About two weeks ago, on 12 May 2021, the US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken released in Washington the ‘2020 International Religious Freedom Report.’ This official annual report of the US Government details the status of religious freedom in nearly 200 foreign countries and territories and describes US actions to support religious freedom worldwide. Mandated by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, this report highlights the fact that ‘religious freedom is both a core American value and a universal human right’.

Releasing the Report, Secretary Blinken said, “Religious freedom, like every human right, is universal. All people everywhere are entitled to it, no matter where they live, what they believe or what they don’t believe. Religious freedom is co-equal with other human rights because human rights are indivisible. Religious freedom is not more or less important than the freedom to speak and assemble, to participate in the political life of one’s country, to live free from torture or slavery or any other human rights. Indeed, they’re all interdependent. Religious freedom can’t be fully realized unless other human rights are respected. And when governments violate their people’s right to believe and worship freely, it jeopardises all the others. And religious freedom is a key element of an open and stable society. Without it, people aren’t able to make their fullest contribution to their country’s success. And whenever human rights are denied, it ignites tension, it breeds division. As this year’s International Religious Freedom Report indicates, for many people around the world, this right is still out of reach. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 56 countries encompassing a significant majority of the world’s people have high or severe restrictions on religious freedom.

India figured high up in the group of ‘56 countries’ which were referred to. On all counts, India is one of the very few democracies in the world today which pays scant attention to the religious freedom of her people – almost on par with dictatorial regimes. A real disgrace on the international forum! The particularly long section on India is a scathing attack of how the Indian Government has been denying religious freedom to its minorities. In the Press Briefing during the release of the Report, Dan Nadel, Senior Official from the Office of Religious Freedom responding to a question on India said, “With respect to India first, we do regularly engage with Indian government officials at all levels, encouraging them to uphold human rights, obligations and commitments, including the protection of minorities in keeping with India’s long tradition of democratic values and its history of tolerance. And the best way to address that is to engage in that direct dialogue between government and civil society, including religious communities. So, with respect to India, I think there’s genuine opportunities there for the government to address some of the concerns they hear from Indian civil society, through a greater dialogue and engagement.”

The ‘Executive Summary’ on India provides a detailed and in-depth coverage of the systematic, consistent attacks and human rights violations on the religious minorities (particularly the Muslims and Christians) and also on the Dalits. The report includes the actual happenings together with the date and other relevant information. A significant highlight is the communal violence which took in New Delhi in February 2020 in which fifty-three people were killed and several hundreds were injured – and most of them were Muslims. This violence was definitely State-sponsored. The Report noted quoting Human Rights Watch, “Witnesses accounts and video evidence showed police complicity in the violence, Muslim academics, human rights activists, former police officers, and journalists alleged anti-Muslim bias in the investigation of riots by New Delhi Police.”

The Report also highlighted the way Muslims were targeted when the pandemic Covid-19 broke out in India; hateful rhetoric during pandemic focussed on the Islamic Tablighi Jamaat organization which had organised an international meeting in Delhi. The Tablighi was held responsible for spreading the coronavirus and there was constant use of the words “terrorism” and “Corona Jihad” by the members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and some of the mainstream media outlets. The Report minces no words when it notes, “There were reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism, and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice and speak about their religious beliefs.”

The anti-CAA protests which rocked the country from the time the Government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in mid-December 2019, also found prominent space in the Report. It stated that, “Parliament passed the CAA in December 2019 to provide an expedited path to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who had entered the country on or before December 31, 2014. Similarly situated Muslims, Jews, atheists, and members of other faiths from these three countries were excluded from the CAA. As of late 2020, the government had not yet enacted rules to implement the CAA. Domestic and international media, NGOs, religious groups, intellectuals, and some political parties criticized the exclusion of Muslims from the legislation, sparking widespread protests. Activists, NGOs, and political parties filed petitions against the CAA on the grounds that it added a religious qualification to the country’s historically secular citizenship laws. None of the more than 100 legal challenges had been heard by the Supreme Court as of the year’s end. Commentators, members of some political parties, and activists said the CAA was part of an effort to marginalize Muslim communities throughout the country. They also questioned delays in hearing legal challenges to the legislation. The government stated the legislation facilitated naturalization for refugees from religious minorities who had fled neighboring countries due to religious persecution and that Muslims could also apply for citizenship through other mechanisms”.

India has also gained notoriety with its anti-conversion laws which are clearly violative of Article 25 of the Constitution which guarantees every citizen the freedom to preach, practise and propagate the religion of one’s choice. Perhaps the only democracy in the world which violates not only the rights of her people but also Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the anti-conversion laws which exist in some States the Report states, “Ten of the 28 states in the country have laws restricting religious conversion: Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh prohibit religious conversion by “force,” “allurement,” or “fraudulent means” and require district authorities to be informed of any intended conversions one month in advance. Himachal Pradesh and Odisha maintain similar prohibitions against conversion through “force,” “inducement,” or “fraud,” and bar individuals from abetting such conversions. Odisha requires individuals wishing to convert to another religion and clergy intending to officiate at a conversion ceremony to submit formal notification to the government”.  In 2021, some States including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have introduced anti-conversion laws which are several times more draconian than the existing ones. It would be interesting to see what the US Report 2021 on India’s freedom of religion would contain.

The Report also details other areas where minorities are selectively targeted solely because of their religious beliefs; these include the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act and the amendments to the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA. In October, the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh ruled that the state Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act “was being misused against innocent persons” and granted bail to a Muslim individual arrested under the act.  One key point in the Report was its reference to Fr. Stan Swamy when it states, “On November 5, a National Investigative Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai extended the detention of Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest and 84-year-old social activist, on sedition charges in connection with a violent demonstration that resulted in several deaths. NIA officers arrested him on October 8 at his residence on the outskirts of Ranchi, Jharkhand, and his communication with others during detention was strictly regulated. Swamy remained in jail at year’s end.” After languishing in the Taloja jail for almost eight months, on 28 May, Fr Stan was finally allowed by the Bombay High Court the possibility to be admitted to the private Holy Family Hospital in Bandra for fifteen days for urgent medical treatment to address his deteriorating health,

Interestingly, more than a fortnight after the US State Department released this Report, the Government of India has not bothered to comment on it, leave alone issue a rebuttal; besides none of the mainstream media (most of it is still highly ‘godified’ – mouthpiece of the Government) have thought it necessary to make it part of the news. The ‘bhakts’ in the US – who enjoy freedom there and send money ‘home’ to help the fascist agenda of Hindutva to thrive in India – have not shown a whimper of protest. Truth is certainly hard to hide!

A few weeks earlier on April 22, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its Annual Report 2020. The Report said that, “Religious freedom conditions in India continued their negative trajectory. The government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), promoted Hindu nationalist policies resulting in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.” It particularly noted the passage of the “religiously discriminatory” Citizenship Amendment Act.  The report indicated that there was seeming police complicity in the Delhi riots; adding, “At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, disinformation and hateful rhetoric—including from government officials—often targeted religious minorities, continuing familiar patterns.” Further, the report alleged that “government action including the acquittal of all individuals accused of demolishing the Babri Masjid Mosque—as well as government inaction to address religious violence contributed to a culture of impunity for those promulgating hate and violence toward religious minorities”.

The recommendations on India by the USCIRF to the US Government were scathing, which included:

1. That India be designated India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for engaging in and tolerating systematic ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations. 
2. Those targeted sanctions be imposed on individuals and entities responsible for severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals’ or entities’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States.
3. That the administration advances the human rights of all religious communities in India and promote religious freedom, dignity and interfaith dialogue through bilateral and multilateral forums and agreements. 
4. That ongoing religious freedom violations be condemned and support religious organizations and human rights groups being targeted for their advocacy of religious freedom.
5. That the US Congress should continue to raise religious freedom concerns in the U.S.-India bilateral relationship by hosting hearings, writing letters and constituting Congressional delegations.

Short of declaring India as a CPC, the US State Department Report seems to have integrated several of the recommendations of the USCIRF. On expected lines. The Indian Government rejected the USCIRF Report. A spokesperson from the Ministry of External Affairs went on the offensive saying, “Our principled position remains that we see no locus standi for a foreign entity to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights” So why has the Government of India has not responded to the State Department report is a big question! India cannot be selective in its foreign policy: buying rafale jets from France or arms and ammunition from the United States is also an ‘interference’ in the internal affairs of our country; the Prime Minister going to Texas to canvas for Trump for another term of Presidency is also ‘interference’; hypocrisy, one-sidedness and double talk only lays bare the insidious agenda of a fascist regime.

India’s   foreign minister is currently in the United States and was absolutely pathetic when he stated that India is being maligned on the international stage. A sad joke indeed! Yes, India is being maligned by those who rule the country today: who are unable to meet the basic health needs of the people, who waste tax-payers money constructing a grandiose Central Vista, who destroy the environment, like the pristine Lakshadweep to help crony capitalists to profit, who use religion to keep people divided, who spew venom and hate on the minorities… and much more!  In a systematic and pernicious way, the regime and their henchmen have attacked and destroyed all that is precious in India: Constitutional Rights, democratic values and the pluralistic fabric.

The US State Department’s ‘2020 International Religious Freedom Report’ – should be an important reminder to the ruling regime that in a democracy, the freedom of religion is not only a right but also sacred. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “I do not expect India to develop one religion, i.e., to be wholly Hindu, or wholly Christian, or wholly Muslim, but I want it to be wholly tolerant, with its religions working side by side with one another.”

Whether those in power have the ability to listen and the courage to change – is another question!

*(Fr Cedric Prakash SJ is a human right, reconciliation & peace activist/writer.)

Other pieces by Fr Cedric Prakash SJ:

Ambedkar and the call to Conversion!

Is there Social Justice in the Digital Economy?

Fr. Stan Swamy SJ already ‘One Hundred Days in Prison’

Stan takes a stand

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The US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the vicious movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists

"Throughout the world … its agents, client states and satellites are on the defensive — on the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the political and economic defensive. Freedom movements arise and assert themselves. They’re doing so on almost every continent populated by man — in the hills of Afghanistan, in Angola, in Kampuchea, in Central America … (They are freedom fighters.)"

Is this a call to jihad taken from one of Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden’s notorious fatwas? Or perhaps a communique issued by the repressive Taliban regime in Kabul?

In fact, this glowing praise of the murderous exploits of today’s supporters of arch-terrorist bin Laden and his Taliban collaborators, and their holy war against the evil empire, was issued by US President Ronald Reagan on March 8, 1985. The evil empire was the Soviet Union, as well as Third World movements fighting US-backed colonialism, apartheid and dictatorship.

How things change. In the aftermath of a series of terrorist atrocities, the most despicable being the mass murder of more than 6,000 working people in New York and Washington on September 11, bin Laden the freedom fighter is now lambasted by US leaders and the Western mass media as a terrorist mastermind and an evil-doer.

Yet the US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the vicious movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that plague Algeria and Egypt and perhaps the disaster that befell New York.

The mass media has also downplayed the origins of bin Laden and his toxic brand of Islamic fundamentalism.

Mujahedin

In April 1978, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in reaction to a crackdown against the party by that country’s repressive government.

The PDPA was committed to a radical land reform that favoured the peasants, trade union rights, an expansion of education and social services, equality for women and the separation of church and state. The PDPA also supported strengthening Afghanistan’s relationship with the Soviet Union.

Such policies enraged the wealthy semi–feudal landlords, the Muslim religious establishment (many mullahs were also big landlords) and the tribal chiefs. They immediately began organising resistance to the government’s progressive policies, under the guise of defending Islam.

Washington, fearing the spread of Soviet influence (and worse the new government’s radical example) to its allies in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states, immediately offered support to the Afghan Mujahedin, as the contra force was known.

Following an internal PDPA power struggle in December 1979 which toppled Afghanistan’s leader, thousands of Soviet troops entered the country to prevent the new government’s fall. This only galvanised the disparate fundamentalist factions. Their reactionary jihad now gained legitimacy as a national liberation struggle in the eyes of many Afghans.

The Soviet Union was eventually to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and the Mujahedin captured the capital, Kabul, in 1992.

Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the Mujahedin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil–rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more.

Washington’s policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.

Brzezinski’s grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator General Zia–ul–Haq’s own ambitions to dominate the region. US–run Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while paradoxically denouncing the Islamic revolution that toppled the pro–US Shah of Iran in 1979).

Washington’s favoured Mujahedin faction was one of the most extreme, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The West’s distaste for terrorism did not apply to this unsavoury freedom fighter. Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.

After the Mujahedin took Kabul in 1992, Hekmatyar’s forces rained US–supplied missiles and rockets on that city killing at least 2,000 civilians until the new government agreed to give him the post of prime minister. Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction.

Hekmatyar was also infamous for his side trade in the cultivation and trafficking in opium. Backing of the Mujahedin from the CIA coincided with a boom in the drug business. Within two years, the Afghanistan–Pakistan border was the world’s single largest source of heroin, supplying 60 per cent of US drug users.

In 1995, the former director of the CIA’s operation in Afghanistan was unrepentant about the explosion in the flow of drugs: Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets… There was a fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was asked to do in Afghanistan during the 1980s — fund, feed and train mercenaries. All that has changed is his primary customer. Then it was the ISI and, behind the scenes, the CIA. Today, his services are utilised primarily by the reactionary Taliban regime

Made in the USA

According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1986, CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI proposal to recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000 Islamic militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000 attended fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in the fighting).

John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has revealed that Muslims recruited in the US for the Mujahedin were sent to Camp Peary, the CIA’s spy training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and even some African-American black Muslims were taught sabotage skills.

The November 1, 1998, the British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained bin Laden’s operatives in 1989.

These operatives were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn, New York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to Afghanistan with US assistance to join Hekmatyar’s forces. Mohammed was a member of the US army’s elite Green Berets.

The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved plan called Operation Cyclone.

In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the Mujahedin factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of Services, MAK).

MAK was a front for Pakistan’s CIA, the Inter–Service Intelligence directorate. The ISI was the first recipient of the vast bulk of CIA and Saudi Arabian covert assistance for the Afghan contras. Bin Laden was one of three people who ran MAK. In 1989, he took overall charge of MAK.

Among those trained by Mohammed were El Sayyid Nosair, who was jailed in 1995 for killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting with others to bomb New York landmarks, including the World Trade Center in 1993.

The Independent also suggested that Shiekh Omar Abdel–Rahman, an Egyptian religious leader also jailed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was also part of Operation Cyclone. He entered the US in 1990 with the CIA’s approval. A confidential CIA report concluded that the agency was partly culpable for the 1993 World Trade Center blast, the Independent reported.

Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, one of 20 sons of a billionaire construction magnate, arrived in Afghanistan to join the jihad in 1980. An austere religious fanatic and business tycoon, bin Laden specialised in recruiting, financing and training the estimated 35,000 non–Afghan mercenaries who joined the Mujahedin. The bin Laden family is a prominent pillar of the Saudi Arabian ruling class, with close personal, financial and political ties to that country’s pro–US royal family.

Bin Laden senior was appointed Saudi Arabia’s minister of public works as a favour by King Faisal. The new minister awarded his own construction companies lucrative contracts to rebuild Islam’s holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina. In the process, the bin Laden family company in 1966 became the world’s largest private construction company.

Osama bin Laden’s father died in 1968. Until 1994, he had access to the dividends from this ill–gotten business empire.

(Bin Laden junior’s oft–quoted personal fortune of US$200–300 million has been arrived at by the US State Department by dividing today’s value of the bin Laden family net worth estimated to be US$5 billion by the number of bin Laden senior’s sons. A fact rarely mentioned is that in 1994 the bin Laden family disowned Osama and took control of his share.)

Osama’s military and business adventures in Afghanistan had the blessing of the bin Laden dynasty and the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime. His close working relationship with MAK also meant that the CIA was fully aware of his activities.

Milt Bearden, the CIA’s station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, admitted to the January 24, 2000, New Yorker that while he never personally met bin Laden, "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did… [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It’s an extra $200–$300 million a year. And this is what bin Laden did."

In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques (he has a degree in civil engineering), he built training camps, some dug deep into the sides of mountains, and built roads to reach them.

These camps, now dubbed terrorist universities by Washington, were built in collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters, including the tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, were armed by the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers.

Tom Carew, a former British SAS soldier who secretly fought for the Mujahedin told the August 13, 2000, British Observer, "The Americans were keen to teach the Afghans the techniques of urban terrorism, car bombing and so on so that they could strike at the Russians in major towns…" Many of them are now using their knowledge and expertise to wage war on everything they hate.

Al Qaeda (the Base), bin Laden’s organisation, was established in 1987-88 to run the camps and other business enterprises. It is a tightly–run capitalist holding company albeit one that integrates the operations of a mercenary force and related logistical services with legitimate business operations.

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was asked to do in Afghanistan during the 1980s — fund, feed and train mercenaries. All that has changed is his primary customer. Then it was the ISI and, behind the scenes, the CIA. Today, his services are utilised primarily by the reactionary Taliban regime.

Bin Laden only became a terrorist in US eyes when he fell out with the Saudi royal family over its decision to allow more than 540,000 US troops to be stationed on Saudi soil following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

When thousands of US troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the end of the Gulf War, bin Laden’s anger turned to outright opposition. He declared that Saudi Arabia and other regimes such as Egypt in the Middle East were puppets of the US, just as the PDPA government of Afghanistan had been a puppet of the Soviet Union.

He called for the overthrow of these client regimes and declared it the duty of all Muslims to drive the US out of the Gulf states. In 1994, he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship and forced to leave the country. His assets there were frozen.

After a period in Sudan, he returned to Afghanistan in May 1996. He refurbished the camps he had helped build during the Afghan war and offered the facilities and services and thousands of his mercenaries to the Taliban, which took power that September.

Today, bin Laden’s private army of non–Afghan religious fanatics is a key prop of the Taliban regime.

Prior to the devastating September 11 attack on the twin towers of World Trade Center, US ruling-class figures remained unrepentant about the consequences of their dirty deals with the likes of bin Laden, Hekmatyar and the Taliban. Since the awful attack, they have been downright hypocritical.

In an August 28, 1998, report posted on MSNBC, Michael Moran quotes Senator Orrin Hatch, who was a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee which approved US dealings with the Mujahedin, as saying he would make the same call again, even knowing what bin Laden would become.

"It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union."

Hatch today is one of the most gung-ho voices demanding military retaliation. Another face that has appeared repeatedly on television screens since the attack has been Vincent Cannistrano, described as a former CIA chief of counter-terrorism operations.

Cannistrano is certainly an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because he directed their work. He was in charge of the CIA–backed Nicaraguan contras during the early 1980s. In 1984, he became the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan Mujahedin for the US National Security Council.

The last word goes to Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?" 

(This article has been put out by the Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL).

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2001 Year 8  No. 72, Cover Story 7

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