This article is part of a serial release of information from the report "Faltering States and Growing Churches" published by the International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF). Click here for part one (Africa) and click here for part two (Middle East).
The world’s most prominent, successful, and charismatic Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi, displayed far too much hubris by confidently expecting his party to maintain and extend their absolute majority for the third time in a row in May/June 2024 elections.
To his shock, his BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) were humbled by losing their absolute majority, forcing them to share power with two other parties to attain the 272 seats required to form a government. This might require them to temper their nationalist agenda, while Modi himself must accept that he has suddenly become, in the words of one of his circle, a broken brand, especially within his own party who blame him for the poor showing.
Vast numbers of younger Indian voters no longer trusted the BJP.
This does not mean the Hindu nationalist agenda is over however, and a political post-mortem was quick to blame BJP leaders for ignoring the warnings of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), or National Volunteer Associations, the ideologues who guard the agenda of Hindutva, who have an outstanding on-the-ground presence and reported that vast numbers of younger Indian voters no longer trusted the BJP to run the economy in the interests of the struggling poor.
Two billionaire supporters of Modi own a major portion of India’s television media and so few dared to suggest Modi might be heading for a reckoning. However, if the RSS return to a position of influence, and a chastened BJP elite start listening again, the Hindutva agenda may get back on track after all, as the recent Haryana and Maharashtra elections demonstrated, where the BJP swept the states.
Top Hindu nationalists are shaken by the sheer numbers deserting the Hindu religion in favor of a Jesus centered faith.
It is not clear if the large numbers of Christ-followers in India played a role in the result of the general elections, but there is no doubt that top Hindu nationalists are shaken by the sheer numbers deserting the Hindu religion in favor of a Jesus centered faith, albeit choosing to retain their identity as Hindus culturally.
RSS cadres have already redoubled efforts in the villages of Uttar Pradesh (traditionally their heartland) to disrupt the many Christian small group gatherings and do so in many instances with the aid of the law enforcement agencies, while in Chhattisgarh (in Central India), RSS and its affiliates have successfully fractured the tribal society by mobilizing tribals against Christian tribals thus displacing the age-old inter-tribal friendship that the community shared.
There is hardly a violence category in which India does not feature.
The results are visible in physical violence, social ostracization, and the fleeing of Christian tribals from their villages nearly every week. In the recent Violent Incident Database statistics (Nov22–Nov24) there is hardly a violence category in which India does not feature in the top ten showing how hard the onslaught has been in recent years.
157 Christians in India have been killed and 150 arrested and/or sentenced, and of course 63,328 mostly Kuki Christians displaced in Manipur due to the violence in May 2023. This is only surpassed by the numbers of Christians displaced in Azerbaijan in September 2023 of 120,000 from the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
India also tops the list for Christian properties (churches, homes, and shops) destroyed in the past two years, with 4,949 violent incidents recorded, mainly against homes.
The next nation to feature in this series is China.
Previously published by International Institute for Religious Freedom. Republished with permission.
This commentary draws upon data available in the International Institute for Religious Freedom's Violent Incidents Database, which can be freely accessed at: https://iirf.global/vid/.
Dr. Ronald Boyd-MacMillan, serves as Chief of Research and Global Strategy at Global Christian Relief. He also is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute for Religious Freedom and a Research Associate at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. In addition, Ronald is Adjunct Professor of Practical Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary focusing on understanding and learning from the suffering church as well as visiting Professor of Practical Theology and Spiritual Formation at Lahore College of Theology in Pakistan.
