Christians in India fear that tighter laws target them

BENGALURU – Those going to church on Sunday in Mumbai will take part in an uneasy new ritual before the service. They will sign a form declaring that they are attending the service voluntarily and are not being forced to go to church or convert to Christianity. 

Around 4,000 churches in the Mumbai Metropolitan Area in the western Indian state of Maharashtra have decided to collect such “consent forms” to protect themselves ahead of an upcoming anti-conversion law that criminalises alleged forced conversions.

“These consent forms are the least safety measure we can take to protect us from legal proceedings if anyone attempts to accuse the pastors or churches of forcibly converting people,” Dolphy D’souza, spokesman for the Bombay Catholic Society, told The Straits Times.

“There have been a dozen disruptions of prayers in the past six months, by Hindu right-wing groups under the pretext of exposing forced conversions. So we have also asked churches to install CCTV cameras to identify attackers,” he added. 

The defensive actions in Mumbai are the latest response to a range of allegedly discriminatory actions by the Indian government against the Christian community, which is the third-largest religious group in India and comprises 2.3 per cent of the population. These include anti-conversion laws in several states and the tightening of laws governing foreign funding of non-profit organisations, which could result in the seizure of assets such as schools and hospitals built with such donations.

Representatives of the Christian community in Mumbai said they fear an uptick in vigilante attacks on churches from Aug 28, when Maharashtra’s anti-conversion law, the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act 2026, comes into force. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the western state passed the law in July. 

With that, Maharashtra becomes the 13th of India’s 28 states to enact an anti-conversion law. 

As in other states, the Maharashtra law paves the way for enforcement against religious conversion through coercion, fraud or inducements. Anyone who wants to adopt another faith must inform the authorities 60 days in advance. If these rules are violated, church officials or individuals can be jailed for seven years. 

Twenty civil society organisations, including Christian ones, held a press conference on Aug 24 in Mumbai asking for the withdrawal of the law, which they said is an “intrusive regulation of personal choices” and impinges on an Indian’s right to practise and propagate their faith freely, guaranteed in the Indian Constitution. 

“Fraudulent or coercive religious conversions are already punishable under Indian criminal codes,” said D’souza. “Distinct anti-conversion laws cast aspersions on permitted activities as well. They are a political weapon to polarise people and give a handle to Hindu majoritarian groups to misuse to terrorise religious minorities. 

“We have seen right-wing elements unleash violence on Muslims in India through lynching, bulldozing of houses and blocking namaz prayers in public. Now, the targeting of Christians is also expanding – they disrupt prayer meetings, saying we are forcing Hindus to become Christians,” said D’souza, adding that church groups’ requests for protection from the police had fallen on deaf ears. 

The consent forms and CCTV cameras in Mumbai, D’souza added, are a result of “the trust deficit” between the community and the city police and could serve as evidence against any targeted litigation.

Anti-conversion laws 

Anti-conversion laws have been in effect in some Indian states since the 1980s, but have become harsher and more widespread in the past decade as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP has won elections in more states. 

The authorities and hardline Hindu groups affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the BJP, often “struggle to differentiate between persuasion and coercion”, said a lawyer and former Catholic priest in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which passed an anti-conversion law in 2020. He spoke to ST on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. 

Legal aid groups estimate that there are around 200 ongoing cases against Christians in Uttar Pradesh under its anti-conversion law, and more than 800 people, including pastors and worshippers, have been arrested or detained. 

Shiv, a 30-year-old pastor from a village in Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh, told ST that a group of people claiming to protect the Hindu religion burst into his nightly prayer meeting in January. As the 90 or so attendees fled in fear, the vigilantes threw water on the dinner that had been arranged for them. 

They also allegedly roughed up the pastor, the owner of the prayer house and some women attendees, while shouting Hindu slogans. An hour later, the police arrived, arrested Shiv and detained him for 26 hours before registering a complaint under the state’s anti-conversion law. 

“I have held prayer meetings for three years in the village. Mostly labourers, small farmers and poor families attend to get a few hours’ respite from their hard life. I don’t force anyone,” said Shiv, who was granted bail but has not held services since as he awaits trial. 

The Uttar Pradesh lawyer, who represents over three dozen accused across the state, said that a year ago, the disruptions used to be at rural fellowships, but “now, extremist groups are targeting city churches as well”. 

Charitable work, educational assistance and religious preaching are often counted as “allurement” and brought within the scope of anti-conversion investigations, he added. A common slur used by Hindu right-wing trolls online against Christians is “rice bag convert”, which assumes that the person or his ancestors became Christian in exchange for these inducements.

Several police complaints ST has seen simply list the Bible and cross under evidence to suggest coerced baptisms. 

Anti-conversion laws disproportionately impact women, young adults, Dalits (so-called lower-caste members) and tribals, who are assumed to be gullible and incapable of exercising independent choice, a press note issued by Mumbai civil society organisations said.

Political commentator Insiyah Vahanvaty and Ashish Bharadwaj, professor and dean at BITS Pilani Law School, wrote in The Hindustan Times that while the anti-conversion laws claim to protect the vulnerable, their real-world impact is chilling. 

“Vigilantes use them to harass interfaith couples, suppress minority rights and instil fear in them… Claims of guarding against deceitful conversions ring hollow when couples marrying across faiths are arrested, or when volunteers handing out food are accused of enticement,” they wrote. 

The non-profit Citizens for Justice and Peace has challenged the validity of anti-conversion laws across Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in a petition in the Supreme Court. 

On Oct 17, 2025, the court quashed five police complaints against 90 accused, including pastors from Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh and hospital staff and university officials in Prayagraj, who were named in complaints of mass conversions of Hindus to Christianity in April 2022. 

The judges noted that “the criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons”, based on “completely incredulous material”. 

Targeting Christian non-profits

The Indian government has also tried since March 2026 to pass an amendment to the 1970s Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) regulating the foreign funding of Indian non-profits and charities. The new Bill allows a government authority to take over, manage or dispose of assets such as land and buildings funded by foreign sources when a non-profit’s five-year FCRA licence is suspended, cancelled, or not renewed.

Christian-run non-profits were the first to demand changes to the Bill, backed by governments in states with significant Christian populations, such as Nagaland, Mizoram, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.

Home Minister Amit Shah met concerned groups in early August and assured them that the amendment was “religion-neutral”. He added that the government had “no intention to harass the Christian community”, whose non-profits receive less than 15 per cent of total foreign donations.

The government FCRA dashboard shows that more than 22,400 of the 52,000 registered charities have had their licences to receive foreign funds cancelled, and 15,200 licences have expired or not been renewed. Non-profits say they are rarely given clear reasons for cancellation or non-renewal. The official data does not classify how many of these are Christian or religious charities.

But the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and the National Council of Churches in India expressed concern that, as Christian organisations run thousands of schools, hospitals, and orphanages that rely on foreign donations, they were bound to be affected.

Archbishop Joseph D’souza, president of the All-India Christian Council, described the amendment as “legalised loot(ing) of the Indian Christian community”.

The developments have been criticised by politicians in the US.

On Aug 5, Representative Riley Moore called India’s amendment a “clear attack on Christians”. In June, Senator James Risch, who heads the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had described the proposed amendments as “deeply concerning”.

In May, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s diplomatic itinerary to India included a highly publicised visit to the Missionaries of Charity headquarters in Kolkata, whose FCRA licence the Indian government had temporarily revoked in 2021 citing, vaguely, “adverse inputs”.

A few days before Rubio’s visit, Representative Chris Smith wrote in an editorial in the Washington Examiner that impending changes to the FCRA could grant the Modi government sweeping powers to retroactively seize properties, schools and hospitals belonging to foreign-funded non-profits if their administrative licences are made to lapse.

India’s Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra defended the amendments on social media as an attempt to improve transparency. He said that foreign contributions received by registered organisations in India had increased from US$1.2 billion (S$1.5 billion) in 2010-2011 to US$2.67 billion in 2024-2025. 

But critics said tighter controls could make it harder for legitimate organisations to access overseas funding, and the government would be overreaching in taking over assets built with approved donations.

“Non-profits would have used the donations to build schools, a small clinic, a toilet in a school or buy some equipment for a science lab, or a jeep to go to villages,” said John Dayal, a Delhi-based human rights activist and member of the National Integration Council of India, which works for religious harmony. “These are legitimate investments in community welfare made with legally obtained funds – seizing them retrospectively is to rob the poor communities they are meant for.”

Facing criticism from politicians in the US, with whom India has yet to finalise its trade deal, the government on Aug 12 referred the Bill to a 31-member joint parliamentary committee for review.

Dayal hoped the government would remove the “draconian” portions, but was not optimistic: “They may polish the language, but given the wider environment of the Modi government’s impatience for the concerns of religious minorities and critics, it is unlikely to change.”

A development professional who works with some Christian-run non-profits in south India said that amid the tightening laws and uncertainty, those with most to lose were the three million civil society workers and volunteers, and needy communities.

“Most non-profits work in the least developed districts of India, focusing on health, education, nutrition, livelihood, water access and disability. When the government closes the funding that keeps this going or takes over the assets, under newer and newer pretexts of transparency when they have all the information already, they are increasing the suffering of India’s most vulnerable,” she said.