The International Religious Freedom Report for 2019 by the United States Department of State has dealt yet another body blow to India’s reputation as a secular country. This report comes close at the heels of several similar reports as well as concerns raised by a variety of international organisations about the widespread hate and discrimination in the country.

The report indicts the country’s present regime for human rights violations in connection with its people’s right to practice any religion of their choice as laid down in the constitution.

The report begins by exposing how this constitutional guarantee has been turned into mere window dressing by various state governments saying, “Nine of the 28 states have laws restricting religious conversions.”

The report then tackles the controversial subject of Kashmir saying, “In August the central government revoked the semiautonomous status of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir and split it into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The revocation sparked protests, criticism from Muslim leaders, and challenges filed in the Supreme Court from opposition politicians, human rights activists, and others. The government sent thousands of additional security forces to the region, shut down many internet and phone lines, and had not restored full service by year’s end. The government also closed most mosques in the area until mid-December. Seventeen civilians and three security personnel were killed during the protests.”

The report continues to relentlessly tackle one serious violation of human rights based on faith after another by the Indian regime, next taking them to task for the citizenship fiasco saying, “In December parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which accelerates citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who entered the country on or before December 31, 2014, but not for similarly-situated migrants who are Muslims, Jews, atheists, or members of other faiths. The law generated widespread media and religious minority criticism, including legal challenges in the Supreme Court. Protests and violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Uttar Pradesh and Assam following the passage of the law resulted in 25 civilian deaths and hundreds of injuries.”

The Religious Freedom Report also indicts the regime for instances of mob-lynchings, saying, “Issues of religiously inspired mob violence, lynching, and communal violence were sometimes denied or ignored by lawmakers, according to a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and media outlets. There were reports by NGOs that the government sometimes failed to act to prevent or stop mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government.”

It takes the BJP head on saying, “Some officials of Hindu-majority parties, including from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made inflammatory public remarks or social media posts against minority communities. Mob attacks by violent Hindu groups against minority communities, including Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumors that victims had traded or killed cows for beef. Authorities often failed to prosecute perpetrators of such ‘cow vigilantism,’ which included killings, mob violence, and intimidation. According to some NGOs, authorities often protected perpetrators from prosecution and filed charges against victims.” 

The annual Report to Congress on International Religious Freedom describes the status of religious freedom in every country. The report covers government policies violating religious belief and practices of groups, religious denominations and individuals, and US policies to promote religious freedom around the world. The US Department of State submits the reports in accordance with the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. This report covers the period between January 1 and December 31, 2019.

It may be recalled that recently Maria Arena, Chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI), has written to Indian Home Minister Amit Shah raising serious concerns about the manner in which human rights activists, peaceful protesters and sundry dissenters are being thrown behind bars and being silenced using provisions of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The DROI is a parliamentary body that actively monitors human rights developments across the globe and publicly advocates in favour of the respect for fundamental rights.

Under-Secretary-General Adama Dieng, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide had also raised several key questions about the growth of hate speech and especially the targeting of the Muslim community in wake of the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the nationwide agitation against it.

Similarly, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released its Annual Report for 2020 that paints a bleak picture of how India is treating her religious minorities. It had recommended that the US Government not only designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), but also impose targeted sanctions on Indian government agencies.

Following this on May 21, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR) and International Christian Concern (ICC) co-sponsored a virtual Congressional briefing titled “USCIRF Recommendations on India – The Next Steps.” During this briefing, similar concerns had been raised about the plight of religious minorities in India.

However, just hours after the US secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the report Indian authorities allegedly responded by declining to give visas to members of USCIRF stating they had no locus standi to make pronouncements on Indian citizens.

The entire International Religious Freedom Report (India) may be read here: 

Related:

European Parliament raises concerns about intimidation of activists in India

Continued and systematic vilification of minorities during lockdown: Report

Concerns about targeting of minorities in India raised at US Congressional Briefing

Designate India as ‘Country of Particular Concern’, impose sanctions: USCIRF

UN raises apprehensions over increase in hate speech and discrimination since adoption of CAA

The post US slams India yet again on subject of religious freedom appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A recently released report from United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) highlights the many issues that have arisen in the state of Assam in the past 5 years due to the updation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The report titled “The Religious Freedom Implications of the National Register of Citizens in India” is authored by Harrison Akins, a policy analyst. The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyse, and report on threats to religious freedom abroad.

The report delves into the history of NRC, speaks about the Nellie massacre, the Assam Accord and the current situation in Assam, all of which the alternative media has raised concerns about, time and again. The fact that this is being recognised by an American Commission as an issue of religious freedom, gives the issue the pedestal it has deserved.

The important issues highlighted in the report include the concerns of lower income families for whom presenting necessary documents to authorities was a challenge due to inadequate family record-keeping, illiteracy, or lack of money to travel to government offices or to file legal claims. It also identified how people were excluded from NRC due to “minor inconsistences in paperwork”.

Further, the report spoke about Foreigners Tribunals being quasi judicial bodies, the appointments to which have been loosened and how there is lack of transparency in their functioning. The report pointed out the growing concern that those who are declared foreigners will become stateless, in the absence of a repatriation treaty between India and Bangladesh and the decreasing number of deportations. It stated, the number of Bangladeshi nationals deported by India and accepted by Bangladesh has been steadily declining in recent years, falling from 5,234 in 2013 to only 51 in 2017.

The report raised some serious concerns about how the BJP “has taken steps that reflect an anti-Muslim bias – core to its staunch support of the NRC update in Assam” and has “indicated its intent to create a “religious test” for Indian citizenship that would favor Hindus and selected religious minorities but exclude Muslims”. It also states how divisive the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 (which lapsed due to this year’s Lok Sabha elections) is and how BJP leadership and the RSS have tried to push their anti-Muslim agenda in the country by name calling all Bengali Muslims, calling them “infiltrators” and claiming that no Bengali Hindu can be an illegal immigrant. The report also called out the bias of BJP leaders against the Muslim community by implying how the final list of NRC came a shock to the BJP leadership and how they cried foul, as many amongst the excluded were Bengali Hindus and it was a missed chance for the BJP to prove that all intruders in Assam are Muslims.

After briefly mentioning a few provisions from the CAB, the report stated, “The “illegal immigrant” label, and the potential statelessness that comes with it, would be reserved for Muslims.”

In conclusion, the report has highlighted how the process leading to the NRC update has been marked by violence over the past four decades and how “competing ethnic, religious, and political agendas clashing within north-eastern India, the potential for violence to erupt once again remains of concern”. The report concluded stating, “the NRC as a tool to target religious minorities and, in particular, to render Indian Muslims stateless has become one more example of the downward trend in religious freedom conditions within India.”

The post A United States Commission calls out Indian government’s bias against Muslim community appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The report states that the religious freedom in India continued to be on a downward trend in 2017 with India’s multicultural and multireligious society under severe threat due to an “increasingly exclusionary conception of national identity based on religion.”

The US report places India in the Tier 2 category which is defined as “nations in which the violations engaged in or tolerated by the government during 2017 are serious and characterized by at least one of the elements of the “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” CPC (Countries of Particular Concern) standard.”

India shares this position with 11 other countries including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Cuba, Iraq, Kazakhstan among others. CPC (Tier 1) countries are those which have witnessed “severe religious freedom violations” and include radical nations like Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Syria among others.

Key Findings:
According to the Census of India, 2011, 79.80% of our population is Hindu, 14.2% Muslims and 2.3% Christians. However, the report states that the past decade has witnessed severe cases of crimes and violence against non-Hindus (Muslims and Christians) and the lower caste Hindus (Dalits) at the hands of the Hindutva supremacists. Some of the key findings (particularly for the year 2017) of the report are as follows:
 

• Hindu-nationalist groups (both public and private actors) sought to “Saffronize” India through violence, intimidation and harassment against non-Hindus and Hindu Dalits.
• 1/3rd of state governments engaged in anti-conversion and/or anti-cow slaughter laws against non-Hindus, especially against families engaged in the dairy, leather, or beef trades for generations.
• While Article 48 of our Constitution prohibits slaughter of cow, but the report suggests that “cow protection lynch mobs are a new phenomenon with at least 10 victims lynched in 2017.” These perpetrators face impunity due to the backing of powerful sources.
• Severe cases of violence against Christians for alleged  proselytizing / forced conversion were witnessed. For instance, three Christians were arrested in 2017 in Khandwa district, MP for alleged forced conversions.
• Forced conversion of non-Hindus to Hinduism through mass “gharwapsi” ceremonies.
• FCRA licenses of several international missionary and human rights groups were cancelled or the entire NGO shut down on the grounds that they were engaging in activities “detrimental to national interest.” Strikingly, the majority of these organisations were political opponents of Modi administration, non-Hindu religious organisations,  especially Christian churches or missionary groups. Example- Compassion International which was shut down owing to the discriminatory way the FCRA has been applied against Christian groups
• Religious minorities not only face security issues but also lack of representation in the legislature. To give an instance, out of the 1,400 BJP members serving as ministers across state assemblies in 2017, only 4 were Muslims.
• The exaggeration and fake news by the media has led to extreme cases of violence. For instance, the media hyped the ‘Love Jihad’ issue which fueled the private citizens to commit horrific acts, including ShambhuLalRegar’s viral video, in which he hacked to death a Muslim man, Afrazul Khan, on camera for alleged conversion of Hindu women.
• States having the least religious freedom are- Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan (all BJP-ruled states in 2017 except Odisha and Karnataka).
• Instances of communal violence were often preceded by incitement to violence against minorities by politicians or religious leaders.

The role of RSS-BJP in affecting religious freedom:
The report explicitly states that the Hindutva groups headed by the RSS and the ruling regime, the BJP, are responsible for the growing incidence of violence and communal altercations. It is pertinent to note that the report forthrightly mentions BJP as a “Hindu-nationalist party.” Some of the key points mentioned in the report are:

• The RSS, VHP and the SanghParivar have actively led campaigns to “alienate non-Hindus or lower caste Hindus.”
• Modi administration has not addressed the rising problem of communal and mob violence.
• Inflammatory speeches by Modi’s own acolytes have led to lynchings and other violence in the past, however the regime hasn’t done enough to give justice to the victims.
• The Hindutva groups are concerned with the rising Muslim population “ which in their view necessitates their actions against the Muslim community,” even if that requires expulsion, killing or conversion.
• Members of the BJP have affiliations with the extremist groups and they speak a discriminatory language.
• RSS and other Hindutva groups have expanded the scope of their religious schools and are teaching their intolerant ideology to nearly four million students.
• The youth wing of the RSS has used violence and intimidation to silence the secular forces in colleges and universities.
• Hindutva-nationalists have attempted to erase or downplay the influence of non-Hindus in Indian history.

Some positive developments:
While the report is a grave cause of concern for all the secular forces of our nation, there is a small portion of it which continues to give one a ray of hope that our Constitutional principles can yet be safeguarded and upheld. The report throws light on instances where the “active and independent” Indian Judiciary protected the rights of religious minorities such as in the Hadiya case in which the Supreme Court upheld the right of a Hindu woman who had willingly converted to Muslim and married a Muslim man .

All in all, the report reveals the deterioration of religious freedom in India which is threatening our secular fabric. It’s direct mention of the Hindutva groups including the BJP being the cause of this deterioration is something which may not go down well with the ruling regime, considering the current US-India tariff war, despite the report being published by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan U.S. government advisory body.

Interestingly, the report gives a cautionary note stating “Massive violent incidents are more likely to reoccur if the Modi Administration and state governments continue to fail to punish individuals who engage in violence and incitement to violence against religious minorities.”
The India Chapter of the report can be read here.

Related Articles:

1. Role of the Hindu Right in Communalising Politics and Politicising Religion
2. How communalism threatens secularism in India with majoritarian support
3. Dalits, Muslims targeted across India: Will Modi walk the talk on inclusion and diversity?

The post “Conditions for religious minorities deteriorated due to Hindu-nationalist groups”: US Religious Freedom Report, 2018 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released an annual report that examines the state of religious freedom in several countries around the world, including India. The countries are categorised into two tiers, with India once again being placed in Tier 2, “for engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations that meet at least one of the elements of the “systematic, ongoing, egregious” standard for designation as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA),” the report states. In its key findings, it notes that India saw religious freedom conditions continued on a downward trend in 2018, noting that last year, “approximately one-third of state governments increasingly enforced anti-con- version and/or anti-cow slaughter laws discriminatorily against non-Hindus and Dalits alike.”

The report adds that, in 2018, “approximately one-third of state governments increasingly enforced anti-con- version and/or anti-cow slaughter laws discriminatorily against non-Hindus and Dalits alike,” and notes that Christians were also the targets were mob violence “under accusations of forced or induced religious conversion.” Moreover, the report notes that in cases involving mob violence against a person over false accusations of forced conversion of cow slaughter, “police investigations and prosecutions often were not adequately pursued.”

In its key findings for India, the report takes note of the Supreme Court of India’s highlighting of “deteriorating conditions for religious freedom in some states” in 2018, stating that the court concluded that “certain state governments were not doing enough to stop violence against religious minorities, and in some extreme cases, impunity was being granted to criminals engaging in violence.” The report also highlights Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on these issues, saying he “seldom made statements decrying mob violence,” and noting that “certain members of his political party have affiliations with Hindu extremist groups and used inflammatory language about religious minorities publicly.” These were some of the points the report notes to explain why India was once again termed a Tier 2 country.

The report outlines recommendations to the United States’ government, saying that it should “press the Indian government to allow a USCIRF delegation to visit the country and meet with stakeholders to evaluate conditions for freedom of religion or belief in India”. It calls for working with the Indian government to formulate a years-long strategy to curb religion-driven hate crimes by “pressing state governments” to prosecute public figures, including government officials, “who incite violence against religious minority groups through public speeches or articles.” The recommendations for this strategy also include bolstering the training and capacity of state and central police forces to prevent and punish instances of religious violence, encouraging the passage of the Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and assisting the law ministry to work with states to increase prosecution of hate crimes and hate speech targeting religious minorities, among others.

The report says that the conditions for religious freedom have declined in the last decade, stating, “A multifaceted campaign by Hindu nationalist groups like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS), Sangh Parivar, and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) to alienate non-Hindus or lower-caste Hindus is a significant contributor to the rise of religious violence and persecution.” It notes that in 2017, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) “reported that communal violence increased significantly during 2016,” highlighting that human rights organisations criticised the NCRB last year not adequately including data on mob violence or lynching. Given this, “the NCRB delayed its 2018 report to collect data on nearly 30 new crime categories, which will include hate crimes, lynching, and crimes based on fake news,” the report states.

The report notes that in 2018, Minister of State at the Ministry of Home Affairs Hansraj Ahir told Parliament that 111 people were killed and 2,384 people were wounded in 822 communal clashes in 2017. By contrast, in 2016, 86 people were killed and 2,321 were injured in 703 clashes, the report offers, later adding that independent organisations that monitor hate crimes found that 2018 saw more than 90 religion-based hate crimes that resulted in 30 deaths and many more injuries. However, the report also notes that in December 2018, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that communal attacks had declined 12%, compared to the peak in 2017.

The report also notes how “institutional challenges” have contributed to religious freedom concerns, with “the police and courts overwhelmed,” and highlighting how “worsening income inequality has left more Indians suffering from poverty and has exacerbated his- torical conditions of inequality for certain religious and social minorities.”

The report takes note of anti-conversion laws that are in force in seven states in India, noting that the fundamental right to freedom of religion “includes the ability to manifest one’s beliefs through expression intended to persuade another individual to change his or her religious beliefs or affiliation voluntarily.” The report outlines that in 2018, anti-conversion laws were primarily enforced against Christians and Muslims who were proselytising, and says that religious minority leaders and others were also arrested under these laws. It highlights the case of Hadiya, whose marriage had been embroiled in accusations of ‘love jihad’. The report does not mention this phrase, but takes note of “inflammatory allegations of an organized campaign to coerce Hindu women to marry Muslim men and convert to Islam,” stating that the National Investigation Agency investigated this alleged campaign and eventually concluded that there was no evidence for it. Meanwhile, the report mentions ‘ghar wapsi’ ceremonies, in which those born as Hindus who converted to another religion are converted back, stating that “In some cases, these conversion ceremonies reportedly involve force or coercion,” but noting that it is difficult to determine if such conversions are voluntary or not.

Notably, the report, while discussing the role of Hindutva/Hindu extremist groups, highlights that “moderate and extreme forces within the Hindutva movement point to the rise in the Muslim population from constituting 10 percent of the national population in 1951 to 14 percent in 2011, which in their view necessitates “mitigation” against the growing Muslim community.” It later takes note of the fact that numerous cities have been renamed, such as Allahabad and Faizabad, abandoning the names that had been given during the Mughal period, stating that this “has been perceived as an effort to erase or downplay the influence of non-Hindus in Indian his- tory and as an attack on Muslims within India today.”

The report also discusses cow vigilantism, noting that “cow protection” mobs, “a new phenomenon,” have engaged in more than 100 attacks since May 2015 that have led to 44 deaths and around 300 people being injured. “In 2018 alone, cow protection lynch mobs killed at least 13 people and injured 57 in 31 incidents.” It also takes note of hate crimes against religious minorities, including anti-Muslim rhetoric in West Bengal in April 2018, threats against Christians in Tamil Nadu in October 2018.

Per the report, impunity for large-scale incidents of communal violence persists in India, “without proper accountability or recompense.” Probes and prosecution of those allegedly responsible have been “ineffective” or “absent,” and victims have said that the government has not adequately helped in rebuilding “destroyed neighborhoods, homes, and places of worship.” The report emphasises that while the Supreme Court and fact-finding commissions “have noted common characteristics and causes of such violence, including incitement to violence against religious minorities by politicians or religious leaders,” the failure “to address those common characteristics and causes or to hold perpetrators accountable have contributed to a culture of impunity for such violence.”

Other than incidents and threats that are communal, the report also discusses the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 1976, and details how it has been used to target non-governmental organisations “with missionary and human rights portfolios,” who have been banned from operating in India. It notes that in November 2018, the government “demanded that 1,775 organizations provide further explanation for their failure to submit use of foreign funds over the last six years; these organizations included many non-Hindu religious groups, some Hindu trusts managing major temples, and secular human rights groups.” The report explains that some Hindus, including some “Hindutva extremists,” “perceive Christian missionaries converting Dalits to be particularly threatening, as there are nearly 200 million Dalits in India,” adding, “Many observers assert that it was this fear of mass conversion that led to the 2017 shutdown of Com- passion International, a U.S.-based Christian charity, which provided services to nearly 150,000 Indian children.”

The report also has a section on Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), which has jeopardised the Indian citizenship of more than four million people. “Widespread concerns have been raised that the NRC update is an intentional effort to discriminate and/ or has the effect of discriminating against Muslims, and that the discretion given to local authorities in the verification process and in identifying perceived foreigners to be excluded from the draft list will be abused,” it notes. It also highlights the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, saying that “concerns about the targeting of Muslims through the citizenship process were separately exacerbated” by its introduction and passage in the Lok Sabha; the bill, which would have provided citizenship to migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan “as long as they were not Muslim,” was dropped in the Rajya Sabha in February 2019, after the reporting period.

The report also discusses religious freedom for women, highlighting the Kathua case, in which an eight-year-old child was “abducted, gang-raped, and murdered as a message and threat to her Muslim nomadic community in Kashmir.” It notes that a priest, his son and a special police officer were charged in the case, and other police officials were charged with covering up the crimes. The report notes that while many protested the incident, “several others organized in support of the men charged, including members of the BJP.” It also highlights the Sabarimala Temple case, saying that following the Supreme Court’s ruling that adult women be permitted to enter the temple, “women attempting to enter the temple were physically attacked and others who publicly stated that they would try to enter the temple received hate mes- sages including death threats both online and in-person.”

The report also mentions a handful of positive developments with regards to religious freedom in India, such as the decline in communal violence in 2018, and the Supreme Court’s directive to the state and central governments to tackle mob violence, asking them to “pursue an 11-point plan, including compensation to hate crime victims, fast-tracking prosecutions, assigning senior police officers to deal with communal issues, and other provisions.” The report also mentions some progress in mob violence cases, citing June 2017’s Alimuddin Ansari lynching case, in which 11 accused were sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2018. Per the report, the Ministry of Minority Affairs was also granted a 12% increase in its budget.

Separately, Tenzin Dorjee, chair of the USCIRF, wrote a note in which he disagreed that religious freedom in India was deteriorating, stating, “While India must address issues related to religious freedom, I respectfully dissent on the views that India’s religious freedom conditions continued on a downward trend, the government allowed and encouraged mob violence against religious minorities, and some states are involved in ‘systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.’” He notes that in the 30+ years he spent living in India as Tibetan refugee, he “mostly witnessed the best of India and sometimes worst due to intractable interreligious conflicts.” He acknowledges that “religious divides and power struggles” resulted in the Partition of India and Pakistan, and also “contribute to egregious violations of religious freedom and tragedies,” but says that in spite of these concerns, “India exists as a multifaith and secular country.” Dorjee says that as a Tibetan refugee, “the most vulnerable minority among all minorities” in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, where he lived, he “experienced full religious freedom,” citing China’s systematic attacks on the Tibetan community in comparison. Dorjee also highlighted isolated incidents of religious harmony, such as a Muslim village donating land and money to build a Hindu temple, and a Hindu head priest carrying a Dalit youth on his shoulders into the Chilkur Balaji Temple’s inner sanctum amid cheers from a huge crowd. He takes note of Nathowal village in Punjab, where Hindu and Sikh communities helped rebuild an old mosque, and Muslims and Hindus helped work at a Sikh gurudwara. “People in this village reported to the Times of India that they celebrated together annual multifaith festivals such as Diwali, Dusshera, Rakhi, Eid, and Gurupurab,” Dorjee writes, opining that such “stories speak for India’s multi- faith civilization, religious freedom, and interreligious harmony.” He ends with an appeal to the Indian government “to continuously respect religious freedom and strive to promote India as a vibrant country of and for the multifaith people.”

The complete report may be read here. The section on India is on pages 174-181.
https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2019USCIRFAnnualReport.pdf

The post Religious freedom conditions in India on a downward trend in 2018: US Commission on International Religious Freedom appeared first on SabrangIndia.