Yes / The limited literature on anti-Christian violence in India focuses on physical forms of violence. This chapter instead shows how the experience of structural violence faced by Dalit Christians is compounded due to the intersecting marginalities of religion and caste. Particularly, this chapter focuses on the structural violence experienced from the state, in the form of the imposition of anti-conversion laws, and the denial of state resources to Dalit Christians such as affirmative action policies. This chapter argues that as the Hindutva ideology has become further embedded in India’s political-legal structure, the situation of structural violence has deepened and compounded. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 18 June 2026.

Yes / Extant scholarship on anti-Christian violence in India is scant and predominantly focuses on physical violence. To address this gap, this article explores Freedom of Religion laws (also referred to as anti-conversion laws) as an example of structural violence faced by India's Christians. Thus far, scholars have studied these as a constitutional violation that denies a Christian's freedom of religion. Using Johan Galtung's violence framework, this article seeks to recast these laws as a form of structural violence against Christians. In doing so, it will show how Hindutva's anxieties about the demographic and political ‘Christian threat’ have become embedded into the law. Through an exploration of the southern state of Karnataka, where the Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion was passed in 2022, this article seeks to show how this structural violence interacts and reinforces forms of direct and cultural violence, creating a system of anti-Christian violence designed to maintain India's ‘Hindu majority’.