New Delhi: India has termed its assessment in the latest edition of the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report “deeply biased” and “visibly driven by vote bank considerations”.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a press briefing Friday rejected the assessment made in the report, stating that it lacks any understanding of India’s social fabric and is a set of mis-representations. Events have been picked up selectively to support a one-sided perspective, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
“We have noted the release by the US State Department of its report on International Religious Freedom for 2023. As in the past, the report is deeply biased, lacks understanding of India’s social fabric, and is visibly driven by vote bank considerations and a prescriptive outlook,” he added.
Jaiswal went on to add, “The exercise itself is a mix of imputations, misrepresentations, selective usage of facts, reliance on biased sources and a one-sided projection of issues. This extends even to the depiction of our constitutional provisions and duly enacted laws of India. It has selectively picked incidents to advance a preconceived narrative as well.”
At the release of the International Religious Freedom Report 2023 Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had raised concerns about hate speech, and anti-conversion laws in India.
The report also talks about instances of vandalism and of minorities being targeted, besides accusing the government of failing to safeguard the rights of minority communities and suppressing tension in a reference to the ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur.
India rejected assessments made in the report and held that although “human rights and respect for dignity have been and remain a legitimate subject of discussion” between the two countries, dialogue on human rights should not become a tool for “foreign interference”.
“The report also appears to challenge the integrity of certain legal judgements given by Indian courts and regulations that monitor misuse of financial flows into India,” the MEA said.
The MEA spokesperson also mentioned that the US, too, has stringent laws and implied that the country may not itself practise solutions it prescribes to India or the world.
India had similarly rejected assertions made in the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2022.
In the latest edition of the annual report, the US State Department assessed religious freedoms in 199 countries.
At the launch, Secretary of State Blinken also raised concerns over freedom of religious practice and treatment of minorities in other countries including China, Iran, Hungary and Germany, among others.
“Religious freedom is still not respected for millions of people around the world,” he said.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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