June 27, Washington DC:
India has long been an outspoken opponent of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), but the group has recently renewed its "concerns" about religious freedom, pointing to the purported increase in "hate speech," demolitions, and anti-conversion legislation as reasons.
An effort to present a "fact-based, comprehensive view of the state of religious freedom" in over 200 nations and territories is the stated goal of the yearly report that examines religious freedoms globally. The results are announced just a few weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi started his third term in office, and during a visit to New Delhi by White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan, the two countries pledged to enhance collaboration in high technology domains.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken addressed the issue in India, telling reporters that there has been a disturbing rise in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, and the destruction of houses and places of worship for minority religion communities.
Rashad Hussain, the US ambassador-at-large for worldwide religious freedom, shared these worries over the current state of affairs in India. "In India, Christian communities reported that local police aided mobs that disrupted worship services over accusations of conversion activities, or stood by while mobs attacked them and then arrested the victims on conversion charges," according to him.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was criticized by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom for allegedly "reinforcing discriminatory nationalist policies" and for being "biased" with "political agendas," but India rejected the report in May.
It is well-known that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is politically biased and prejudiced. Randhir Jaiswal, a representative from the MEA, stated at a news conference that the group's propaganda against India is being published in the guise of an annual report.
"Unfortunately, we do not anticipate that USCIRF will make any effort to comprehend the democratic, pluralistic, and diverse ethos prevalent in India. They will never be successful in their attempts to meddle in the world's biggest election exercise, he continued. Additionally, in 2023, the USCIRF claimed that the Indian government "failed to address" communal violence that disproportionately affected Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Jews, and Adivasis, an indigenous people group.
The research highlights that Iran, Russia, China, and India are among the countries that have violated the human rights of members of specific religious groups. An extensive portion of the paper also touched on the purported "targeted attacks against religious minorities in India." Regarding religious freedom in India, the report raises a number of issues. Allegations include institutional discrimination against Muslims, the fact that religious conversion is "legally prohibited" in some jurisdictions, and the frequent attacks on religious minorities.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed this sentiment, saying that hate crimes against Jews and Muslims "have gone up dramatically."
Pakistan was also a source of concern for the United States; in a statement, Blinken said that the country's blasphemy laws "help foster a climate of intolerance and hatred that can lead to vigilantism and mob violence." In addition to the persecution of Christians, Muslims, and Falun Gong adherents in Tibet, Secretary Blinken brought up the incarceration and exile of Muslim Uyghurs in China.
