A research group has recorded at least 60 incidents targeting Christians in 13 districts of the Indian state of West Bengal since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed its government there for the first time in May.
India Hate Lab (IHL), a project of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, logged the cases between 13 May and 20 September and published its report on 22 September. The accounts are its own documentation, and coverage of the report carries no response from the state government, the police or the organisations named.
Fifty-two of the incidents were raids on private prayer meetings, homes, churches and other gatherings. Eight involved assault, mob violence or vandalism. South 24 Parganas and Paschim Medinipur districts each saw 13 raids, the highest in the report.
The report names Hindu Jagaran Manch, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and three other Hindu nationalist groups as the most frequent participants. According to IHL, members entered places where Christians were praying, accused organisers of converting people, quizzed worshippers about their faith and, in several cases, demanded to see Aadhaar cards, India’s national identity documents.
Some raiders invoked the change of government. In Panskura on 3 September, VHP and Bajrang Dal members interrupted a gathering at a rented guest house, warning that conversion would not be allowed in “New Bengal” and citing Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s opposition to alleged religious conversion. In Barasat on 12 July, Hindu Jagaran Manch members told Auxilium Salesian Sisters their activities “would not be tolerated now that BJP is in power.”
IHL said Christian women drew particular hostility over Bengali marital symbols: sakha-pola, bangles worn by married Bengali Hindu women, and sindoor, a red powder worn by married Hindu women. In Baruipur on 18 July, a group trailed women carrying Bibles, calling them “sold out Hindus” and “bejaat Hindus,” the latter a casteist slur for people accused of abandoning their caste by converting. On 19 September in Barrackpore, VHP and Bajrang Dal members bound, beat and shamed several Christian women, accusing them of aiding conversion, the report said.
In Subhashgram on 5 July, Hindu nationalist supporters attacked a church under construction and broke its crosses while chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” a Hindu religious slogan. In Howrah on 25 August, a mob seized two people accused of facilitating conversion and dragged them through the area, IHL said. The mob stripped the man and manhandled the woman while police stood by without intervening, according to the report. Police then took the pair into custody.
IHL said police were often present at raids and then detained Christians on the strength of complaints from the groups. In Raniganj on 21 June, a mob led by VHP leader Shubham Raut assaulted worshippers at a Sunday prayer meeting and handed 20 to 25 of them to police, who began investigating the conversion allegations, the report said. In Chaitanyapur, Haldia, on 9 July, police accompanied supporters to detain two women distributing Christian literature, it said.
Dr. John Dayal, veteran human rights activist and current spokesperson of the All India Catholic Union, spoke to Christian Today: “Gone are the days when police stood by as mobs dragged people through the streets, or detained the victims instead of the attackers; that was impunity, plain and simple. Now it has gone beyond impunity. The ruling party’s cadres [party workers] are the mob, the assailants, and the police, by not acting or actively assisting in the violence, make it seem like a targeting of religious minorities by the state itself.”
“I cannot recall Bengal’s Christians facing such fear ever before,” he said.
“We have been calling upon the government and pressing on the chief minister to act, to get the police to register cases against those who take the law into their hands, and to assure worshippers that they can at least live and pray in peace.”
IHL said that participants filmed every documented incident and posted it on Facebook or Instagram, and some livestreamed raids. It questioned whether Meta, which owns both platforms, enforces its rules on hate and incitement. It concluded that the pattern pointed to “an increasingly organized campaign operating in an environment of apparent institutional impunity.”
The Christian organisation Bangiya Christiya Pariseba gave Adhikari a memorandum alleging 26 cases of persecution in three months, and said 11 First Information Reports, the formal police records that begin a criminal investigation, had been registered. It asked for protection for churches.
