Amid steadily rising incidents of anti-Christian violence in India, Christian and secular groups came together in a “Peopleʼs Tribunal,” titled “Caravan of Love,” that has urged the Indian government to end “impunity for non-state actors.”
“A recurring concern throughout the proceedings was the alleged role of state institutions. Participants described instances in which police officers failed to protect victims, registered cases against those who had been attacked, delayed investigations, or pressured communities into so-called compromise agreements,” the tribunal said in a statement released June 2.
More than 200 leaders and delegates of Christian networks and action groups, lawyers, researchers, and members of Hindu and Muslim groups took part in the June 1 tribunal in New Delhi.
The event also heard testimony from 20 survivors of anti-Christian violence, “documenting a disturbing escalation of violence and discrimination targeting Christians.”
“The Tribunal [proceedings] examined attacks on places of worship, pastors and priests, social and economic boycotts, denial of burial rights, expulsions from villages, the role of Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) organizations, and the conduct of political leaders, police and judicial institutions,” the statement said.
“The constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience, religion and equal citizenship are increasingly under threat,” said John Dayal, a senior journalist and outspoken Catholic activist who organized and coordinated the tribunal.
“We want the state governments to obey Supreme Court directions in this regard to end the rampant impunity. Then only, the atrocities will go down,” Dayal told EWTN News June 3.
A sharp rise since 2014
Sporadic anti-Christian violence turned endemic after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, with incidents of anti-Christian violence shooting up from 127 in 2014 to 834 by 2024.
In the run-up to the national tribunal, Dayal said, the investigative team visited troubled spots in Chhattisgarh state in central India in April and neighboring Odisha state in May, as these BJP-ruled states had reported a higher number of violent and oppressive incidents of late.
“There is systematic denial of burial rights — one of the gravest forms of humiliation inflicted upon Christian communities,” said Father Ajay Singh, former director of the Odisha Forum for Social Action of the Catholic Church.
Briefing the tribunal on the situation in Odisha, Singh recounted cases in which “funeral processions were obstructed, burial in village graveyards was denied, and even the bodies of deceased Christians were allegedly removed and buried against the wishes of families.”
“I was part of three fact-finding teams that visited troubled spots in Odisha this year. The situation has become so shocking that even [Christian] dead bodies are dug out” and subject to reconversion ceremonies, Singh told EWTN News.
‘A systematic campaign of exclusion’
A.C. Michael, a Catholic and coordinator of the United Christian Forum, which monitors atrocities against the community, told the tribunal about the “growing normalization of hostility towards Christian prayer meetings and places of worship.”
“Peaceful acts of worship are increasingly portrayed as threats to public order and national interest while there is no Christian representation in statutory minority institutions,” Michael pointed out.
Despite rising violence against Christians, the quota for a Christian member on the autonomous National Commission for Minorities has not been filled for six years under the BJP government.
“Accusations of conversion have become a recurring pretext for violence,” pointed out Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, who said that “recent violence has been justified through allegations of religious conversion.”
Siju Thomas, director of Alliance Defending Freedom India, lamented the “social and economic boycotts, expulsions and ostracization of Christians, especially of newly converted families and members of independent congregations.”
“Denial of access to community resources, social isolation, displacement and restrictions on burial rights have become instruments of coercion … [with] misuse of laws intended to protect Adivasi communities, to target Christian Adivasis and restrict their rights,” he said.
Harsh Mander, one of the eminent social activists, concluded the tribunal, deploring that widespread anti-Christian violence “could not be understood as isolated acts of prejudice or spontaneous expressions of hostility.”
“Rather, they revealed a systematic campaign of exclusion that threatened the constitutional promise of equal citizenship,” said Mander, who quit the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS) to protest the 2002 carnage of Muslims in Gujarat state under Modi, who was then the stateʼs chief minister.
The findings of the Peopleʼs Tribunal, Dayal said, will be published in book form in two months. “What we have recorded are shocking and graphic, and these will run into around 300 pages,” he said.
