Hindu nationalists have openly declared their hatred for Christianity and a desire to commit genocide against any Christians if they are allowed to take power. The main political party working towards this concept of a “Hindu Ethnostate” is the BJP, and in a recent speech the President of the party called Christians “infiltrators” and that he would “remove” them from the nation:
At a rally in Darjeeling, BJP President Amit Shah made an extraordinary claim that has many religious minorities in India concerned. Speaking at a campaign rally, Shah said, “We will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha, Hindus and Sikhs.”
The NRC is the National Register of Citizens in Assam and is a controversial document meant to contain the names of all “genuine citizens” in the state. Following the Darjeeling rally, the BJP’s official twitter reinforced Shah’s claim by tweeting Shah’s statement.
“We have promised in our manifesto that when Narendra Modi forms government once again, we will implement NRC in the entire country,” Shah said via the BJP official twitter account.
Religious minorities across India were concerned by this extraordinary claim. Notably missing from the BJP President’s exemption for removal where the millions of Christians and Muslims who call India home.
Since the BJP took power in 2014, religious intolerance and attacks on religious minority communities have skyrocketed. In 2018, the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) documented 325 violent attacks on India’s Christian community. Many blame this increase in religiously motivated violence on the BJP-led government which often uses religiously charged rhetoric for political gain. (source)