As hate spirals in India, Hindu extremists turn to Christian targets

Anti-Muslim violence has soared for more than a decade under Indian PM Modi. Now, Christians face the brunt, too.

On Christmas Eve, Hindu hardline groups affiliated with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a shutdown in the central Indian city of Raipur. The protest was called over allegations of “forced” religious conversions by Christians, a claim frequently levelled against the Christian community despite scant evidence.

That same day, groups of men armed with wooden sticks stormed a shopping mall in Raipur, vandalising Christmas decorations and disrupting celebrations. Police filed a case against 30 to 40 unidentified attackers, but arrested only six. They were released on bail within days and, upon their release, were greeted with public processions, garlands, and chants outside the jail, videos of which circulated widely on social media.

On Christmas morning, Modi visited a Catholic church in New Delhi to celebrate the occasion, but did not condemn the violence.

This incident was not the only one. According to a new report, religious hate speech and violence in India are escalating, with the country’s small Christian minority emerging as an increasingly visible target, alongside Muslims, in a climate of intensifying Hindu majoritarian rhetoric.

The research by India Hate Lab, a project of the Washington, DC-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), has found that the country recorded a total of 1,318 hate speech events in 2025, an average of more than three per day.