Another damning US report on the state of minorities in India
The US Department of State (that is, its foreign ministry) released its annual report on international religious freedom on June 2. The report, released to the Congress (as the US parliament is called), alleges that all through 2021, atrocities on minorities in India, including killings, assaults and intimidation, took place.
The 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom, as the report is called, “covers government policies violating religious belief and practices of groups, religious denominations and individuals, and U.S. policies to promote religious freedom around the world.”
The section on India puts forth the report’s views based on widely-available media reports, instead of making any direct claims.
As a sort of backgrounder, the report mentions that “[t]en of 28 states have laws restricting religious conversions”, and that “[f]our state governments have laws imposing penalties against so-called forced religious conversions for the purpose of marriage”, adding though that “some state high courts have dismissed cases charged under this law”.
“Attacks on members of religious minority communities, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, occurred throughout the year. These included incidents of ‘cow vigilantism’ against non-Hindus based on allegations of cow slaughter or trade in beef,” says the India section.
It extensively quotes views of NGOs and minority institutions regarding attacks on minorities and the constraining of foreign funding and usage of funds through amendments to the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act.
The report notes the using of those amendments to suspend the “FCRA licenses of 179 NGOs, including some that were faith-based” and also, “[a]ccording to media reports, FCRA licenses of 5,789 NGOs, including hundreds of faith-based organizations, lapsed after the government said the organizations did not apply for renewal in time”.
It mentions Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath’s pubic statement last September “that earlier governments in Uttar Pradesh had favoured Muslim constituents in benefits distribution”.
Interestingly, it also mentions that Mohan Bhagwat, “the chief of the RSS, which is commonly considered to be the ideological parent to India’s ruling party BJP” had said last July that “[t]here can never be any dominance of either Hindus or Muslims (in the country); there can only be the dominance of Indians”.
Just like in the case of the US religious freedom report earlier, the Indian government has rejected this report too, referring to its content as “ill-informed comments” and alleging “vote bank politics” in international relations.
