India, Jan. 5 -- Christmas violence against Christians in India has ceased to be an aberration. Christmas now functions as a yearly test of India's constitutional commitment to religious freedom-and increasingly, as a reputational liability beyond its borders. What follows is equally revealing: protests against the violence by civil-society groups, extensive circulation on social media, and critical coverage in the international press. These responses indicate the dire need to curtail both the source and the foot soldiers of the violence before global opinion conclusively marks present-day India as a democracy hollowed out in practice-one that must be held at arm's length, to the loss of the nation.

For several years now, each December h...