Over 300 Christian leaders in the U.S. have petitioned the State Department to designate India as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) following an unprecedented escalation of state-sanctioned violence against Christians there.

The August 1 letter is addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and signed by three archbishops, 18 bishops, 166 clergy from diverse denominations, eight current or former presidents, deans from five theological schools, and leaders from over 40 Christian organizations.

“This is the first public letter of its kind penned by U.S. Christian leaders addressing persecution in India,” Rev. Neal Christie, executive director of the Federation of Indian-American Christian Organizations in North America (FIACONA), told The Stream.

The CPC designation is imposed on countries seen as the “worst violators of religious freedom globally” on the basis of the International Religious Freedom Act (1998).

India’s “Jim Crow” Caste Oppression

The leaders accuse India’s government of using “Hindutva” (Hindu-ness) to promote “Hindutva nationalist government policies which use religion and majoritarianism to reinforce a Jim Crow style caste system to exploit millions of people and their labor to generate wealth for a few.”

“This surge in violence is propelled by a Hindu ethno-nationalist or Hindutva supremacist political ideology, which conflates a militant Hindu ideology with Indian citizen identities,” the letter explains, leading to a distortion of both Hinduism and India’s constitutional democracy accompanied by “alarming levels of violence” against Christians, lower-caste Dalits, and other religious minorities.

“As Christians do not practice caste and practice a minority religion, they are considered a national threat,” the signatories write, expressing solidarity with a petition more than 3,000 Indian Christian leaders signed in January. Those leaders boycotted a Christmas lunch hosted by India’s Hindu supremacist Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year.

The petition to the State Department cites the latest reports from human rights organizations naming and shaming India as “the third of ten ‘persecutors of the year’” (International Christian Concern) and “the eleventh most dangerous country in the world in which to be a Christian” (Open Doors).

“Extreme” Persecution

Open Doors categorizes the persecution of Christians alongside “Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan — and worse than Saudi Arabia or China.”

The signatories highlight the anti-Christian violence in the state of Manipur, which has displaced more than 65,000 believers and seen more than 400 churches bulldozed or burned down “with the sanction of the Indian state.”

Moreover, more than 2,500 Christians were forcibly displaced as Hindu mobs attacked, looted, and destroyed homes between December 2022 and February 2023 because residents refused to convert to Hinduism, the letter states.

“Local village councils even prohibit Christians from practicing their faith in their own homes,” the signatories lament, as believers are denied basic rights, including access to water and a Christian burial.

Thousands of Christians have been arrested under “anti-conversion” laws which now are enforced in 12 of the 28 states of the Indian union. Many people remain incarcerated without trial, the letter notes, citing the Evangelical Fellowship of India figures of 648 Christians arrested under these laws, with 440 arrests occurring in just one state.

The letter to Blinken further describes how the Indian government has cut off funding to hundreds of Christian schools and hospitals through a draconian application of India’s Foreign Contributions Regulations Act, which has crippled organizations like Amnesty International, Compassion International, World Vision, and Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

The Christians leaders are urging the State Department to hold the Indian government accountable for advancing equal human rights for all religious communities and to consider levying targeted sanctions on the Indian government agencies and officials responsible for violations of religious freedom and human rights.

State Department Report Blanks out Christians

The Stream has already reported that the State Department’s latest Human Rights Report on India does not mention the words “Christian” or “church” or specifically address the persecution of Christians.

The 80-page report also does not mention even once the Hindu nationalist forces that have destroyed or burned hundreds of churches, killed more than 200 tribal people, displaced more than 70,000 individuals, and systematically targeted Christian schools and seminaries, including 22 Christian female victims of rape, torture, assault, arson, and murder.

In its latest report for 2024, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal government commission, slammed the Biden administration for not designating India and Nigeria as CPCs, despite “the particularly severe religious freedom violations in those countries.”

“We met with the State Department on many occasions to sound the alarm about these countries, but not all of our recommendations have been followed,” the USCIRF noted in a statement.

“We will not be deterred and will continue our role as a congressionally mandated watchdog to ensure the U.S. government prioritizes religious freedom as a key component of U.S. foreign policy.”

The high-profile signatories to the August 1 letter include Bishop Joy Alappatt of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Bishop Robert Allen Syms of The Anglican Church in America, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of the United Methodist Church, Fr. James Michael DiLuzio (Paulist Fathers), and Chancellor Emeritus John Jillions of the Orthodox Church in America.

Rev. Peter Cook, a FIACONA board member who also serves as executive director of the New York State Council of Churches, called the letter “a clarion call to the American Church to stay alert to abuses caused by religious nationalism in what was a pluralistic and secular India.”

“We hope it will inspire the U.S. government to stop ignoring how Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP systematically implements a religious nationalist agenda in both India and America,” he said.

Jason Jones is a senior contributor to The Stream. He is a film producer, activist, and human rights worker. He is also the author of three books, the latest of which is The Great Campaign Against the Great Reset.