Christianity in India

Christianity is India's third-most followed religion with about 28 million adherents, making up 2.3 percent of the population as of the 2011 census. Christianity is the largest religion in parts of Northeast India, specifically in Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. It is also a significant religion in Arunachal, where about 30 percent of the state is Christian.

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of India's Christians are found in South India, Goa and Bombay. The oldest known Christian group in North India are the Hindustani-speaking Bettiah Christians of Bihar, formed in the early 1700s through a Capuchin mission and under the patronage of Rajas (kings) in the Moghal Empire. The Church of North India and the Church of South India are a United Protestant denomination; which resulted from the evangelism/ ecumenism of Anglicans, Calvinists, Methodists and other Protestant groups who flourished in colonial India. Consequently, these churches are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, World Communion of Reformed Churches and World Methodist Council. Along with native Christians, small numbers of mixed Eurasian peoples such as Anglo-Indian, Luso-Indian, Franco-Indian and Armenian Indian Christians also existed in the subcontinent. Also, there is the Khrista Bhakta movement, who are unbaptised followers of Christ and St Mary, mainly among the Shudras and Dalits.

The written records of St Thomas Christians mention that Christianity was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by Thomas the Apostle, who sailed to the Malabar region (present-day Kerala) in 52 AD. The Acts of Thomas say that the early Christians were Malabar Jews who had settled in what is present-day Kerala before the birth of Christ. St Thomas, an Aramaic-speaking Jew from Galilee (present-day Israel) and one of the disciples of Jesus Christ, came to India in search of Indian Jews. After years of evangelism, Thomas was martyred and then buried at St Thomas Mount, in the Mylapore neighbourhood of Madras (Chennai). There is the scholarly consensus that a Christian community had firmly established in the Malabar region by 600 AD at the latest; the community was composed of Nestorians or Eastern Christians, belonging to the Church of the East, who used the East Syriac Rite of worship.

Following the discovery of the sea route to India, by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in the 15th century AD, Western Christianity was established in the European colonies of Goa, Tranquebar, Bombay, Madras and Pondicherry; as in Catholicism (of Latin or Syriac Rites) and various kinds of Protestantism. Conversions also took place through the Goan Inquisition, with the oppression of Hindus and the destruction of mandirs. Christian missionaries introduced the western educational system to the Indian subcontinent, to preach Christianity and to campaign for Hindu social reforms like the Channar revolt. However, convent schools and charities are being targeted under the Modi administration, particularly by banning missionaries from getting foreign aid.

Christians were involved in the Indian National Congress (INC) which led the Indian independence movement, the All India Conference of Indian Christians advocated for swaraj (self rule) and opposed the partition of India. There are reports of crypto-Christians who keep their faith in secret or hiding, due to the fear of persecution; especially Dalits or Adivasis resort to crypsis because reservation and other socio-economic benefits are denied to them on conversion. Some Christians have gone through forced conversion to Hinduism by Hindu extremists, such as Shiv Sena, the VHP and the BJP. Various groups of Hindu extremists, have also attacked or demolished churches or disrupted church services, in certain states and territories of India.