Christian organisations across Andhra Pradesh have intensified their demand for justice for the Christians of Scheduled Caste (SC) origin, submitting a detailed memorandum to the Prime Minister that calls for repealing a seven-decade-old Presidential Order, extending legal protection against caste-based persecution, and scrapping anti-conversion laws in force across 12 states. The memorandum places on record both the scale of discrimination faced by the community and the specific legal remedies it seeks.

Several Christian organisations held a rally and observed Black Day, demanding that the Union government take steps to ensure SC status for Christians by withdrawing the Presidential Order of 1950, prevent attacks on minorities, including Christians, and address their other demands.

At the heart of the protest is a call to repeal Paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, issued on August 10 of that year. This order declared that no person professing a religion other than Hinduism would be deemed a member of the Scheduled Castes. The order was subsequently amended in 1956 and 1990 to extend Scheduled Caste status to Sikhs and Buddhists of Scheduled Caste origin, but Christians of the same origin continue to be excluded.

The memorandum argues that this exclusion is unconstitutional, pointing out that Article 341 of the Constitution does not empower the President to link caste status with religion. It describes the order as being in direct violation of several fundamental rights, including Article 14, which guarantees equality before the law; Article 15, which prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion; Article 16, which guarantees equality of opportunity in public employment; Article 17, which abolishes untouchability; Article 21, which protects the right to life and personal liberty; and Article 25, which guarantees freedom of conscience and religion.

DECADES OF COMMISSION FINDINGS IGNORED

The memorandum draws attention to a long line of government-appointed commissions that have studied the socio-economic condition of Christians of Scheduled Caste origin over the decades. These include the Kaka Kalelkar Commission of 1955, the Kumara Pillai Commission of 1965, the Elayaperumal Commission of 1969, the Nettur Commission of 1970, the Sattanathan Commission of 1970, the Chidambaram Commission of 1975, the Mandal Commission of 1980, the Rajinder Sachar Commission of 2006, and the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission of 2007. Each of these bodies concluded that conversion to Christianity did not change the lived reality of caste discrimination, untouchability, and economic backwardness, and recommended that Scheduled Caste status be extended to Christians of Scheduled Caste origin.

Despite these findings, a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2004 has remained pending for more than two decades. The organisations have also questioned the constitution of a fresh three-member commission under former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan in September 2022, tasked with repeating the same study. The commission's report, originally due in September 2024, has reportedly seen little activity even after an extension to September 2025, and protesters describe it as an unfulfilled task that risks undermining the earlier commission reports rather than adding to them. The memorandum urges the Supreme Court to proceed with the pending writ petition on the basis of the findings already available.

RISING ATTACKS AND THE CALL FOR LEGAL PROTECTION

The memorandum places significant emphasis on the scale of violence faced by the Christian community in recent years. It records 734 incidents of attacks in 2023, rising to 834 incidents in 2024, and nearly 900 incidents in 2025, a trend the organisations describe as more than two incidents being reported every day in the country. Attacks are said to have continued even during the Christmas season, ranging from threats and disruption of gatherings to arrests and physical assault.

Christian organisations argue that this pattern of violence, largely unchecked and rarely condemned, amounts to a systematic denial of the right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21. They have demanded that Christians of Scheduled Caste origin be brought under the protection of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and the Untouchability Offences Act, 1955, the same legal safeguards available to other Scheduled Caste communities.

OPPOSITION TO ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS

The third major demand raised in the memorandum concerns the anti-conversion laws currently in force in 12 states. Organisers describe these laws as unconstitutional and undemocratic, arguing that they are frequently misused to target pastors, churches, family gatherings, and educational institutions on the basis of fabricated complaints. According to the memorandum, such laws have incentivised extremist and anti-social elements to attack members of the Christian community and destroy church property, while disrupting worship services in an attempt to intimidate the faithful into abandoning their beliefs.

The memorandum links the enforcement of these laws directly to violations of Article 25 of the Constitution, which protects freedom of religion, as well as Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which India is a party. Christian organisations have called for the annulment of these laws in the interest of secularism and constitutional fraternity.

A CALL FOR JUSTICE

Taken together, the three demands set out by Christian organisations in Andhra Pradesh represent a renewed push for equal constitutional treatment of Christians of Scheduled Caste origin. The protesters have appealed directly to the Prime Minister to act on decades of commission findings, extend legal protection against escalating attacks, and repeal state laws they say have become instruments of religious persecution. For a community that has faced exclusion for more than seven decades since the 1950 order, the memorandum frames the moment as a test of whether India's constitutional promises of equality and religious freedom will be honoured in practice.