The Indian government has strongly rejected a report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), calling the organisation “biased” and accusing it of pursuing a “political agenda.”
On Thursday, 3 October 2024, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) responded to media queries regarding the USCIRF's latest report on religious freedom in India. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated, “Our views on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) are well known. It is a biased organisation with a political agenda. It continues to misrepresent facts and peddles a motivated narrative about India.”
The USCIRF, a bipartisan US federal government agency based in Washington DC, had released its 2024 annual report, which included a country update on India. The report alleged that religious freedom conditions in India have “continued to worsen throughout 2024, particularly in the months prior to and immediately following the country's national elections.”
The commission recommended that the US State Department designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” for “engaging in severe religious freedom violations.” The report highlighted various issues, including changes in India's legal framework, such as the strengthening of “discriminatory legislation like state-level anti-conversion and anti-terrorism laws”, the implementation of the 2019 Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), and the passing of a state-level Uniform Civil Code (UCC) bill in Uttarakhand.
The USCIRF report also raised concerns about the alleged expropriation and demolition of places of worship and Muslim property, the use of anti-conversion laws to target religious minorities, and the exploitation of anti-cow slaughter laws by vigilante groups.
Additionally, the report claimed that political officials “wielded hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric” against Muslims in the lead-up to the June 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It stated, “Prime Minister Modi repeatedly claimed that the opposition party would ‘wipe out Hindu faith from the country and… perpetuated hateful stereotypes about Muslims, referring to them as 'infiltrators’”.
The commission also highlighted incidents of violence against Christians, reporting that “161 incidents of violence against Christians in India were reported” from January to March alone. These incidents allegedly ranged from “violent attacks on churches and prayer meetings to physical assaults, harassment, and false allegations of forced conversion.”
In response to these allegations, MEA spokesperson Jaiswal firmly rejected the report, stating, “We reject this malicious report, which only serves to discredit USCIRF further.” He added, “We would urge USCIRF to desist from such agenda-driven efforts. The USCIRF would also be well advised to utilise its time more productively on addressing human rights issues in the United States.”
This is not the first time India has criticised the USCIRF's reports. The government has consistently denied visas to USCIRF members since the previous Manmohan Singh-led administration, citing “interference” in internal affairs.
The US State Department has so far refrained from accepting the USCIRF's recommendations to designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern”. India and several Indian-American groups have previously accused the USCIRF of biased reporting aimed at maligning the country.
