THE US COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (USCIRF) HAS DOWNGRADED INDIA TO THE LOWEST RANK

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The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has downgraded India to the lowest ranking, “countries of unique concern” (CPC) in its 2020 report. The report, released in Washington by the federal authorities commission that functions as an advisory body, positioned India alongside countries, including China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. India was categorized as a “Tier 2 country” in last year’s listing. This is the first time considering 2004 that India has been placed in this category.

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“India took a sharp downward flip in 2019,” the commission noted in its report, which covered specific concerns about the Citizenship Amendment Act, the proposed National Register for Citizens, anti-conversion legal guidelines and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. “The national authorities used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national-level policies violating spiritual freedom across India, especially for Muslims.” The panel stated that the CPC designation was also endorsed because “national and various State governments additionally allowed nationwide campaigns of harassment and violence against religious minorities to proceed with impunity, and engaged in and tolerated hate speech and incitement to violence against them”.

The Centre reacted sharply to the USCIRF report on Tuesday, terming it “biased and tendentious” and rejected its observations.

“We reject the observations on India in the USCIRF Annual Report,” reliable spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said. “Its biased and tendentious comments against India are no longer new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels. It has not been able to elevate its own Commissioners in its endeavour. We regard it as an organisation of precise concern and will treat it accordingly,” Mr. Srivastava added.

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Three of the 10 USCIRF commissioners, including Gary Bauer, Johnnie Lee, and Tenzin Dorjee, dissented with the panel’s recommendation on India as being ‘too harsh’ and that ended up putting the country alongside what they termed as “rogue nations” like China and North Korea.

“I am confident that India will reject any authoritarian temptation and stand with the United States and different free nations in defence of liberty, including spiritual liberty,” wrote Commissioner Bauer in his dissenting note.

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The fee also recommended that the U.S. authorities take stringent action against India underneath the “International Religious Freedom Act” (IRFA). It called on the administration to “impose targeted sanctions on Indian authorities agencies and officials accountable for severe violations of religious freedom by using freezing those individuals’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States beneath human rights-related financial and visa authorities, citing specific spiritual freedom violations”. In 2005, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was at the time the Chief Minister of Gujarat was censured through the USCIRF. The commission had recommended sanctions towards Mr. Modi for the 2002 riots and the U.S. government had subsequently cancelled his visa.

The USCIRF 2020 record makes a specific mention of Home Minister Amit Shah, for now not taking what it deemed as sufficient action to cease cases of mob lynching in the country, and for referring to migrants as “termites”. In December 2019, the USCIRF had also requested the U.S. government to consider sanctions towards Mr. Shah and “other principal leadership” over the decision to pass by the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Ministry of External Affairs had rejected the USCIRF statement as neither “accurate nor warranted” and questioned the body’s “locus standi” in India’s interior affairs. The MEA had also criticised the USCIRF for a tweet on religious segregation in hospitals whilst treating COVID-19 patients, saying that the U.S. body made “peremptory commentary on spiritual freedom in India” and spread “misguided reports”.