ARUNACHAL PRADESH, INDIA , February 11, 2016 (by Jatinder K Bajaj, Centre for Policy Studies): During 2001-11, the share of Christians in the population of the State has risen from less than 19 to more than 30 percent, and they now form a majority or near majority of the population in several districts. The share of Christians in the Scheduled Tribes population is much higher and several major tribes seem to have become nearly fully Christianized. Arunachal Pradesh, unlike other hill States of the northeast, had escaped widespread Christianisation until 1981 and, to a large extent, even until 1991. Christian presence in the State began to acquire serious proportions in 2001; the latest data indicates that the State is now well on its way towards nearly complete Christianisation of the Schedule Tribes
Census 2011 thus marks a historical milestone in the religious demography of Arunachal Pradesh, and of the Northeast in general. From the time of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the Indian State and Society had made a conscious attempt to keep Arunachal Pradesh away from the evangelical tide that had swept the hill States of the Northeast. That effort, it seems, has failed and Arunachal Pradesh has now been submerged.