Thursday, 25 December 2025
Thursday, 25 December 2025
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the Christmas morning service at The Cathedral Church of the Redemption in Delhi on Thursday, even as attacks on the Christian community and Xmas celebrations were reported from across India in the last few days.
“May Christmas bring renewed hope, warmth and a shared commitment to kindness” the prime minister wrote on X (formerly Twitter) with a video clip of him attending the service.
In the run-up to Christmas, however, Christian organisations outlined an atmosphere of fear and appealed to the government for help.
Incidents of violence and vandalism were reported from Kerala to Assam.
A group of youths calling themselves Bajrang Dal members on Wednesday afternoon entered the St Mary's English School at Panlgaon in Assam’s in Nalbari district , collected all Christmas decorations and burned them while chanting "Jal Shri Ram" and “Jai Hindu Rashtra", among other slogans.
Similar incidents against Christmas festivities were reported from several areas of the district
The Assam Christian Forum (ACF) on Wednesday night issued a statement expressing shock and anguish at the "daylight vandalism”.
“Every big and small Christian group has written” to Union home minister Amit Shah “with copies marked to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on X, urging him to ensure that police and administration in states, metropolitan cities and the countryside ensure that troublemakers are contained,” The Wire reported.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the Evangelical Fellowship of India, the United Christian Forum and the Bombay Catholic Sabha have all sent letters, the news website said.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of India letter on December 23 said the reported attacks particularly against carol singers and congregations gathered in churches seriously undermined India’s constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.
The bishops highlighted a viral video from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur that showed a visually impaired woman at a Christmas event being abused and harassed by Anju Bhargava, city vice-president of the BJP.
Christian groups and Opposition leaders called out what they dubbed as targeted harassment and violence in the run-up to Christmas.
In Chattisgarh, the Sarva Hindu Samaj called a statewide shutdown on Christmas Eve. Christmas decorations were also vandalised at a mall in Raipur.
The Uttar Pradesh government has reportedly cancelled the Christmas holiday in schools and said students must be present to observe the birthday of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
One video, from Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market, showed men – identified as allegedly linked to the Bajrang Dal – confronting women and children wearing Santa Claus caps and forcing them to leave, accusing them of religious conversion.
Delhi AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj shared videos of the incident and said such acts reflected the spread of hate in the name of religion.
Similar clips from other states, including Odisha, showed hawkers being evicted for selling Santa caps, with vigilantes declaring that such symbols were not allowed in a “Hindu Rashtra”.
The United Christian Forum said it recorded 834 incidents of violence against Christians in 2024 and 706 incidents up to November 2025 in a “deeply disturbing” trend.
Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were the most affected states, the UCF said in the letter signed by national coordinator A.C. Michael.
Citing reports by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, the UCF alleged that police often colluded with Hindutva groups when prayer meetings were disrupted and worshippers intimidated.
The letter also highlighted burial-related violence in tribal regions, alleging that Christians were being routinely denied burial space, forcibly exhumed and threatened with violence and “ghar wapsi” (re-conversion).
Several such cases from Chhattisgarh were detailed in a December 22 report released by Citizens for Justice and Peace.
The report, titled ‘No Rest, Even in Death: Christians in India and the growing targeted violence in Chhattisgarh’, documented incidents in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand involving tribal and Dalit Christians, including forced exhumations and denial of burial rights.
In Kerala, where Christians account for around 18.4 per cent of the population and Assembly elections are due next year, an attack on a children’s carol group in Pudussery, Palakkad, drew sharp reactions.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a post in X said that the group was assaulted and its musical instruments destroyed, allegedly by a BJP worker.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP called it a shocking attack on a secular tradition.
Tharoor said Christmas 2025 had been marked by anxiety due to local incidents and a broader national trend of intolerance.
Tharoor said Thomas Jessayyan Netto, The Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Trivandrum, had warned during Midnight Mass that Christians were celebrating Christmas amid “fear and anxiety”, while Cardinal Cleemis, Major Archbishop-Catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, had questioned the “mysterious silence” of authorities.
Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said the incidents revealed the “true face” of the BJP’s attitude towards minorities and listed cases from Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress posted a montage contrasting the incidents in BJP-ruled states with Christmas celebrations in Bengal, saying vigilante groups were roaming free elsewhere while festivals were celebrated with harmony in Bengal.
