New Delhi: America’s religious freedom watchdog has issued a new report alleging “collapse” of religious freedoms in India, highlighting “discrimination” and “hateful rhetoric” against minorities by the ruling BJP government.
Such rhetoric led by “political officials”, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, intensified leading to the June election, the report claimed.
The report released Wednesday said the “the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government made a concerted effort to implement election promises that negatively and disproportionately impacted religious minorities and their ability to practice their faith”.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad, said “religious freedom conditions in India continue to follow a deteriorating and concerning trajectory”. It blamed the Indian government’s alleged repression of communities through laws like the anti-conversion, anti-cow slaughter, and anti-terrorism laws. It also mentioned the 2024 Waqf Amendment Bill that seeks to include “non-muslim members on Waqf boards”.
It raised concern over “dozens of attacks involving cow vigilantism”, including the assault of a 72-year-old man and a 19-year-old student, alongside the “161 cases” of violence against Christians between January and March this year. It further highlighted the February demolition of a 600-year-old Akhoondji Mosque in Delhi allegedly without any notice.
This India-centric review or country update report, published only months after the federal agency’s annual report in May, comes amid External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s ongoing diplomatic trip to the US and barely two weeks after Narendra Modi’s three-day visit.
India reacted sharply to the report Thursday, asking the USCIRF to “desist from agenda-driven efforts” and focus on human rights issues in America. In a statement, the foreign ministry called the USCIRF a “biased organisation with a political agenda”.
“Our views on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) are well known. It is a biased organization with a political agenda. It continues to misrepresent facts and peddles a motivated narrative about India. We reject this malicious report, which only serves to discredit USCIRF further,” the statement read.
‘Hate speeches, misinformation by officials’
At the national level, the report noted that the enactment of CAA, the inauguration of the Ram Temple, and the rhetoric around a Uniform Civil Code were perceived as “threats” and “rejected” by religious minorities.
Actions like these, the report suggested, were “justified by government officials as necessary to protect India’s ‘cultural (and) linguistic heritage’—a common euphemism for Hindu supremacy, often at the expense of religious minority”.
The report added that domestic laws such as the UAPA were used to “crack down on civil society organizations, religious minorities, human rights defenders, and journalists reporting on religious freedom”, citing the detention of activists G.N. Saibaba and Umar Khalid.
The USCIRF also made note of Prime Minister Modi’s speeches at election rallies reportedly referring to Muslims as “infiltrators”, and claimed that the “opposition party would wipe out (the) Hindu faith from the country”. Similar rhetoric was propagated by Home Minister Amit Shah and other members of the BJP, the report said.
It mentioned the introduction of the new criminal laws and alleged new provisions “may pose an additional threat to freedom of expression, association, and right to a free trial, particularly for religious minorities”.
The annual report by the USCIRF released in May had recommended India’s designation as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC)” as it blamed the BJP government for reinforcing discriminatory nationalist policies and for failing to address communal violence disproportionately affecting Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Jews, and Adivasis (indigenous peoples).
A similar report was released by the State Department in June where Secretary of State Antony Blinken flagged concerns over rising hate speech and violence against minority places of worship. The Indian foreign ministry “rejected” it, claiming the report showed “bias” and lacked “any understanding of India’s social fabric and is a set of misrepresentations”.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)