Key points
- Anti-Christian violence is increasing under BJP rule
- BJP defends local nuns to gain Christian votes
- BJP uses “love jihad” to woo Kerala Christians
- Kerala Church ignores violence outside the state
- Attacks on Muslims and Christians, have grown, especially since 2014
ISLAMABAD: Amid a nationwide surge in anti-Christian violence under BJP rule in India, Kerala’s Christian clergy are increasingly aligning with the very party accused of fuelling it — driven by political opportunism, electoral strategy, and shared Islamophobic narratives, according to a report published by The Diplomat.
Nuns accused
On July 25, two Catholic nuns, Vandana Francis and Preethy Mary, along with a tribal man, Sukaman Mandavi, were arrested at Durg railway station in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh on charges of forced religious conversion and human trafficking.
Police had acted on a complaint filed by the Bajrang Dal, a Hindutva outfit, that three tribal women who were accompanying the nuns — they were traveling to Agra to work as nurses in a hospital there — were being forced to convert to Christianity, although two of the three asserted that they had been Christians since childhood.
Ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Chhattisgarh has a stringent anti-religious conversions law. With the controversy fuelling protests by opposition parties, Christian groups, and rights activists, the nuns were eventually released on bail on August 2.
Priests, nuns attacked
Four days later, a mob of Bajrang Dal activists attacked five Catholic priests and nuns in the neighboring state of Odisha, for allegedly carrying out religious conversions. They were, in fact, holding a memorial service. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India condemned the attack. This was not an isolated case, but “part of a disturbing pattern of violence against Christian minorities in the country,” it said.
Attacks on Muslims, Christians
Attacks on religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, who respectively comprise 14.2 per cent and 2.3 per cent of India’s multireligious population, have grown, especially since 2014 when the BJP came to power nationally, according to the report published by The Diplomat. According to data from the United Christian Forum (UCF), there were 834 attacks on Christians in 2024, up from 151 in 2014, 505 in 2021, and 734 in 2023.
According to the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFIRLC), there were 334 documented incidents of systematic targeting of Christians across India between January and July 2025. Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh account for 54 per cent of these incidents.
The violence is deliberate and planned. As the EFIRLC report pointed out, “The systematic nature of this targeting is evident in timing patterns, with many incidents strategically occurring during Sunday worship services, suggesting organized monitoring and disruption of Christian religious gatherings.”
“Justification” for violence
The BJP and its fraternal organisations of the Sangh Parivar espouse Hindutva, a Hindu supremacist ideology. Hindutva ideologues argue that India’s Muslims and Christians are “foreign races” as their “fatherland” and “holy land” are not in India but “in far-off Arabia and Palestine.” They justify violent attacks against Muslims and Christians on the grounds that this is retaliation for centuries of violence perpetrated by Muslim invaders and Christian colonial rulers on Hindus. Christian missionaries and priests are often targeted for converting Hindus to Christianity either by force or by offering inducements.
Across India and especially in BJP-ruled states, Christians — like Muslims — are in the BJP’s crosshairs. Churches are vandalised and priests and Christians, especially tribals who have converted, are targeted for violent attacks.
1.1 million rupees bounty
Sangh Parivar leaders, including BJP legislators, make anti-Christian hate speeches in public, openly exhorting people to rape and kill Christians. A BJP legislator in Maharashtra even offered a bounty of 1.1 million rupees ($12,584) to anyone who killed a Christian who entered their villages for religious conversion. Rarely is action taken against those inciting violence against Christians or perpetrating violence against them. Indeed, the Chhattisgarh chief minister justified the police action against the nuns.
In the southern state of Kerala, the BJP’s response to the nuns’ arrest was different. Rajeev Chandrashekar, the president of the BJP’s Kerala unit, swung into action in defense of the nuns. In addition to reaching out to bishops and archbishops of various Christian churches in Kerala, Chandrashekar dispatched an emissary to meet the Chhattisgarh chief minister. He flew to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, and pushed for the nuns’ bail. The arrest was a “misunderstanding,” he said.
Electoral considerations in elusive Kerala
The BJP Kerala unit’s response was partly because the nuns are from the Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala. However, it was electoral considerations that were the prime driver of its stance on the nuns’ arrest.
Christians may be a small minority nationwide, but in Kerala, they are 18.36 per cent of the population, and in some districts, such as Kottayam, for example, they comprise 43.48 per cent of the population.
Political power in the state has traditionally alternated between the Communist-led Left Democratic Front and the Congress-led United Democratic Front. The BJP is a very distant third. The party won its first-ever seat in the Kerala assembly in 2016 and then drew a blank in the 2021 elections, although it had mobilised heavily on the Sabarimala temple issue and pledged a strong law against “love jihad.” It won just one single seat in Parliament from Kerala in the general election last year.
It is determined to make inroads in elusive Kerala.
Islamophobic issues like “love jihad”
The state will vote in assembly elections by May 2026, and the BJP is hoping to win a few seats. With Muslims (26.56 per cent) unlikely to vote for the BJP, the party is eyeing the Christians and is assiduously courting the community. In addition to building bonds with various Churches, the BJP in Kerala has joined hands with the community on Islamophobic issues like “love jihad” — a conspiracy theory that Muslim men lure Hindu and Christian women with promises of marriage, only to convert them to Islam.
The reported death by suicide of a young Christian woman in Ernakulam district on August 11 — her Muslim boyfriend was allegedly pressuring her to convert — has roiled the Christian community in Kerala. It has come in handy for the BJP and other Sangh Parivar organizations to mobilise on the so-called love jihad issue again.
A temporary respite
Priests of several of Kerala’s Catholic and Protestant Churches have been advocating for the Christian community to align with the BJP. Interestingly, rarely have they stood by Christians outside Kerala. They have been rather muted in their response to violence against the Kuki-Zo groups in Manipur, for example, and failed to raise their voice against the unconscionable imprisonment of social activist Fr Stan Swamy.
Kerala’s Christian churches have been at the forefront of providing education and health facilities. On communal and caste issues, however, their positions have long been conservative, even regressive. By aligning with the BJP, Kerala’s Christians may have escaped targeted violence by the Sangh Parivar so far. But this is at best a temporary respite, according to the report published by The Diplomat.
