Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

Above, Hindu devotees in Assam worshipping the mother goddess Kamakhya.

October 2018 – A late July 2018 decision by India’s national government determined that four million people who live in the northeastern state of Assam will lose citizenship rights.

Northeastern India has one of the largest concentrations of Christians in the Hindu-majority country. Of the 27.8 million Christians counted in India’s 2011 Religion Data Census, nearly 8 million of them live in northeastern India. But unlike other Christian regions, the growth of Christian populations in the northeast was “almost entirely a phenomenon of the 20th century,” according to Indian news sources. In Assam, the Christian population multiplied 85 times over the course of the 20th century, rising from 0.4% in 1901 to 3.75% in 2011.

The government’s decision to refuse citizenship to certain residents of Assam is based on the fact that, during the latter half of the 20th century, many minority religious refugees had fled to Assam from neighboring countries such as Bangladesh.

Many Indians consider the move to revoke citizenship a veiled act of government opposition against non-Hindus, including both Muslims and Christians.

thenews.com.pk, 7/31/18; swarajyamag.com, 8/23/16; newsclick.in, 7/17/18