India hits back at downgrade by US panel

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 28

India on Tuesday hit back at a  panel of the US Congress, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), that downgraded it from “Tier II” to “Tier I” or “countries with particular concern” with respect to religious freedom.

Effectively, its internal ranking has put India at par with countries such as Pakistan, Russia, China, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reacted sarcastically to India being categorised as a “country of particular concern” by saying, “We regard it as an organisation of particular concern and will treat it accordingly.”

MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastav referred to the split in USCIRF’s ranks over downgrading India by pointing out that “it has not been able to carry its own Commissioners in its endeavour”.

He added that though its biased comments against India are not new, on this occasion, “misrepresentation has reached new levels”.

“Perhaps the steepest, and most alarming, deterioration in religious freedom conditions was in India, the largest democracy in the world,” noted USCIRF Vice Chair Nadine Maenza while releasing the annual report for 2020. “We are seeing impunity for violence by non-state actors committed against religious minorities,” said USCIRF Chair Tony Perkins.

If the US government is inclined to act on the USCIRF’s recommendations, it can take action on the basis of three laws – the International Religious Freedom Act, the Frank Wolf Act and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

In case of India, USCIRF is learnt to be focused on the Magnitsky Act that authorises the US government to sanction those it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets and ban them from entering the US.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has routinely rejected observations from USCIRF and has doubted its even-handedness besides pointing out these amounted to interference in India’s internal affairs.

The USCIRF has been critical about the Kashmir lockdown, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Delhi riots and the campaign against a Muslim sector.

The USCIRF has frequently timed its statements on the eve of a major Indo-US engagement. A few days before US President Donald Trump’s visit to India, USCIRF released a factsheet that said the CAA was a “significant downward trend in religious freedom” in India. The USCIRF also criticised the Delhi riots that began when Trump was in India, and urged the Modi government to protect religious minorities.