On June 4, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of the major political parties in India, won its third election, extending Narendra Damodardas Modi’s tenure as leader of the country. What are the consequences of these results for the Christian community? In this interview, Father Pradeep, a Jesuit from the state of Jharkhand, shares his opinions with the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). (Cover Photo: Publicity for the Election in 2015. On the left, Narendra Modi).
Prime Minister Modi recently won the elections. What was the reaction of the Christian minority in India?
Yes, Modi did win, but in doing so, he obtained a lower number of votes than he expected. For us, this was a strong sign of victory for a population that dared to express its opposition to the BJP. Modi has constantly told us that he is invincible yet, for the first time, we have understood that he is not that invincible after all. In the end, he did win the election, but it wasn’t a landslide, despite the constant propaganda on the television, social media, from the administration, etc., which urged us to vote for Modi!
What consequences might this election have for the minorities in your state?
Our fear is that the party, having obtained fewer votes than five years ago, will now resort to reprisals and take advantage of the moment to persecute the minorities even more, be they Christian or Muslim. However, at the same time, since the party is weaker, it will also need to make alliances and so it will have to show more openness. I believe there are reasons to be optimistic.
What sort of discrimination do the Christians face?
It is a systematic and discrete and is a powerful and constant oppression. For example, administrative processes for hiring teachers for our schools are constantly stalled, identification documents are impossible to obtain, constant investigations of our affairs. No matter how in order our accounts are, they will always find a reason to audit them and reproach us for something. One month ago, we discovered that as a Christian NGO, we are not allowed to receive financial aid from abroad. Why? Because they know that we, as minorities, don’t vote BJP. Or, for example, it has become almost impossible for a foreign priest to obtain a visa to come to India, just because he is a Christian. And if he succeeds, he will be constantly harassed with interrogations and such.
How about anti-conversion laws?
Yes, we have those. These are laws that were implemented to protect individuals from forced conversion but, in reality, they exist to harass missionaries and tribal Christians. They were introduced in 2017 in our state and have led to many lawsuits against Christians, that can go quite a long way. We were deeply upset by the death of Fr. Stan Swamy, a Jesuit who was accused of terrorism and jailed, and ended up dying in prison in 2021.
It has become risky to provide aid to ethnic tribal groups and the poorer castes. The BJP tried to strike the names of Christians in these groups from the lists of beneficiaries, so that they cannot receive the subsidies established by previous governments. However, for now, they have not been able to move forward with this measure.
How do you envision the future for Christians in India over the coming years?
As I said, oppression is constant and systemic, but nevertheless I have hope when I see that the people were brave enough to vote against the BJP. We pray that, despite this new five-year term we have ahead of us, our difficulties and the harassment that we face every day might diminish.
