Violence against Christians "steadily rising" since 2014: report

As per the Alliance Defending Freedom's (ADF) recent report, Christians in India have suffered 218 incidents of violence that are religiously motivated. Of the 218 incidents reported this year, 159 were committed by vigilante mobs.

The number is high compared to the 2014 data where 147 religiously motivated incidents were reported. But why has the religiously motivated violence against Christians escalated since 2014?

In India, where Hinduism is the major religion, other minorities like Christians and Muslims are viewed as foreign faiths. This difference has impacted the religious minorities and when Hindu nationalists BJP came into power in 2014, the party leaders polarized the country along religious lines for political gain.

According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) data, 351 religiously motivated attacks in 2017 and 325 attacks in 2018 against Christians were documented. The fellowship reported that there has been a steady rise in violence against Christians in the country since the pro-Hindu government started ruling in 2014.

In the last 10 years, 98% mob lynching activities related to cow have occurred under the BJP rule with Muslim community suffering major consequences.

It is unfortunate that though the number of attacks were reported and documented, the BJP government has taken little or no action to control the violence against religious minorities in the country.