Indian Christians' Persecution Opposed by United Methodist Church Delegates with Resolution

May 8 :
At last month's General Conference, delegates from the United Methodist Church (UMC), the country's second-largest Protestant denomination, unanimously supported a resolution condemning the persecution of Indian Christians.

The US Department of State should be designated as a "country of particular concern" due to suspected human rights breaches in India, according to the resolution. With five million members in the United States and ten million across the world, the United Methodist institution is the second-largest Protestant denomination in the country. This decision represents a landmark position on the human rights situation in India taken by a Christian institution.

Allegedly, the frequency of attacks targeting Christians in India has been increasing, prompting the UMC vote.

In 2023 alone, there were 720 documented attacks on Christians, according to the United Christian Forum in Delhi. Similarly, there was a marked increase from 761 instances in 2021 to 1,198 attacks in 2022, according to the Federation of Indian American Christian Organisations.

"We commend the moral clarity and vision of our brothers and sisters at the United Methodist Church," stated Mohammed Jawad, president of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC). It is a universally offensive offence when religious minority are persecuted.

Tensions erupted earlier this year in Manipur, and the UMC resolution calls attention to the persecution of Indian Christians there. There were several casualties in the area when mobs burned down hundreds of churches during the violence.

U.S. officials and government agencies in India should be sanctioned for their role in religious freedom violations; this could mean freezing their assets or banning them from entering the country under human rights-related visa and financial authorities.

The executive director of the Federation of Indian American Christian Organisations and UMC Reverend Neal Christie stated, "This resolution makes it a priority for the United Methodist Church to advocate against the weaponization of religion in the form of ethnonationalism and to advocate for the human dignity and human rights of people who experience systemic persecution." They were speaking about the resolution.