Rise in attacks on Christians

The gathering at Jantar Mantar on November 29, this year, was not a festival, nor a spiritual celebration. Presented as the National Christian Convention, it was a sober constitutional appeal grounded in hard evidence. What emerged was a decade-long chronicle of targeted violence against Christians in India-numbers that strip away any illusion of safety or normalcy for a community increasingly under pressure. Between 2014 and 2024, documented attacks rose from 139 to 834-a fivefold escalation. The pattern has only intensified: in the first nine months of 2025, 579 incidents were recorded. Yet out of nearly five thousand cases over twelve years, police registered FIRs in only 39. A justice gap of 93% is not merely a statistic; it is a measure of abandonment. It reflects thousands of families left without recourse, living with fear as a daily companion. A memorandum was prepared for the Prime Minister, and a handful of MPs attended. Organizers expected five thousand Christians to stand in solidarity. Fewer than fifteen hundred came. The following day, the same neighbourhood hosted a church fete that drew enormous crowds and lit up social media with festive cheer. The contrast was impossible to ignore. We gather readily for celebration, for music, for moments that uplift us. But when the call is to stand beside the persecuted, to confront uncomfortable truths, enthusiasm evaporates. The silence becomes its own indictment. As Christmas approaches, this contradiction becomes even more jarring. The central claim of the Christian faith is not spectacle but presence. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”-a God who chose proximity, vulnerability, and shared suffering. If divine response to human pain was presence, what does our absence from our own suffering community say about the integrity of our witness? A global vision is currently inspiring churches toward 2033, the two-thousandth anniversary of Pentecost. Movements across continents are mobilizing to advance the Great Commission. The ambition is admirable. Yet a more immediate question presses upon us: how can we speak credibly to distant peoples when we fail to stand with those suffering in our own midst? Manipur remains a stark reminder. More than 250 killed, sixty thousand displaced, nearly 400 churches destroyed. Two years later, many still languish in relief camps. Yet at the Delhi convention, Manipur’s presence was minimal. Have they lost faith that the wider Church will stand with them? Or have we taught them, through repeated silence, to endure their suffering alone? Dalit Christians, denied Scheduled Caste protections for seventy-five years solely because of their faith, continue to wait for justice. Simultaneously, calls to strip Christian tribals of Scheduled Tribe status threaten to deepen their vulnerability. Faced with a national call for collective action, the Church largely stayed home. Meanwhile, Christian concerts fill auditoriums, worship bands chase viral fame, and spiritual authority is increasingly measured by platform visibility rather than faithfulness. Spectacle has overtaken solidarity. This was also evident at the revival and prayer meeting held at Dimapur recently. Set against concerts, the quiet endurance of persecuted believers is overshadowed by polished productions and celebrity preachers. The justice gap is not only institutional; it is internal. One part of the Body suffers while the rest moves on, forwarding prayer requests but avoiding costly presence.