India, Dec. 29 -- Religious festivals are meant to mark memory, joy, and belonging. In India today, they have become thresholds. Christmas, Easter, and even funerals now arrive with police, court petitions, and fear. For Christians and other minorities, celebrations have become moments of calculation: how visible is too visible, how loud is too loud, how public is unsafe?

The numbers this Christmas alone end all pretence. Decorations were vandalised, prayer meetings disrupted, people were manhandled in front of the police, carols were stopped, the list goes on. All this happened under a government that prides itself on optics, choreography, and carefully staged outreach. The BJP's photo opportunities, its Christmas greetings, its careful...