Human Rights in India: Analytical Report 2025-2026

Last updated: 5 October 2026

Photo: Indía - Mílton Jung

Human rights conditions in India have weakened across many areas since 2014. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi promote a Hindu-first political vision known as Hindutva. Under this vision, Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis, and other minorities face new laws and growing violence. Freedom House downgraded India from "Free" to "Partly Free" in 2021. The country has stayed at that level ever since. For expert witnesses and asylum decision-makers, the Indian case now needs careful attention. This analytical report examines India human rights across political, social, and legal dimensions.

The report draws on evidence from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and leading Indian civil society groups. It covers the period from 2019 through early 2026. Moreover, it offers guidance for asylum claims from Indian nationals who face persecution linked to religion, caste, ethnicity, or political opinion.

Executive Summary

India remains the world's largest democracy by population. However, its democratic institutions have weakened since 2014. The BJP government has used strong counter-terrorism laws, sedition laws, and tax rules to silence critics. Authorities have arrested journalists, activists, students, and Muslim politicians under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Minorities face growing violence from Hindu nationalist groups while police often fail to act. In some BJP-ruled states, new anti-conversion laws have been used to target Christians and Muslims. The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 created a religion-based path to citizenship for the first time in Indian history.[1]

Kashmir remains a region of special concern. The government revoked Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019 and ended the special autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir. Since then, authorities have used communication shutdowns, mass detentions, and press restrictions to control the region. Consequently, India now produces a growing flow of asylum seekers. The main groups include Kashmiri Muslims, religious minorities from BJP-ruled states, Dalits fleeing caste violence, journalists, and LGBTQ+ individuals who face family and community persecution.[2]

Political Context: Democratic Backsliding under the BJP

The BJP came to power in 2014 under Narendra Modi. The party won again in 2019 with a larger majority. In 2024, the BJP lost its single-party majority but stayed in power through a coalition. The party's ideology comes from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist movement founded in 1925. The RSS and BJP promote Hindutva, the idea that India should be a Hindu nation first. This idea places non-Hindus, especially Muslims, in a secondary role.[3]

Freedom House downgraded India to "Partly Free" in its 2021 report. The group cited attacks on press freedom, the arrest of activists, and policies that target Muslims. India's score has stayed around 66/100 in the years since. The V-Dem Institute, a research group based in Sweden, has classified India as an "electoral autocracy" since 2020. The Economist Intelligence Unit calls India a "flawed democracy." These independent assessments agree on the same point: India remains a democracy on paper but its quality has dropped.[4]

Furthermore, institutional checks on executive power have weakened. The Election Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and tax agencies face accusations of political bias. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), India's financial crime agency, has increased investigations against opposition politicians sharply. In 2024, the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested just before national elections. Courts have granted bail in many such cases but only after months or years of pre-trial detention.[5]

Documented Human Rights Violations

Religious Persecution of Muslims and Christians

Muslims, who number over 200 million, form India's largest religious minority. They have faced rising violence and legal targeting since 2014. Mob lynchings of Muslims accused of cow slaughter or beef trade began rising sharply from 2015. Cow protection groups, often linked to Hindu nationalist networks, have attacked Muslim cattle traders and dairy workers. Human Rights Watch documented at least 44 such killings between May 2015 and December 2018. Many more cases have occurred since.[6]

Attacks on Muslims often take place with impunity, with police failing to register cases, conducting flawed investigations, or actively shielding perpetrators linked to ruling party networks.
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2024: India

Christians also face growing persecution. The United Christian Forum recorded 834 attacks against Christians in 2024, up from 127 in 2014. Incidents include mob attacks on churches, disruption of prayer meetings, false arrests under anti-conversion laws, and threats against pastors. The Hindu nationalist group Bajrang Dal has led many of these attacks. States ruled by the BJP have passed "freedom of religion" laws that criminalize so-called forced conversions. In practice, these laws target Christian pastors and inter-faith couples.[7]

Sikhs, who are 1.7% of India's population, also face state pressure in some cases. The central government ordered the arrest of Amritpal Singh, a Sikh preacher, in 2023 and used internet shutdowns across Punjab. Sikh activists abroad have faced threats. In 2023, Canadian authorities accused Indian agents of involvement in the killing of a Sikh activist in British Columbia. The United States charged an Indian official in a failed plot to kill another Sikh activist in New York.[8]

Kashmir Crackdown Since 2019

On 5 August 2019, the Indian government revoked Article 370 of the Constitution. This article had given Jammu and Kashmir special autonomous status since 1949. The same day, the state was split into two Union Territories directly controlled by New Delhi. Authorities imposed a communication shutdown that lasted months, detained political leaders, and deployed additional troops. Most mainstream Kashmiri political leaders, including two former chief ministers, were placed in detention or house arrest.[9]

Since then, Kashmir has seen a steady pattern of repression. Journalists face arrest under UAPA and the Public Safety Act (PSA). The PSA allows administrative detention for up to two years without trial. Press Club Srinagar was shut by authorities in 2022. Prominent Kashmiri journalists, including Fahad Shah and Irfan Mehraj, have spent long periods in detention. Moreover, over 2,300 cases have been registered under the PSA in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, according to data obtained through Right to Information requests.[10]

Misuse of UAPA Counter-Terrorism Law

The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) is India's main counter-terrorism law. Parliament passed amendments in 2019 that allow the government to designate individuals as "terrorists" without trial. Bail under UAPA is almost impossible to obtain. Between 2015 and 2022, authorities registered over 8,000 UAPA cases. The conviction rate was only about 3%, yet many accused spent years in pre-trial detention.[11]

The Bhima Koregaon case shows the law in action. Since 2018, authorities have arrested 16 lawyers, academics, poets, and activists on charges of plotting violence and links to banned Maoist groups. Evidence obtained by Arsenal Consulting, a US forensic firm, found that the laptops of several accused had been infected with malware that planted fake evidence. Despite this, several of the accused have spent more than five years in detention. Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist, died in custody in July 2021 after the courts refused him bail.[12]

Attacks on Press Freedom

India ranked 159 out of 180 countries in the 2024 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. Journalists face legal pressure, tax raids, and physical attacks. In 2023, authorities raided the BBC office in Delhi and Mumbai weeks after the broadcaster aired a documentary critical of Modi. NewsClick, an independent website, had its office raided and its founder arrested under UAPA in October 2023. Several journalists have been killed in recent years, especially those covering corruption, land grabs, or mining.[13]

Furthermore, the government has used the Information Technology Rules (2021) to control online speech. These rules require social media platforms to remove content flagged by authorities within short deadlines. The Press Information Bureau fact-checking unit gives the government power to label news as "fake" and force its removal. A Bombay High Court ruling in 2024 struck down parts of this system. However, the government has since re-issued similar rules.[14]

Persecution of Specific Groups

Muslims: Lynchings and Citizenship Laws

Indian Muslims now face layered pressure from law, policy, and mob violence. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed in December 2019, offers a fast track to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. Muslims are the only major group excluded. Combined with the planned National Register of Citizens (NRC), this law has raised fears among Muslims that they could be declared non-citizens. The government finally notified CAA rules in March 2024.[15]

Bulldozer demolitions have become a tool of extrajudicial punishment. State authorities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi have demolished Muslim homes and shops shortly after protests or communal incidents. The Supreme Court issued strict guidelines in November 2024 against bulldozer demolitions. Nevertheless, demolitions have continued in some states. In 2022 and 2023, "bulldozer justice" became a political slogan used by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh.[16]

Christians: Anti-Conversion Laws

Twelve Indian states have anti-conversion laws. Most of these states are ruled by the BJP. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act (2021) bans "forced" or "fraudulent" conversion and prescribes prison terms of up to ten years. The law places the burden of proof on the accused. In practice, police have used the law to break up inter-faith weddings and to arrest Christian pastors. Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, and Haryana have similar laws.[17]

Dalits and Adivasis: Caste Violence and Displacement

Dalits, formerly called "untouchables," number around 200 million people. They face daily discrimination and regular violence. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) recorded 57,582 cases of crimes against Scheduled Castes in 2022, including 18,428 crimes against Dalit women. Only about 32% of cases lead to conviction. For a deeper analysis, see our dedicated country report on caste persecution.[18]

Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes), around 104 million people, face displacement from mining, dams, and forest projects. The Forest Rights Act 2006 was meant to protect their land rights. In practice, enforcement has been weak. A 2019 Supreme Court order threatened the eviction of up to two million tribal families. Although the court later stayed the order, tribal land rights remain insecure.[19]

LGBTQ+ Persons: Legal Gains, Social Persecution

The Supreme Court decriminalized gay sex in September 2018 through the Navtej Singh Johar judgment. This struck down part of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. However, social persecution continues. Many LGBTQ+ people face family rejection, forced marriage, conversion therapy, and honour-based violence. In October 2023, the Supreme Court refused to legalize same-sex marriage in the Supriyo Chakraborty case. Same-sex couples cannot marry, adopt jointly, or access most legal protections available to married heterosexual couples.[20]

Journalists and NGOs: FCRA Crackdown

The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) governs foreign funding for Indian NGOs. Amendments in 2020 made it harder for smaller NGOs to receive and spend foreign funds. Since 2014, authorities have cancelled or suspended FCRA registration of over 20,000 NGOs. Major groups affected include Amnesty International India, which closed its Indian operations in 2020, and the Centre for Policy Research, a respected think tank, in 2024. Oxfam India lost its FCRA licence in 2022.[21]

Legal Framework: Instruments of Repression

India has a complex set of laws that authorities now use to target minorities, journalists, and activists. The following table summarizes the most important legal tools.

The UAPA and AFSPA stand out for their reach. AFSPA grants security forces wide powers in "disturbed areas" such as Jammu and Kashmir and parts of the North East. Soldiers can arrest without warrant, shoot on suspicion, and enjoy near-total immunity. UN human rights bodies have long called for AFSPA to be repealed. The Supreme Court's Extra-Judicial Execution Victim Families Association (EEVFAM) ruling in 2016 recognized that AFSPA does not protect soldiers from criminal charges. However, prosecutions remain very rare.[22]

Internal Displacement and Refugee Flows

India is both a source and destination country for displaced people. On one side, the country hosts Tibetan, Rohingya, and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. On the other side, some Indian citizens now seek asylum abroad. The main groups seeking asylum include Kashmiri Muslims, Dalits, inter-faith couples, LGBTQ+ individuals, Sikh activists, and journalists who face UAPA charges.

Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States receive the largest numbers of Indian asylum seekers. Recognition rates vary widely between countries. Some decision-makers treat India as a "safe country" in general terms. However, proper individual assessment is essential. Profile-based risks, such as being a Kashmiri journalist, an inter-faith couple, or a Dalit activist, can justify refugee status on religion, race, or political opinion grounds.[23]

Return Risk Assessment

Return risk in India depends strongly on profile, state, and caste. The central government and many state governments do not persecute all Indians equally. Instead, risks cluster around specific groups and regions. For example, a Muslim returnee to Uttar Pradesh who had been active in anti-CAA protests faces different risks from a Hindu returnee to Kerala with no political history.

For Kashmiri returnees, airport screening at Delhi and Srinagar has intensified since 2019. Border forces check names against lookout circulars and seize passports. Kashmiri journalists, in particular, have faced foreign travel bans. For Sikh activists with links to Khalistan movements abroad, the UAPA can be applied even for social media posts. For inter-faith couples, threats come from family networks and khap panchayats rather than the central state.[24]

Internal relocation within India is often possible in theory but difficult in practice. India has 28 states and 8 Union Territories, with strong regional differences. A Dalit activist from Uttar Pradesh may be safer in Kerala. A Kashmiri Muslim, however, may face discrimination across much of northern India. Economic and social networks often limit real relocation options. For Christians facing anti-conversion charges, the law applies uniformly in twelve states.

Risk by Profile: Summary Table

Conclusion

India human rights in 2025-2026 show a country of sharp contrasts. It remains a democracy with strong courts, independent journalists, and active civil society. At the same time, legal tools like UAPA and anti-conversion laws, combined with state tolerance of Hindu nationalist violence, create real risks for many minorities and dissenters. Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom all document these trends. The government rejects their findings. However, the evidence is wide and consistent.

For expert witnesses and asylum decision-makers, the right approach is profile-based. Not every Indian national faces persecution. Indeed, many live free lives. However, Kashmiri Muslims, Christians in BJP-ruled states, inter-faith couples, Dalit activists, Sikh dissenters, journalists under UAPA, and LGBTQ+ people in traditional families all face real risks. For these groups, India human rights conditions often meet the standards set by the 1951 Refugee Convention. For broader context on global protection trends, see our human rights analysis.