3,500 Christians protest near Indian Parliament over 500% rise in attacks since 2014, demanding justice and end to impunity for vigilante mobs.
Newsroom (01/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) An estimated 3,500 Christians from across denominations converged near India’s Parliament on Friday, staging a day-long demonstration at Jantar Mantar to protest what they described as the central government’s failure to rein in a dramatic escalation of violence and discrimination against their community.
Carrying placards bearing messages such as “Live and let live,” “Stop atrocities against Christians,” and “Stop attacks on tribal Christians,” the protesters marched through central Delhi before gathering for prayer and hymns at the capital’s designated protest site, just one kilometre from the Parliament building.
The rally, organised by 18 Christian organisations under the banner of the United Christian Forum (UCF), highlighted statistics showing a more than 500 percent increase in recorded incidents of anti-Christian violence over the past decade.
“Between 2014 and 2024, incidents rose from 139 to 834 — a 500 percent increase,” said A.C. Michael, UCF convenor, addressing the crowd. Over the same ten-year period, the forum documented 4,959 separate incidents nationwide — an average of nearly 70 cases per year.
Michael told protesters that repeated appeals to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and the National Commission for Minorities had yielded no tangible results.
He described a recurring pattern in which vigilante mobs, often identifying with religious extremist groups, disrupt prayer meetings on allegations of forced conversions, issue threats, and physically assault Christians — frequently with little or no police intervention.
“In almost all incidents, we see threats, coercion, and aggression by vigilante mobs acting with impunity,” Michael said, adding that police sometimes detain victims rather than perpetrators and that anti-Christian slogans are openly displayed outside police stations while officers remain “mute spectators.”
UCF President Michael Williams characterised the trend as “a steady and systematic escalation” fuelled by politically motivated hostility and baseless accusations of forced conversion.
The protest also drew attention to the continued exclusion of Dalit Christians from Scheduled Caste benefits available to their Hindu counterparts and to mounting threats against tribal Christians’ rights in several states.
Speakers said Dalit and tribal Christians remain particularly vulnerable. In the first nine months of 2025 alone, UCF recorded attacks on at least 22 Dalits, 16 women, and 15 tribal Christians among 579 total incidents — yet police registered FIRs in only 39 cases, creating what organisers called a 93 percent “justice gap.”
Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 1,317 recorded incidents over the decade, followed by Chhattisgarh (926), Tamil Nadu (322), Karnataka (321), and Madhya Pradesh (319).
Human rights advocate Tehmina Arora told the gathering that tribal Christians routinely face social boycotts, denial of burial rights, housing discrimination, and threats of losing Scheduled Tribe status. “Efforts to force reconversion through coercion represent the real form of forced conversion,” she said.
Minakshi Singh of the rights group Unity in Compassion noted that the surge in attacks stands in stark contrast to the government’s official slogan “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” — “together with all, development for all.”
“What is happening to Christian communities across the country is deeply worrying,” Singh said.
Protest organisers issued a set of concrete demands to the Union government: mandatory registration of all complaints by police, establishment of fast-track courts for anti-minority violence cases, and creation of state-level monitoring committees to safeguard constitutional protections for religious minorities.
As the demonstration concluded peacefully in the evening, participants reiterated their resolve to continue pressing for accountability until the violence ends and equal protection under the law is guaranteed for India’s Christian population.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from UCA News
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