The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is urging the Trump administration to blacklist India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) highlighting a recent anti-conversion law that punishes evangelists with life imprisonment.
In its 2025 report published on March 25, the bipartisan federal government commission warns that India is “engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations,” against Christians and other religious minorities.
India’s Hindu supremacist government under its Hindu Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “has increasingly enforced sectarian policies seeking to establish India as an overtly Hindu state, in contrast with the secular principles of the constitution,” the USCIRF report states.
The commission asks the government to impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities including the Research and Analysis Wing (India’s international intelligence agency), by freezing their assets and barring their entry into the U.S. for “severe violations of religious freedom.”
It also calls for reviewing whether arms sales to India, such as MQ-9B Drones, may contribute to or exacerbate religious freedom violations, while accusing Hindu supremacist politicians like Modi of propagating “hateful rhetoric and disinformation” against religious minorities.
In particular, the report underscores a recent anti-coversion law passed in July 2024 by the state of Uttar Pradesh which significantly alters an earlier 2021 law anti-conversion law to impose a sentence of life imprisonment on persons engaged in “unlawful conversions.”
The amended law also makes it an offence for anyone securing “foreign” funds or funds from “illegal institutions” for the purpose of “unlawful conversion.” Violation of this section of the law is punishable by a prison term of 7-14 years and a fine of 1 million rupees.
A person who causes a potential convert to fear for his life or property, assaults or uses force, promises or instigates marriage, conspires or induces a minor, woman or person to traffic or otherwise sells them, faces 20 years in jail, which can be extended to life imprisonment.
The new law has also raised the penalties for mass conversions. Previously, those convicted faced a minimum of 3 years and a maximum of 10 years in prison. Now, the minimum sentence has been raised to 7 years, and the maximum to 14 years.
Under the previous law, only the “aggrieved person” or “his/her parents, brother, sister, or any other person who is related to him/her by blood, marriage or adoption” was authorized to file a criminal complaint for unlawful conversion. The amendment allows “any person” to file a police complaint against those accused of converting Hindus to another religion.
“It is vital to understand that these laws are chiefly intended to terrorize Christian evangelists who are preaching the Gospel,” biblical scholar and journalist, Dr. Jules Gomes, told The Stream. “The Hindu supremacists are terrified that the religious tectonic plates are shifting and millions of Hindus are converting to Christianity. This is unprecedented.
Gomes explained:
The anti-conversion laws operate in a manner similar to blasphemy laws in Islamic countries. The strategy is simple: a handful of Hindutva activists register a First Information Report (FIR) at a police station falsely accusing the evangelist of bribery or coercion. The evangelist is immediately arrested and jailed based on scant evident from trumped-up witnesses who can be bought with a few hundred rupees or coerced with threats. It sometimes take years for the case to go to court. What is also unprecedented is that you can now be imprisoned for life for simply sharing the Good News of Jesus.
Earlier in March, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Yadav, announced that his state legislature would introduce the death penalty for the religious conversion of girls, similar to the punishment for the rape of minors. Madhya Pradesh passed its anti-conversion bill in 2021.
“The government is very strict against those who rape innocent daughters. A provision for the death penalty has been made in this regard. Besides this, a provision for capital punishment will also be made in the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act for religious conversion,” he said.
Throughout the year, 12 out of 28 Indian states attempted to introduce or strengthen existing anti-conversion laws, the USCIRF report noted, explaining how the laws were targeted at Christian pastors, missionaries, and evangelists.
In February, Chhattisgarh state announced it would introduce legislation to address “illegal conversion,” claiming that Christian pastors forcibly converted Hindus. The same month, Assam passed the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, banning prayer for healing.
In April, the Gujarat government issued a circular mandating that Hindus wishing to convert to Buddhism, Sikhism, or Jainism obtain approval from their district magistrate under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act.
The Evangelical Fellowship of India reports that 648 Christians were arrested under these laws in 2023, with 440 arrests occurring in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone.
Heiner Bielefeldt, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief from 2010 to 2016, notes that violations of the right to convert have “become a human rights problem of great concern.”
Bielefeldt warns that “abuses are perpetrated in the name of religious or ideological truth claims, in the interest of promoting national identity or protecting societal homogeneity, or under other pretexts such as maintaining political and national security.”
According to Anti-Conversion Laws and the International Response, a white paper from the Alliance Defending Freedom:
In effect, the laws are selectively enforced and therefore ban conversion from the majority religion to a minority religion. The mere existence of an anti-conversion law in a state or country usually gives license to nationalist religious extremists to persecute members of minority religions.
In a historic ruling, Pastor Jose Pappachan and his wife Sheeja were jailed for five years after a special court in Uttar Pradesh found them guilty of converting untouchables (Dalits) to Christianity, The Stream reported in February.
While ten witnesses claimed that Pappachan and his wife had offered them bribes to convert, witness statements and the court order obtained by The Stream show that there was no evidence of guilt.
The witnesses, who were instigated by Hindu nationalists, could only prove they were offered Bibles, calendars with Christian imagery, notebooks, religious books, and pens, as well as community meals and a cake on Christmas day “to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ.”
Thousands of Christians, including hundreds of pastors and evangelists, have been arrested under India’s draconian anti-conversion laws. The method is the same each time — the police receive complaints against Christians, and the believers are arrested with no procedure being followed before filing a FIR, Open Doors noted.
The USCIRF report lamented the failure of the then Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken under the Biden administration to designate India as a CPC by the end of 2024 or the conclusion of the administration in January 2025.
Jason Jones is President of the Vulnerable People Project: www.VulnerablePeopleProject.com. He is a film producer, activist, and human rights worker. He is also the author of three books, the latest of which is The Great Campaign Against the Great Reset.
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