For the third year in a row, India’s name has been recommended for inclusion in the Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government agency that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) abroad; makes policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress; and tracks the implementation of these recommendations.

According to the 2022 report, USCIRF has recommended to the State Department that 15 countries be designated CPCs because their governments engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations.” These include 10 that the State Department designated as CPCs in November 2021: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—as well as five others: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Syria, and Vietnam.

India had first been recommended for CPC designation in September 2020 by the US Congress-constituted federal body. However, when the State Department made its announcement of nations that were designated CPC in December 2020, India was missing from the list. In May 2021, for the second year running, the USCIRF’s annual report recommended that India be designated as a CPC.

This year’s report says, “In 2021, religious freedom conditions in India significantly worsened. During the year, the Indian government escalated its promotion and enforcement of policies—including those promoting a Hindu-nationalist agenda—that negatively affect Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and other religious minorities. The government continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu state at both the national and state levels through the use of both existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s religious minorities.”

It further raises concerns about treatment of dissenters saying, “In 2021, the Indian government repressed critical voices— especially religious minorities and those reporting on and advocating for them—through harassment, investigation, detention, and prosecution under laws such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Sedition Law. The UAPA and Sedition Law have been invoked to create an increasing climate of intimidation and fear in an effort to silence anyone speaking out against the government.”

Specifically on the subject of human rights defender Father Stan Swamy who died in custody and would have been 85 today had he been alive, the report said, “Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and longtime human rights defender of Adivasis, Dalits, and other marginalized communities, was arrested on dubious UAPA charges in October 2020 and never tried. He died in custody in July 2021 despite repeated concerns raised about his health.” The report also mentions the persecution of “journalists and human rights advocates documenting religious persecution and violence, including Khurram Parvez, a prominent Muslim human rights advocate who has reported on abuses in Jammu and Kashmir.”

It also mentions the regimes strong arm tactics against NGOs by booking them under trumped up charges for violation of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA). “Numerous groups that document religious freedom violations or aid marginalized religious communities have been forced to shut down operations in the country given the restrictions under FCRA that regulate access to and reporting on foreign funds and prohibit their receipt for any activities purportedly “detrimental to the national interest.” At the close of 2021, the licenses of nearly 6,000 organizations, including religious and humanitarian organizations such as Missionaries of Charity and Oxfam India, were not renewed under the FCRA (after an outcry, Missionaries of Charity’s license was renewed in January 2022),” says the report.

The USCIRF also took the Indian government head on for “continued enforcement of anti-conversion laws against non-Hindus,” which it says “has created a culture of impunity for nationwide campaigns of threats and violence by mobs and vigilante groups, including against Muslims and Christians accused of conversion activities.” The report says, “Anti-conversion laws have increasingly focused on interfaith relationships. Existing laws in approximately one-third of India’s 28 states limit or prohibit religious conversion.”

The USCIRF has recommended to the State Department to:

• Designate India as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA);

• Impose targeted sanctions 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; and

• Advance human rights of all religious communities in India and promote religious freedom, dignity, and interfaith dialogue through bilateral and multilateral forums and agreements, such as the ministerial of the Quadrilateral.

It has also recommended that the U.S. Congress should “Raise religious freedom issues in the U.S.-India bilateral relationship and highlight concerns through hearings, briefings, letters, and congressional delegations.”

The entire report, with an India specific section on page 20-21, may be read here: 

Related:

Fr Stan Swamy, Khurram Parvez, Siddique Kappan on USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief victims list

Will the US tag India a ‘country of particular concern’?

HRW World Report 2022 showcases India’s worsening Human Rights situation

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“India’s pluralistic tradition faces serious challenges in a number of its states. During the past few years, religious tolerance has deteriorated and religious freedom violations have increased in some areas of India. To reverse this negative trajectory, the Indian and state governments must align their laws with both the country’s constitutional commitments and international human rights standards.” 

While acknowledging that, “India is a religiously diverse and democratic society with a constitution that provides legal equality for its citizens irrespective of their religion and prohibits religion-based discrimination, the reality is quite different”.

These were the observations of Thomas J Reese, SJ, Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) while releasing a new USCIRF-sponsored report, Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by Religious Minorities in India, prepared by Dr. Iqtidar Karamat Cheema, Director of the Institute for Leadership and Community Development, based in England.

The report is based on an analysis of India’s constitution and national and state laws that violate the religious freedom of both minority communities and Hindu Dalits.

The study highlights opportunities for the Indian government to revise laws so that they would align with the country’s constitution and international human rights standards. The study also makes recommendations to the US government on ways to promote religious freedom in India.

Key findings of the report:

• In 2015, religious tolerance deteriorated and religious freedom violations increased in India. Minority communities, especially Christians, Muslims and Sikhs, experience numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment and violence, largely at the hands of Hindu nationalist groups.
• Members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tacitly supported these groups and used religiously-divisive language to further inflame tensions.
• These issues, combined with longstanding problems of police bias and judicial inadequacies, have created a pervasive climate of impunity, where religious minority communities feel increasingly insecure, with no recourse when religiously-motivated crimes occur.
• In the last year (2015), “higher caste” individuals and local political leaders also prevented Hindus considered part of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Dalits) from entering religious temples.
• Additionally, the national government or state governments applied several laws to restrict religious conversion, cow slaughter, and foreign funding of NGOs.
• Moreover, an Indian constitutional provision deeming Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains to be Hindus contradicts international standards of freedom of religion or belief.
• Based on these concerns, USCIRF again places India on Tier 2, where it has been since 2009. However, USCIRF notes that India is on a negative trajectory in terms of religious freedom.
• USCIRF will continue to monitor the situation closely during the year ahead to determine if India should be recommended to the US State Department for designation as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) for systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.     

Further information on the status of religious freedom in India may be accessed here.
2016 Annual Report.
  
 
 

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