India (MNN) — The latest elections in India have brought the leading Hindu nationalist party back from a 2024 slump, with concerning implications for religious minorities across the country.
Two years ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost its national majority. It had to form a coalition with other parties, called the National Democratic Alliance.
But on May 4, 2026, the BJP claimed its first-ever victory in West Bengal State. The party now governs 18 of India’s 28 states — 21 states if we count the entire National Democratic Alliance’s reach.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing at the joint SCO-CSTO Outreach Summit on Afghanistan, through video conferencing, in New Delhi on September 17, 2021.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Duane Friesen with Voice of the Martyrs, Canada says the BJP’s growing influence raises many serious questions for India’s Christians.
“If the Hindu nationalists continue to grow in their control over the country, will it cause some of the legal ramifications for the Christian community to be challenged? Will equal citizenship be lost even more than there already has been? I think that’s a legitimate concern,” Friesen says.
“The more that Modi has influenced, the more — it seems — that Hindu nationalism results in a direct confrontation with the Christian community.”
In the past 12 years of Modi’s tenure as prime minister, anti-conversion laws have risen as a source of pressure for Christians. Since 2017, nine states have passed laws regulating religious conversion. These laws often land Christians in jail with charges that their words, prayers, church services, or more have enticed someone to convert to Christianity. (More on anti-conversion laws here.)
Other pressures on Christians come from living in a Hindu-majority culture. For example, this week Friesen heard of believers whose community denied them the right to bury their dead. This is all too common in India.
Friesen says Christians are preparing for more challenges ahead. Yet the call to share the gospel is not dictated by political realities.
(Photo courtesy of Voice of the Martyrs Canada)
“India is 1.4 billion people, with an opportunity for the gospel to expand,” he says. “I think we pray for our Christian brothers and sisters there, that in the midst of whatever challenges they are facing, God opens the door for them to see the next person come to understand the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.”
Pray for strength, courage, and joy for India’s believers.
“Whenever there’s opposition, there is opportunity. I know that their heart has been to keep focused on the calling [of God] in their life. So let’s pray with them,” says Friesen.
Header photo courtesy of Tom Chen via Unsplash.
