As India marks its 76th Republic Day, the Christian community faces what many describe as an unprecedented crisis of religious freedom. Recent appeals to both President Draupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi paint a troubling picture: over 720 incidents targeting Christians documented by the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India in 2024.
The Republic’s Foundation
“Let’s not forget for a moment that independent India was founded and lived through and survived the violence of partition,” reflects veteran journalist and activist Dr John Dayal. “The Republic of India survived two marks which are soaked in the blood of our people: the blood of minorities on the Western Front and the Eastern front, which was the Hindus in Pakistan and what is now Bangladesh, and Muslims in what is now India.”
The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi marked another crucial moment in the Republic’s early days. “In ‘48 Mahatma Gandhi was killed, and in ‘50, almost a year later, you could say the Republic was born,” Dr Dayal notes. “We have evolved from that bloodshed, and we owe gratitude to the Mahatma for giving us this sustenance.”
The Nehruvian Legacy
The early Republic, Dr Dayal argues, was built on a bedrock of socialism and scientific thinking. “It was Jawaharlal Nehru who said that education must be for everyone—not only primary education, not only a shoddy education, a poor education for the poor and a good education for the rich, but a good education for everyone.”
This vision extended beyond education. “From there, also devised, the guarantee of health,” he explains. “We are still nowhere near universal health in India, but the steps were taken then - All India Institute of Medical Sciences, primary health centres.” These developments were rooted in what Dr Dayal calls “the third instrument that Nehru built, which was the scientific ethos, a scientific culture.”
This scientific temper, he emphasises, remains crucial today. “Education, science, technology, and medicine are all fruits of a scientific temper. A new education policy, a new medical evolution, discoveries cannot be built on superficial knowledge. They cannot be built on blind faith.”
The Human Cost of Persecution
Against this historical backdrop, today’s challenges appear particularly stark. In Bastar, Chhattisgarh, the case of 25-year-old Kunika Kashyap stands as a testimony to the growing threats. Six months pregnant, Kashyap suffered a miscarriage after being attacked by her village headman, Ganga Ram Kashyap, his wife, and their adult daughter. Her crime? Praying for a sick relative.
The pattern extends across multiple states. In Chhattisgarh alone, 2024 witnessed the killing of several Christian women, including Bindu Sodhi, Laxmi Padam, and Sukra Yalam. In Jharkhand, women face systematic ostracism and forced reconversions, while the situation in Manipur has reached crisis proportions since May 2023.
The Manipur Crisis
The situation in Manipur deserves special attention. “I was utterly shocked when the violence erupted,” recalls Glorie Haokip. “Forced from our home, we sought refuge at the 2nd Manipur Rifles, sleeping on the floor with no space to move, haunted by relentless gunfire, exploding gas cylinders, and suffocating smoke.”
Another survivor, Boinu Haokip, shares similar trauma: “On May 3, 2023, my family and I were forced to flee, leaving behind our home, belongings, and memories. Watching the KCC office consumed by flames was a nightmare etched into my soul.” The crisis has resulted in more than 120 deaths, displaced over 60,000 people, and led to the destruction of 1,700 homes and more than 360 churches.
The Legal and Institutional Challenge
The challenges extend beyond physical violence to the legal framework itself. In Uttar Pradesh, Pastor Jose Pappachan and his wife Sheeja received five-year sentences for distributing Bibles and offering moral guidance to children - activities characterised as “allurement” under anti-conversion laws. Over 110 Christian clergy members currently remain imprisoned, with many denied bail.
In Assam, the new Healing (Prevention and Evil) Act, 2024, alongside the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, has been used to target pastors and church workers. Arunachal Pradesh’s revival of its dormant Freedom of Religion Act, 1978, threatens to impose additional restrictions on religious freedoms.
Development and Progress: A Different Measure
Dr Dayal challenges conventional metrics of national progress. “Military growth that is shown in the parade is not a showcase of Indian progress,” he argues. “The Indian progress is in the smile of the poor. It is in the health of the village urchin; it is in the midday meal. It is in the fact that everybody has a job—a self-respect that comes out of a job, not that comes out of a dole.”
He is particularly critical of what he sees as superficial economic growth. “Industrial opening up, the commercial opening up may bring in foreign capital and may increase trade and business, but it does not increase hard education. It does not increase scientific temper; it does not increase the race for space.” He points out that India’s space achievements today are built on foundations laid by Nehru, not recent economic liberalisation.
The Language of Peace
Dr Dayal advocates for a new approach to addressing these challenges, what he calls a “language of peace.” This approach has three key components. First, “we do not attack anybody. We do not use violence; we do not use abuse. We visit a grammar, and a vocabulary entirely built upon the teachings of Gandhi, Nehru, Buddha, and Jesus Christ, which has no place in it for hate, for mischief, for malice.”
Second is the recognition of India’s cultural synthesis. “Various communities have come; people have come from all sorts of places on the globe to settle down here,” he explains. “In settling down here, they built on what was the cultural capital here and they have expanded on it. They have added to it. They have brought in culture from North Africa, they brought in culture from Europe, they brought in culture from Central Asia, they brought in culture from the Far East.”
The third component involves a nuanced understanding of equality. “What will be the terms of equality? Can you measure it mathematically, or is it again how communities end up depending on each other?” Dr Dayal suggests that true equality comes through mutual support and understanding. “Equality therefore becomes how we help each other fill out those gaps that are between each other, and we give to those who are weaker, and we accept things from those who are more powerful or bigger.”
Strategy Against Persecution
The path forward, according to Dr Dayal, requires a fundamental rethinking of how the Christian community responds to persecution. “The Christian community in India has, in fact, not been very wise in trying to fight its battle against persecution all alone,” he observes. This is particularly true in areas where Christians are a micro-minority, “as perhaps best explained in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and to an extent in Gujarat.”
The strategy, he argues, must be built on coalition-building and careful attention to language. “Obviously, civil society would be able to make common cause with the Christians if the Christians listen to the advice of the civil society,” he explains, emphasizing the need for “taking everybody along, using language which is conducive, which spells and derives its strength from the Constitution, which is not supremacist, which is not sort of crying for a path alone, which is not claiming to be the best in the region.”
Instead of isolated resistance, he advocates for making common cause with other communities. “Secularism is a fight for everyone in India, not just for the Christians. It’s a fight as much for Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists and the same segment of Hindus.” The Christian community’s educational background, he suggests, makes it uniquely positioned to help forge these alliances and develop a “minimum common program to challenge those who are cutting against the Constitution, who are being violent, who are using hate language against all religious communities and all marginalized people.”
Building Bridges Through Dialogue - Looking to 2050
The challenges ahead are significant. A document circulated at the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj proposes stripping Christians and Muslims of citizenship rights by mid-century. Dr Dayal dismisses such communal projections outright: “Anybody who wastes our energies in trying to find out which religious community will be high up in the scale, which community would have overtaken, are trivial. Those are not factors which are to define the new India of 2051.”
Instead, he argues that the real measures of progress will be more fundamental: “Have we invented new medicines to tackle mass ailments? It will be how many of the poor are able to graduate, to reach out to technical degrees - not how many of the rich are able to study abroad.”
“Unless we take care of employment, unless we take care of education for the poorest, unless we take care of child health, unless we take care of happiness evolving out of these factors, we would not have grown as a country,” he insists. “It will not be how big a military, it will not be how big a rocket, it will not be how big a splash we have made in space.”
A Time for Strategic Action
As India celebrates its 76th Republic Day, Dr Dayal’s call for a new approach to confronting persecution offers both challenge and hope. The way forward, he argues, requires what he calls a “dialogue of life” - engaging deeply with constitutional values while building alliances across communities. “In evolving this common minimum program, in evolving a language based on the Constitution of India to fight communalism, to fight hate campaigns, and to fight violence is the best way going forward,” he concludes.
This Republic Day thus becomes not just a celebration but a moment for reflection. The Christian community, representing 2.3% of India's 1.40 billion population, continues to serve despite persecution, blessing neighbours while enduring discrimination. Their response must now evolve into deeper engagement with civil society and other religious communities, transforming individual resilience into collective strength.
