The USCIRF urged the White House to designate India as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations” of religious freedom. This is the fifth time the commission has made this recommendation.
The entity said, “Indian officials have repeatedly employed hateful and derogatory rhetoric and misinformation to perpetuate false narratives about religious minorities, inciting widespread violence, lynchings, and demolition of places of worship.
In its 2024 Annual Report, published on October 2nd, 2024, USCIRF recommended that the US Department of State designate India as a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in particularly severe religious freedom violations,” it said in its report, authored by senior policy analyst Sema Hasan.
The report added that religious freedom in India worsened in 2024 particularly ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. There was use of discriminatory state-level legislation, propagation of hateful rhetoric, with the BJP government attempting to implement election promises negatively impacting religious minorities and their ability to practice their faith, it added.
It added that implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC), expropriation and demolition of places of worship and Muslim property, Places of Worship Act, Waqf Amendment Bill, Uniform Civil Code, while attacking religious minorities, spreading hate speech, misinformation and disinformation, cracking down on civil society and faith-based organisations, replacing India’s criminal code, were justified by government officials as necessary to protect India’s ‘cultural and linguistic heritage’.
The commission recommended several policy measures to the U.S. government to address these violations.
In response to the report’s findings, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal dismissed the USCIRF report as “biased” and termed it “malicious,” accusing it of pushing a political agenda and misrepresenting facts about India.
