On Christmas Day, social media was ablaze with videos showing Hindu nationalists interrupting, disrupting, or outright attacking Christmas celebrations across India. Churches were raided, decorations in shopping malls were ripped down, and vendors selling Christmas items were harassed and assaulted. Is this new? Not at all. Under Narendra Modi, hostility toward Christians has intensified—so much so that even celebrating Christmas is seen as a provocation.
First, the news of the day
Across India, there were dozens of recorded incidents against Christians on Christmas Day, particularly in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.
Here’s one: At St. Mary’s School in Panigaon, Nalbari, Assam, Bajrang Dal members tore down Christmas decorations and set them alight.
In Bareilly district, Uttar Pradesh, right-wing groups assembled outside a church and chanted the Hanuman Chalisa.
In other places, like Odisha, hawkers were told to take off their Santa caps.
These didn’t belong in a Hindu Rashtra, they were allegedly told.
But the story of disruptions against Christmas celebrations began more than two weeks before 25 December.
December 13 | Dungarpur, Rajasthan
Members of of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bajrang Dal entered St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Bichhiwara village during a service and accused the parish of forced religious conversions. The parish was verbally abused and warned that praying at the church wouldn’t be tolerated. The parish was also made to answer why people came to the church.
“I told them that many people come even when they are sick. People come, they pray, and they get healed. That is why people come here—out of their own will,” the parish said.
December 16-18 | Kankar district, Chhattisgarh
Members of the Bade Teoda village in the Kanker district in Chhattisgarh opposed the burial of a Christian man. They said it went against tribal customs. A mob set a Christian man’s home on fire and vandalised churches.
December 18 | Trivandrum, Kerala
A Christmas programme for postal employees in Kerala was cancelled after members of a union demanded that an RSS-associated anthem be included during the celebrations. The union said requested this “with the objective of instilling a sense of patriotism among staff members during the holy celebration of Christmas”. Employees refused and the event was canceled. .
December 19 | Jhabua , Madhya Pradesh
Four Catholic parishes in Jhabua were denied permission to conduct Christmas carol singing after local police refused to accept programme applications. The parishes approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court which ruled in their favour.
December 23 | Palakkad, Kerala
A group singing Christmas carols was harrased and intimidated by several men, one of whom is said to be a BJP-RSS activist. There are conflicting reports as to why the men approached the group of singers.
“Around 15 individuals confronted them over an argument regarding the dimming of one of the carol party member's car headlights,” NDTV wrote. Other reports, such as one from Maktoob Media, said the attackers harrassed the singers over the use of “CPI(M)” on one of the drums. The attackers reportedly damaged the instruments during the encounter.
December 23 | Haridwar, Uttarakhand
A Christmas celebration comprising several events at a hotel in Haridwar run by the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department was cancelled after objections from Hindu nationalists.
The Hindu reported that Ujjwal Pandit, from the organisation Ganga Sabha, had published a warning on social media that Christmas celebrations on the banks of the Ganges would not be tolerated and called on organisers to drop the plans immediately.
“Events related to foreign culture will not be tolerated on the banks of the Ganges,” Pandit said.
December 23 | Delhi
Several Christian women enjoying the festive spirit in their Santa hats at a market were hounded by members of the Bajrang Dal. They were accused of promoting their religion in a public space. The incident was captured on video.
December 23 | Bhubaneswar, Odisha
Street vendors selling Santa hats and Christmas goods in Odisha were approached by three men and told to stop selling Christmas items. The men - in the video below - said India was a Hindu Rashtra and warned the hawker that his wares had no place in it.
December 23 | Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
A pastor and his wife were harrased by a man named Satyanishtha Arya. In another undated video, Arya is seen calling the Prophet Muhammad a “bachi chor” or “female child kidnapper”.
December 23 | Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
Anju Bhargava, a city vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, verbally and physically abused a visually impaired Christian woman attending a Christmas program. “You were blind in this life, and you’ll be blind in the next,” Bhargava tells the woman. She then twists the woman’s arms in full view of police officers who do not intervene. The incident was captured on video.
December 23 | Raipur, Chhattisgarh
At the Raipur Magneto Mall, Christmas decorations were torn down when around 80-90 people barged into the mall to protest what they called “forced conversions”.
December 24 | Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
The Uttar Pradesh government announced that schools across the state will remain open on December 25, 2025. Whereas it was a school holiday previously, the state government said it would be used for “educational activities” instead of a school holiday.
Activists and human rights campaigners argue that these attacks have been rising for years.
“From January to November 2025, more than 2,900 incidents of persecution have been reported throughout India,” an activist associated with Open Doors said.
“In states like Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, religious extremists have become increasingly violent, targeting Christians.
“Churches have been closed, believers attacked, pastors imprisoned on false charges of coercive conversion and Christian families displaced from their homes, simply because of their faith in Christ,” the activist added.
Christians make up a tiny minority—around 2% of India’s population. The community is routinely accused of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity.
Twelve Indian states have now passed anti-conversion laws.
The laws have furthered societal stigma against Christians and allowed harassment and intimidation against the community to flourish. They are widely seen as a means to make life difficult for Christians and, ironically, to force them to “return” to Hinduism.
“Civil society reports show that the portrayal of Christians as agents of coercive conversion has become a central plank of Hindutva mobilisation, creating an atmosphere where even small home-based gatherings are vulnerable to intrusion and violence,” Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) wrote in December.
“This narrative has normalised vigilante entry into private spaces and produced situations where state institutions appear more responsive to the allegations of disruptors than to the rights of Christians who are attacked,” the group added.
The police have also been seen as complicit in the violence meted out to the Christian community, often acting without urgency or purpose, or watching idly as mobs attack or harass.
During Easter in April, in the city of Ahmedabad in April, thugs from the Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) entered a Church service wielding sticks and and chanting slogans associated with the Hindu supremacy.
The group later said they had done this because they thought people were being converted at the event.
In Manipur, in north eastern India, the large Christian community erupted in protests ahead of Easter following an attempt by the local government to strip the religious holiday into a regular working day.
“This Manipur move is keeping with [Prime Minister] Modi’s consistent scheme to whittle away rights of Christianity and Islam in new ‘Bharat’,” John Dayal, a Catholic columnist and activist, said at the time.
Manipur has been a site of immense violence against the majority Christian community over the past several years.
But beyond attacks during religious festivals such as Easter or Christmas, violence against Christians is increasingly being normalised, especially in BJP-held states.
In February, a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after she was assaulted by a village headman and his family, over professing her Christian faith.
The family attacked her with a wooden bamboo stick, kicking her in the abdomen, chest, and head.
In March, a mob belonging to the Bajrang Dal demolished a church in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur.
The house of worship was more than twenty years old.
“We will do what was done to Christians in Manipur. They have to accept Hindutva, if they have to live here, otherwise they can leave,” a 20-year-old man who admitted being involved in the demolition, told a reporter from Maktoob Media.
Assaults on Christians have increased dramatically since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014.
Churches have been demolished, priests threatened, and ordinary worshippers have faced harassment and intimidation.
Christian leaders say that the prime minister has routinely failed to condemn the far-right groups involved in the attacks, rendering his outreach to Christians—as he did on Christmas Day at a church in Delhi—as little more than a gimmick that attempts to whitewash the rising insecurity faced by Christians in the country.
This report was produced with the kind support of Hari Sharma Foundation. Check out their work here.
What’s terrifying here is not just the violence, but how bureaucratic it has become. it’s clear this isn’t about “law” or “conversion” at all, but about disciplining minorities into invisibility. Calling this out matters, especially when the language of nationalism is being used to launder outright persecution.
Those who support the BJP should know that this violence will not stop with religious minorities and Dalits - it's free license to assault and abuse anyone who differs. The consequences will be catastrophic for the country. Modi supports it to the hilt with his silence. His church visit is unadulterated hypocrisy.