By ICC’s India Correspondent

4/19/2016 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) – “The actual volume of violent persecution is not known,” explained Dr. John Dayal, spokesman of the United Christian Forum. “State agencies are reluctant to speak on this matter and governments do not keep records unless local police register formal cases.”

In many cases, they don’t. In India, perpetrators of religious violence from majority religions are hardly shamed, let alone, arrested for their crimes.

Christians, as a minority group living in the subcontinent, have long suffered under the weight of severe persecution. Sectarian violence perpetrated by radical Hindu forces has almost always existed in the South Asian country.

Unfortunately, since the beginning of 2016, there has been a sharp escalation in attacks on Christians and their places of worship. With more than 65 attacks recorded since the beginning of the year, the Christian minority in India is spiraling into a desperate and vulnerable state.

“Frightening aspects of this violence were the increasing number of rapes, particularly of Catholic nuns, and other gender violence,” Dr. John Dayal explained to ICC.

Worse still is the absolute impunity surrounding these cases, as local authorities do not register the incidents on First Information Report (FIR), an obvious first step in the application of the rule of law.

Such incidents of religiously-motivated violence often end in a compromise, outside of the court and in the presence of village councils, who are quick to side with the majority. This only leads to social exclusion and ostracized minorities within the villages.

On March 26, as part of Passion Week observance, approximately 20 Christians from the Pentecostal Church of Hyderabad were distributing literature in the village of Nizamabad. While there, an angry mob of Hindu radicals began verbally and, soon after, physically attacking the group. Although police intervened in the conflict, it was the 20 Christians who were taken to the police station rather than their attackers.

“We were locked up in Ditchaplli police station for more than four hours,” explained one of the believers in the detained group. “The only crime that we committed was distributing Christian literature in the village.”

Police officers, behind the closed doors of the station that were meant to protect the Christians, continued to abuse and threaten the men for their beliefs afterwards.

On the very same day in Tirumanpalli village, members of the same Hyderabad congregation were attacked by another group of radical Hindus.

Mr. Yesudas, one of the victims, was brutally beaten as well as forcibly marked with a Hindu tilak, a red sectarian symbol worn on the forehead that ironically signifies religious acceptance within the Hindu world.

“They would have killed me if the police did not arrive on time,” he told ICC in regards to the incident.

In yet another case, on March 18, a prayer meeting in the district of Nizamabad was attacked by a mob who pelted stones at the gathered believers. Once again, when the incident was reported, the Christians, and not the perpetrators, were taken into custody.

Later, when the leader of the congregation called the police station to plead the case, the local authorities only threatened to put him in prison.

These are not irregular incidents for Christians living India. The norm is ever shifting in a direction that directly victimizes and ostracizes the already small minority of Jesus followers in the heavily populated subcontinent.

These violent attacks are most often committed in the name of nationalism and patriotism. The mixing of nationalism and religious identities stems from the rise of Hindu fundamentalist political parties, which all but control the nation at this time.

The absence of the rule of law along with a religious-nationalistic government regime has only emboldened the perpetrators to act in increasing violent manners.

As a self-proclaimed republic, the nation of India must do more to protect its citizens. The constitution gives Indian nationals equal citizenship before the law; therefore, this law must be applied irrespective of religious identities. Democratically speaking, the Indian government is bound to only one book, and that is its national constitution.