India - Christian
The first Christians in India, according to tradition and legend, were converted by Saint Thomas the Apostle, who arrived on the Malabar Coast of India in A.D. 52. After evangelizing and performing miracles in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, he is believed to have been martyred in Madras and buried on the site of San Thomé Cathedral. Members of the Syro-Malabar Church, an eastern rite of the Roman Catholic Church, adopted the Syriac liturgy dating from fourth century Antioch. They practiced what is also known as the Malabar rite until the arrival of the Portuguese in the late fifteenth century. Soon thereafter, the Portuguese attempted to latinize the Malabar rite, an action which, by the mid-sixteenth century, led to charges of heresy against the Syro-Malabar Church and a lengthy round of political machinations.
By the middle of the seventeenth century, a schism occurred when the adherents of the Malankar rite (or Syro-Malankara Church) broke away from the Syro-Malabar Church. Fragmentation continued within the Syro-Malabar Church up through the early twentieth century when a large contingent left to join the Nestorian Church, which had its own roots in India since the sixth or seventh century. By 1887, however, the leaders of the Syro-Malabar Church had reconciled with Rome, which formally recognized the legitimacy of the Malabar rite. The Syro-Malankara Church was reconciled with Rome in 1930 and, while retaining the Syriac liturgy, adopted the Malayalam language instead of the ancient Syriac language.
Throughout this period, foreign missionaries made numerous converts to Christianity. Early Roman Catholic missionaries, particularly the Portuguese, led by the Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier (1506-52), expanded from their bases on the west coast making many converts, especially among lower castes and outcastes. The miraculously undecayed body of Saint Francis Xavier is still on public view in a glass coffin at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa. Beginning in the eighteenth century, Protestant missionaries began to work throughout India, leading to the growth of Christian communities of many varieties.
The Christian Churches in Malabar by around 1914 were:
- 1. The Uniates (very considerably the majority; over 400,000; with five bishops, 371 churches besides chapels, 418 secular and 72 regular priests, seven monasteries, 13 convents).
- 2. Jacobites of the Patriarch's party (about 200,00 ; four bishops, including the Patriarch's delegate).
- 3. Jacobites of the Metran's party (about 200,00; five bishops, including Alvarez).
- 4. Mar Thomas Christians (the Reformed body; about 100,000 ; 168 churches, one bishop now alive).
- 5. The Church of Anjur in British Malabar (a small body with one bishop, in communion with the Mar Thomas Church).
- 6. The Nestorians at Trichur (about 8,000, one bishop).
- 7. "Church of England Syrians" (those who have joined the Church of England under the C.M.S.; under the Anglican clergy).
- 8. The Yoyomayans, a small Christian Chiliast sect, founded in 1874 by a Brahmin convert, Justus Joseph, called "Vidvan Kutti" (the learned person).
The total number of Christians in India according to the 1991 census was 19.6 million, or 2.3 percent of the population. About 13.8 million of these Christians were Roman Catholics, including 300,000 members of the Syro-Malankara Church. The remainder of Roman Catholics were under the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India. In January 1993, after centuries of self-government, the 3.5-million-strong Latin-rite Syro-Malabar Church was raised to archepiscopate status as part of the Roman Catholic Church. In total, there were nineteen archbishops, 103 bishops, and about 15,000 priests in India in 1995.
Most Protestant denominations were represented in India, the result of missionary activities throughout the country, starting with the onset of British rule. Most denominations, however, are almost exclusively staffed by Indians, and the role of foreign missionaries is limited. The largest Protestant denomination in the country is the Church of South India, since 1947 a union of Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational, Methodist, and Anglican congregations with approximately 2.2 million members as of 1995. A similar Church of North India had 1 million members. There are 473,000 Methodists, 425,000 Baptists, and about 1.3 million Lutherans. Orthodox churches of the Malankara and Malabar rites total 2 million and 700,000 members, respectively, as of 1995.
All Christian churches have found the most fertile ground for expansion among Dalits, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribe groups. During the twentieth century, the fastest growing Christian communities have been located in the northeast, among the Khasis, Mizos, Nagas, and other hill tribes. Christianity offers a non-Hindu mode of acculturation during a period when the state and modern economy have been radically transforming the life-styles of the hill peoples. Missionaries have led the way in the development of written languages and literature for many tribal groups. Christian churches have provided a focus for unity among different ethnic groups and have brought with them a variety of charitable services.
Police in India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh registered 23 cases of “forced” conversion in the first 23 days of the implementation of a new and strict “anti-conversion” law, according to February 2021 media reports, indicating that the ongoing persecution of religious minorities is likely to further intensify. “Twenty-three cases were registered under the newly passed Freedom of Religion Ordinance 2020 in January in Madhya Pradesh,” the state’s interior minister, Narottam Mishra, who is from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said, according to The Times of India.
The ordinance, which came into force on Jan. 9 and will affect mostly Muslim and Christian minorities, was passed under the pretext of “love jihad,” a term coined by Hindu nationalists to claim that Hindu women were being lured into marriage by Muslim men for conversion to Islam — a claim that has not been substantiated. “We maintain that this is a serious issue and such forces are active across the country. An effort has been taken in Madhya Pradesh to stop them,” Mishra added.
An equal number of Muslims and Christians have been arrested under the ordinance, according to Matters India. Among those arrested under the law is Chhatar Singh Katre, a teacher from a village in the Balaghat area, who had organized a prayer meeting on Jan. 27 to celebrate the admission of his daughter to college, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern said. Police arrived before the meeting began and arrested Katre and two other Christians, it said. All three were charged with violating the new anti-conversion law for luring and coercing people into changing their religion.
“My father organized the meeting for me and now he is in jail for no reason,” Kalyani Katre, Katre’s daughter, was quoted as saying. “The case was registered against him and two others on the complaint of a person who was booked 10 years ago for assaulting and harassing my father and others for participating in a religious program.”
The ordinance replaces the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act of 1968, which presumed that Christian workers “force” or give financial benefits to Hindus to convert them to Christianity. While these laws have been in place for decades in some states, no Christian had been convicted of “forcibly” converting anyone to Christianity. These laws, however, allow Hindu nationalist groups to make false charges against Christians and launch attacks on them under the pretext of the alleged forced conversion.
Similar anti-conversion laws had also been enacted in the states of Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Most recently, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh approved an anti-conversion law that experts warned would “incite more religiously motivated violence” as attacks on Christians and other religious minorities continue to escalate.
Some of these laws state that no one is allowed to use the “threat” of “divine displeasure,” meaning Christians cannot talk about Heaven or Hell, as that would be seen as “forcing” someone to convert. And if snacks or meals are served to Hindus after an evangelistic meeting, that could be seen as “inducement.”
The ICC previously noted that India’s own population data proves that the conspiracy of mass conversions to Christianity is a false claim. “In 1951, the first census after independence, Christians made up only 2.3% of India's overall population. According to the 2011 census, the most recent census data available, Christians still only make up 2.3% of the population.”
Attacks and curbs on Christians have been on the rise since the BJP won India’s 2014 general election. “Since the current ruling party took power in 2014, incidents against Christians have increased, and Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences,” noted Open Doors’ World Watch List last year, which ranked India as the 10th worst country for Christians. “The view of the Hindu nationalists is that to be Indian is to be Hindu, so any other faith — including Christianity — is viewed as non-Indian. Also, converts to Christianity from Hindu backgrounds or tribal religions are often extremely persecuted by their family members and communities,” Open Doors said at the time.
In 2020, India denied entry visas to representatives of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom who had planned to investigate reports of persecution of Muslims and Christians following the release of its report that designates India as a “Country of Particular Concern.”
