Religious minorities in India face growing attacks – and silence is no longer an option
The image of India as a democratic and secular republic is under siege. From remote tribal regions to metropolitan corridors, incidents of religious hatred, administrative complicity, and mob violence against minorities are becoming alarmingly routine. The very foundation on which this nation stands liberty, equality, and fraternity is cracking under the weight of unchecked majoritarian extremism.
The recent events at Durg Railway Station in Chhattisgarh are not just disturbing; they are symbolic of a deeper decay. Two Catholic nuns, accompanying young girls on a journey, were subjected to humiliation and arrest not because of evidence or legal violation, but because a train ticket examiner decided to call in the Bajrang Dal rather than law enforcement. The result was a mob trial, a public shaming, and an official arrest dictated by vigilante politics.
This is not a one-off incident. It is part of a deliberate dismantling of India's constitutional promise of secularism. When mobs replace the judiciary, and radical groups dictate who gets arrested, the line between democracy and theocracy blurs dangerously.
India's tryst with communal violence against Christians didn’t begin at Durg. It stretches back to the horrors of the Kandhamal riots in 2008, where over 100 Christians were murdered, entire villages were torched, and thousands displaced. The state machinery either watched or failed.
In 2024 alone, more than 834 incidents of Christian persecution were recorded. Missionaries and believers face arrest and torture under flimsy charges of "forced conversions" a phrase often used as a smokescreen to justify religious targeting. Churches have been burned. Homes razed. And still, justice eludes the victims.
The violence in Manipur stands as one of the most glaring examples of state paralysis and societal indifference. What began as ethnic clashes soon transformed into targeted violence against Christians. Dozens of churches were burned. Hundreds were killed. Entire communities were uprooted. And yet, the response from those who govern and those who speak for the people was muted, evasive, and disturbingly cold.
The same chilling silence surrounds the desecration of churches in Rae Bareli and Sitapur, the memory of Graham Staines and his sons burned alive, and the slow, state-sanctioned death of Father Stan Swamy, imprisoned without trial.
An even more insidious transformation is taking place within the bureaucratic and judicial machinery. When public servants fear a nun more than a lynch mob, or when the media labels social work as sedition, India enters dangerous territory. We are witnessing the communalization of state institutions. The rule of law is being traded for the rule of ideology.
If this trajectory continues, ordinary citizens might soon be filing complaints not at police stations but at RSS offices. This is no longer about politics it is about moral collapse.
The slow normalization of hate, the casual acceptance of bigotry, and the growing silence from moderates are all symptoms of a republic on the brink. A democracy without dissent is dictatorship. A secular nation without protection for minorities is a hollow shell.
We must ask ourselves: What kind of India do we want to leave behind? One of pluralism and peace or of fear, exclusion, and persecution?
Let this editorial be a plea not to the rulers, but to the ruled. To political parties who still believe in the Constitution. To religious leaders who still preach peace. To civil society that still values truth. To citizens who still carry a moral compass.
Let us speak. Let us resist. Let us remember that secularism is not a privilege for minorities it is a protection for all.
If we fail now, democracy will remain only in textbooks. Secularism will hang permanently on the cross of persecution. And India, the dream of Gandhi and Ambedkar, will be nothing more than a ghost in the mirror of history.
#ChristianPersecution #DemocracyUnderThreat #SecularIndia #ReligiousFreedom #HumanRightsIndia