A United States federal commission has documented a continuing pattern of attacks on Christian communities across India through 2025, recommending that Washington classify India among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom and impose sanctions on organisations it holds responsible. India has rejected the findings as biased and motivated.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released its 2026 Annual Report on March 4, covering conditions through 2025. For the seventh consecutive year, it recommended that the State Department designate India a “Country of Particular Concern,” a classification reserved for governments accused of systematic and egregious religious persecution.
The numbers on the ground are stark. The United Christian Forum, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year, recorded 834 incidents of violence against Christians across India in 2024 alone, with 706 incidents logged through November 2025. The USCIRF report corroborates this pattern. In June 2025, a Hindu nationalist mob attacked 20 Christian families in Odisha after they refused to convert to Hinduism, leaving eight people injured and hospitalised. Police did not respond. In October, authorities in Maharashtra arrested a U.S. citizen, James Watson, and two Indian nationals, accusing them of converting Hindus to Christianity. The men were charged with “hurting religious sentiment” and violating the state’s anti-black magic law.
Legislative pressure compounded the physical violence. Twelve of India’s 28 states now maintain anti-conversion laws. In 2025, several states strengthened such legislation with harsher penalties. Rajasthan adopted a law that includes life imprisonment for conducting religious conversions and requires individuals to give two months’ notice to the government before changing their religion. Uttarakhand passed legislation that criminalises digital speech about religion and increases jail terms for “illegal conversions” from 10 to 14 years. In March, Arunachal Pradesh moved to implement a decades-dormant anti-conversion law, prompting protests by hundreds of thousands of Christians. In November, Indian officials reportedly denied a visa to American Christian evangelist Reverend Franklin Graham.
USCIRF also reported that the government moved to bring religious institutions under state control. In September, Uttarakhand’s legislative assembly passed legislation dissolving the Madrasa Board and placing educational institutions run by Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis under state control.
Father Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest based in Gujarat, told EWTN News on March 17: “The Indian government is in its normal denial mode. What USCIRF has stated are incontrovertible facts. There is sufficient documented evidence to prove their charges.” Church leaders across India have echoed this frustration, pointing out that police complaints filed by Christian communities frequently go unregistered.
Notably, when President Donald Trump hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an official state visit in Washington in February, the commission recorded that religious freedom remained absent from public discussion.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the report on March 16. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “We categorically reject its motivated and biased characterisation of India. For several years now, USCIRF has persisted in presenting a distorted and selective picture of India, relying on questionable sources and ideological narratives rather than objective facts.” A group of 275 former Indian officials, comprising retired bureaucrats, judges and armed forces personnel, issued a parallel rebuttal calling the report’s conclusions “prejudiced and illogical.” Former diplomat Bhaswati Mukherjee told the ANI news agency: “We have long gone beyond the stage where we need ‘goras’ to tell us what to do,” using a colloquial Hindi word for white-skinned Westerners. She questioned the recommended sanctions, asking: “What do they think, that they are dealing with some banana republic?”
The commission recommended targeted sanctions against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organisation widely seen as the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, including asset freezes and travel bans. USCIRF also called for future U.S. security assistance and trade with India to be linked to measurable improvements in conditions for minority communities.
USCIRF functions as an independent advisory body. Its recommendations are not binding on the U.S. administration, which has declined to act on its India findings for six consecutive years.
