Around 50 members of the Akhil Bharati Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, entered the premises of St. Peter Higher Secondary School in the Diocese of Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh this past July — and placed portraits of Hindu goddesses. The ABVP members targeted the statues of St. Peter and Mary, demanding that they be replaced with portraits of the Hindu goddess Saraswati, who is regarded as the patron of knowledge, and Bharat Mata, which represents Mother India, on the school premises. However, this was not the first such attack. In February, a poster ..read more

Every day, two Christians in India face attacks, according to data compiled by the United Christian Forum (UCF), an ecumenical organization that tracks atrocities against Christians in the country. “Targeted violence against minority Christians has been rising sharply year after year since 2014,” said A.C. Michael, national convenor of UCF. In 2014, there were 127 recorded incidents of violence against Christians. The numbers have escalated steadily, with 142 cases in 2015, 226 in 2016, 248 in 2017, 292 in 2018, 328 in 2019, 279 in 2020, 505 in 2021, 601 in 2022, and 734 in 2023. By the end of ..read more

US Senator Tim Kaine criticizes India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for severely restricting NGOs from receiving global donations. He highlights that this act hampers organizations like Amnesty International and the Sambhali Trust, ultimately affecting the beneficiaries of their services. Kaine advocates for attention to this issue, highlighting its broader implications on human rights and development efforts. US Senator Tim Kaine has criticized India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for making it exceptionally difficult for NGOs to receive foreign donations. Speakin ..read more

New Delhi: A gathering of prominent social and human rights activists, lawyers, journalists, academicians, and political leaders was held at Jawahar Bhawan here Saturday to discuss the growing challenges faced by religious minorities in India, particularly Muslims and Christians. The event, organized by ANHAD and the United Christian Forum, focused on the theme “The Quest for Equality and Justice,” examining the current status of these communities in contemporary India. The program also paid tribute to Sitaram Yechury, recognizing his lifelong dedication to promoting equality and justice. John ..read more

The Congress-led Karnataka government is yet to take a clear stance on whether Dalits who have converted to Christianity or Islam should receive the same reservation benefits as Scheduled Castes (SCs). This issue has recently come under scrutiny during a two-day meeting led by the Justice K.G. Balakrishnan Commission, which was held recently in the state to gather feedback on social welfare policies. A senior official from the Social Welfare Department has disclosed that the government remains “uncommitted” regarding the extension of SC benefits to Dalit converts. The official stated, “Karnata ..read more

FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF | Did you know? For two years we have been measuring government respect for people’s freedom of hashtag#religion and hashtag#belief. You can see scores for an initial group of 29 countries on the Rights Tracker here: https://lnkd.in/dW8ehMKE Click on any country you’re particularly interested in to see their score in context with all the other data we produce. In particular, you can see the ‘people at risk’ tab with word clouds showing how religious affiliation affects a wide range of other human rights. The second screenshot below shows how religion can put pe ..read more

A pastor and several members of his church were beaten on Sunday as Hindu nationalists attacked a worship service in Odisha on Sunday, accusing the church of forcefully converting Hindus to Christianity. Those who conducted the attack in the city of Bhubaneswar included members of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), the self-avowed protector of the Hindu religion, and Bajrang Dal, an RSS offshoot that is prone to violent attacks on minority communities. According to reports, the church had recently rented a three-story building to conduct its worship services. After the RSS and Bajrang Dal ..read more

FIACONA commends the All India Catholic Union as they call for security of religious minorities in every country of South Asia. We ask the Asian Conference of Bishops to prioritize advocacy that secures human rights for all minorities, especially for religious minorities. FIACONA agrees that denying human rights to minority in one nation has repercussions in other countries in the region. Tweet ..read more

The problem with “fascism” as a description of any modern political tendency is that the term is a weapon of mass destruction that flattens the landscapes that it wants to describe. Fascism is so freighted with historically specific meaning that using it for other times and places can seem sloppy and excessive. And yet, juxtaposing the politics of contemporary south Asia with fascism, in its Nazi variant, serves a double purpose: it connects modern Indian majoritarianism with one of its ideological ancestors and it helps us name and identify the ideological kernel of fascism that survived to f ..read more

Bengaluru: The first public consultation in Karnataka by the Justice K G Balakrishnan Commission received an overwhelming opinion on Tuesday that Scheduled Caste (SC) benefits should not be given to Dalits who convert to religions other than Indian-origin faiths of Buddhism and Sikhism. About 100 members took part in the public hearing, of which nearly 95 per cent raised their hands against reservation. Members of various Dalit associations, Banjara pontiffs, Basavamurthy Madara Chennaiah Swami of Madara Guru Peetha, Chitradurga and BJP leaders appeared before the Commission to express their v ..read more