to convert to Christianity, the pastor said. CT agreed not to use his name due to security concerns.
The pastor told the police that he was a Christian, and they arrested him.
When he arrived at the court, the district magistrate’s first question was the same: “What religion do you belong to?”
“I am a Christian,” the pastor responded.
“Do you have any idea that for this response, you will go to jail?” she said.
The pastor stayed in prison for six months until he was released on bail. Charged under Uttar Pradesh’s anticonversion law, he is currently going through trial.
The pastor’s arrest was one of the 640 verified incidents of targeted attacks against Christians in India in 2024, according to a new report by the Evangelical Fellowship of India Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC). The number is a 6.5 percent increase from a year earlier. The total number of incidents reported to the group, including those that haven’t been verified, was 840. In addition, “there might be several unreported incidents that never came to our knowledge,” said Vijayesh Lal, national director of EFIRLC.
These attacks against Christians take many forms: physical assaults, disruption of prayer gatherings, vandalized churches, social boycotts in villages, and arrests. The anti-Christian climate has increased as Hindu extremism spreads in the country, backed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and influential Hindu nationalist groups. These groups are increasingly using anticonversion laws to crack down on Christians.
Other reports by local and international groups verify EFIRLC’s findings, reporting that hate speech and the persecution of Christians have increased in the past year.
Through it all, the pastor in Uttar Pradesh remains steadfast in his faith. “Even now, I must be careful where I pray, who I speak with, and how openly I practice my faith,” he said. “But I cannot abandon what I believe. Many of us worship in secret now, but we still worship.”
The EFIRLC report categorizes the violence against Christians—who make up 2 percent of the population—into distinct types, with threats and harassment making up the largest category (255 cases). Arrests follow with 129 incidents, while cases of physical violence make up 76 incidents. Other significant categories include gender-based violence and disruption of church services. In 2024, Christians also faced vandalism, social boycotts, forced conversion to Hinduism, and murder.
Three main groups are driving this persecution, International Christian Concern’s 2025 Global Persecution Index found. They include the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a political party that currently rules India federally and in numerous states; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary organization promoting Hindu supremacy; and radicalized Hindu mobs that have developed significant social media traction by livestreaming their attacks.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has remained notably silent on violence against Christians. “Some of his supporters … are fomenting this type of violence,” said Arielle Del Turco, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Religious Liberty. “So it’s not politically advantageous for him [as] a part of a Hindu nationalist movement to really be speaking out against this.”
In many cases, the pattern begins with Hindu nationalists disrupting worship services, assaulting believers, then filing false police reports alleging forced conversions. For more than 50 years, forced-conversion laws functioned primarily as tools of intimidation without resulting in convictions.
This changed in April 2024, when a district court in the state of Madhya Pradesh sentenced pastor Ramesh Ahirwar and his wife, Sakshi, to two years in prison. They were also fined 25,000 rupees ($300 USD) each under the state’s anticonversion law. In Uttar Pradesh at the beginning of 2025, Jose and Sheeja Pappachan became the first Christians convicted under the state’s anticonversion law. They face five years of jail time and fines of 25,000 rupees each.
Police arrested the Pappachans at their home while they were line-drying their clothes on the terrace. The formal complaint claimed they were engaged in conversion activities at the time of their arrest, though no evidence was presented.
The government in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, tightened its anticonversion law in July by allowing anyone to report a forced conversion to the police. Previously, only the individual allegedly being converted (or that person’s relatives) could file the complaint. The law also increased the maximum punishment from ten years to life imprisonment. The EFIRLC report found Uttar Pradesh had 188 incidents in 2024, the most in the country.
Ten of India’s twenty-eight states have enacted anticonversion laws, which include provisions so broadly phrased that they effectively criminalize basic religious practices. These laws, typically framed to prevent conversions by force, fraud, or allurement, serve as legal cover for organized harassment campaigns.
The states with anticonversion laws include Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, and Haryana. All are Hindu-majority states, and eight are governed by the BJP.
Two additional states are working to enact their own laws: Rajasthan and Arunachal Pradesh, which is developing implementation rules for its dormant 1978 anticonversion law following a court mandate.
Christians arrested under these laws are often denied bail. The burden of proof typically falls on the accused, making it nearly impossible for them to defend against fabricated charges.
The spread of anticonversion laws has emboldened extremist groups to justify attacks on Christians. A disturbing trend has emerged in Chhattisgarh, a state with a significant tribal Christian population, where Christian families are told to renounce their faith or face expulsion from their village. Chhattisgarh saw the second-highest number of attacks in 2024 with 150, according to the EFIRLC.
The denial of burial rights is also an increasingly common tactic to humiliate and pressure Christian families. In many instances, villagers have prevented Christians from burying their deceased loved ones, instead threatening to cremate their bodies as a final act of Ghar Wapsi (forced reconversion to Hinduism).
Extremists often unlawfully revoke Scheduled Tribe status of tribal Christians by denying their tribal certificates, which affects access to government quotas in jobs, education, and political representation, according to Christian leaders. They also confiscate property and deny access to essential services like water, food rations, and medical care.
“The psychological toll is immense,” said a pastor in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. “Christians live in constant fear, knowing that at any moment they could face violence or arrest simply for attending a prayer meeting.”
In addition, he noted, children from Christian families are bullied and discriminated against at school while their parents struggle to find employment.
Organized calls for violence also add to the heightening fear. In February, a video by Chhattisgarh Christian Forum (CCF) accused Hindu leader Aadesh Soni of instructing his followers to march to three Christian-majority Chhattisgarh villages and sexually assault the women and “kill all the Christians.” He claimed Christians had killed cows, a sacred animal in Hinduism. As CCF’s video went viral, people condemned Soni’s genocidal call. Soni quickly denied the accusations and alleged that the social media account that had posted the message wasn’t his account.
In response to Soni’s call, human rights activist A. C. Michael brought the situation to the attention of the National Commission for Minorities, and many Christian groups wrote to the chief minister of Chhattisgarh to request his intervention. Even though Soni persisted in his call for the march until February 28 and clarified that his group would not indulge in violence, the rally was ultimately canceled after interventions by local and national Christian leaders. Officials from the Church of North India and representatives of the Hindu nationalist group Bajrang Dal called for harmony between the two religions.
“Such inflammatory rhetoric creates an atmosphere of fear and insecurity for religious minorities,” said Lal of EFIRLC. “When hate speech goes unchecked, it emboldens those who wish to target Christians simply for practicing their faith.”
Despite the severity and frequency of these attacks, justice remains elusive for most victims. Law enforcement agencies often side with perpetrators, either by failing to register complaints or by detaining victims instead of attackers.
In February, a mob of 200 people interrupted a Christian worship service in Rajasthan state and beat congregants with iron rods, leaving three severely injured. The police accused the Christians of forceful conversion and brought the pastor and a few other members to the police station, Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported. They were later released as the attackers could not provide any evidence.
Despite these challenges, church and activist networks continue to provide support to persecuted believers. Legal-aid organizations work tirelessly to defend those falsely accused, and advocacy groups document abuses to raise international awareness.
“Our prayer is … that one day we can practice our faith without fear,” said the Uttar Pradesh pastor. “The Constitution promises us this right, but the reality is very different. Still, we hold on to hope that things will change, that India will remember its commitment to religious freedom for all its citizens.”
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