India: Christian persecution expected to intensify in 2021
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A new report forecasts that Christians in India will be subject to increased persecution in 2021, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Published by persecution watchdog Release International, the new report explains that the growing radical Hindu nationalist movement is behind the intensifying persecution of Christians in the country.
Hindu nationalism has become normalized since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, and this has had violent repercussions for religious minorities, including Christians, ICC reports.
According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) reported that violence against Christians has more than doubled in recent years, ICC said. In the year BJP came to power, the EFI recorded 147 attacks on Christians; in 2019, after five years of BJP rule, the organization recorded 366 attacks.
Corroborating the EFI figures, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) India recorded at least 328 attacks against Christians in 2019. The ADF, too, reported a general uptick in violence against believers over recent years.
In any event, ICC attests, the number of attacks actually recorded by EFI and ADF are probably only a fraction of those that have taken place. “Most incidents go unreported due to fear of reprisal and lack of confidence in India’s justice system,” ICC says.
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