Odisha’s history of anti-Christian violence resurfaces

On January 4, as a pastor named Bipin Naik was conducting a prayer meeting in the village of Parjang in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district, a Hindutva mob attacked him. His hands were tied up, he was beaten with sticks and garlanded with slippers, and force-fed cow dung.

After more than two weeks of inaction, nine people were detained in the matter on Wednesday, The Hindu reported.

Odisha has a long history of anti-Christian violence. In January 1999, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt to death as they slept in their jeep. In December 2007 and August 2008, in large-scale attacks on Christians in Kandhamal district, Hindutva mobs killed 100 people and injured nearly 20,000.

The attack on pastor Naik is part of the continuing pattern of systematic violence perpetrated by Hindutva groups on Christian communities, which are largely composed of Dalits and Adivasis.

In the last fiscal year, the Rashtriya Christian Morcha documented about 87 attacks against Christians, said bishop Pallab Lima, the organisation’s state general secretary. Of these, the police registered cases relating only to 15 incidents, while action was taken in only three or four cases, he said.

Lima observed that while anti-Christian sentiment had always existed in Odisha, Hindutva groups had been emboldened by the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state – the party swept the Assembly elections in Odisha in June 2024, ending the Biju Janata Dal’s 24-year reign.

Activists noted that under the new state government, accusations of forced conversions had increased.

Odisha was the first state to enact an anti-conversion law – the Odisha Freedom of Religion Act, which was enacted in 1967. But “for decades there were hardly any convictions under this law”, said a minority rights activist, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

In recent years, though, the law has been frequently invoked by Hindutva groups who monitor prayer meetings, attack participants and then drag them to police stations to be booked under it.

“This has contributed to a climate of fear and vulnerability among Christian communities,” the activist said. “While the anti-conversion law allows complaints to be filed by the converted person or close relatives, in practice it is often these third-party groups who initiate the process, using allegations of conversion to legitimise violence and silence victims.”

The activist also expressed dismay at the lack of action from the police in such incidents.

“In many of these cases, the police response has been inadequate or delayed,” this person said. “Some incidents of violence have occurred in the presence of the police, while in other cases the police have expressed helplessness.”

Often, while perpetrators are set free, the victims of their attacks are detained or booked. “When local remedies fail, victims are forced to seek justice through higher authorities, human rights bodies, or the courts, a process that is long and exhausting,” the activist said

Activists observed that this pattern of communal violence in the state seemed particularly illogical, given that almost 94% of Odisha’s population is Hindu.

“There is no reason why they should feel insecure,” said political scientist Bijay Bohidar. “Virtually speaking, the state is already a Hindu rashtra.”

Hindus control the bureaucracy, education, media and medicine, he said. “There are hardly any Christians or Muslims in positions of power,” Bohidar said. “So the majority have no reason to feel threatened by the 2% minority population of Christians.”

He said that anti-Christian violence in Odisha was a strategy to divert the attention of citizens from the government’s failure to fulfil its promises.

“They have a lot to distract the public from, like growing unemployment, the gradual transfer of resources from people to corporations, the complete collapse of the educational system and perpetuation of inequality in an intergenerational manner,” Bohidar said. “How else will they cover this all up?”

He argued that the right to religious conversion was an important constitutional freedom.

“How many people actually choose their own religion?” he said. “Most people just inherit it from their families, they don’t read religious scriptures and pick the one they like the best. So it is the right to religious conversion that gives actual freedom to people to exercise their agency.”

But he and others worry that anti-minority sentiment is becoming even more firmly entrenched in Odisha.

“The minds of people have been affected in a very deep way,” Bohidar said. “I think even if the BJP is defeated from power in the future, the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] mindset will not go away soon.”

Here is a summary of last week’s top stories.

Governors vs the Opposition. The governors in three Opposition-ruled southern states had run-ins with the governments there this week. On Thursday, protests erupted in the Karnataka Assembly after Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot only read out two lines from his customary address to the joint session of the state legislature. Gehlot objected to 11 paragraphs in the speech prepared by the state’s Congress government.

The speech contained criticism of the Union government, including its introduction of the new rural employment guarantee act.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah alleged that Gehlot had violated the Constitution as he was bound to read the address prepared by the Cabinet and “has no authority to substitute it with a speech of his own”.

On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi walked out of the Assembly without delivering the customary address. This is the fourth consecutive year that Ravi has walked out during the opening ceremony. He alleged that the Assembly had disrespected the national anthem and that his mic had been switched off during the proceedings.

On the same day, in Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan edited Governor Rajendra Arlekar’s address to the Assembly. After Arlekar left the Assembly, Vijayan told the House that the governor had made changes to three paragraphs in the speech. Among the changes, Arlekar said that Kerala was facing financial stress arising from “curtailment of advances”, while the speech approved by the Cabinet had attributed the stress to “adverse Union government actions that undermine the constitutional principles of fiscal federalism”.

The struggling rupee. The Indian currency fell to an all-time record low of 91.9 against the United States dollar on Friday. It has plummeted more than 2% this month after falling about 5% in 2025.

The slide has continued amid foreign fund outflows and risk aversion triggered by geopolitical tensions.

Proving your identity. The Supreme Court told the Election Commission to publish the names of 1.2 crore persons against whom the poll panel had raised “logical discrepancy” objections during the special intensive revision in West Bengal. The names should be displayed in gram panchayats, block offices and ward offices, the court said.

Logical discrepancies include a mismatch in parents’ names, low age gap with parents and cases where parents have more than six children.

The court said that persons who had received notices from the Election Commission could submit their documents or objections through booth-level agents. If the documents submitted as proof are found to be unsatisfactory, the persons should be given an opportunity to be heard, the bench said.

It also verbally observed that the Class 10 admit cards issued by the state education board must be accepted as a proof in the enumeration process.

Also on Scroll last week

• ‘Attempt to silence national press’: Four Kashmiri journalists get police summons
• In Assam, ‘forged’ forms aimed at deleting thousands of Muslim voters ring alarm bells
• Why the chatter about a separate Jammu state is back in J&K politics
• ‘Legally untenable’: Why UP police arresting people for offering namaz is a misuse of the law
• Is ‘fair use’ really fair to artists under Indian copyright law?
• Why an Uttarakhand district has banned paddy farming in the summer
• When India needed support, Venezuela stood firmly by its side
• Silence as citizenship: The burden of being a ‘Good Muslim’ in India
• Review: Timothee Chalamet reigns supreme in ‘Marty Supreme’
• Review: ‘Border 2’ is ‘Border’ too, the whole package better packaged

Follow the Scroll channel on WhatsApp for a curated selection of the news that matters throughout the day, and a round-up of major developments in India and around the world every evening. What you won’t get: spam.

And, if you haven’t already, sign up for our Daily Brief newsletter.