The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has given new information about India’s religious freedom. It has been said that India’s religious freedom situation has collapsed.
USCIRF released the report on Wednesday. However, India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the report as ‘biased’.
The summary of the report, published on the website of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, states that this report highlights how extremists have killed, tortured, arbitrarily arrested religious leaders, and demolished their homes and places of worship throughout 2024.
It further stated that this incident is a particularly serious violation of religious freedom. It also highlighted the use of disinformation and disinformation, including hate speech by government officials, to incite violent attacks against religious minorities and their places of worship.
The Commission on International Religious Freedom’s report describes how India’s legal framework has changed and been enforced to target religious minorities and disenfranchise them, including the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Uniform Civil Code, and several state-level anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws.
In the report, USCIRF advised the US State Department to list India as a ‘Country of Special Concern’ or CPC. Because India is involved in systematic, ongoing and serious violations of religious freedom. It has advised the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take initiative in these matters.
Meanwhile, India strongly rejected the USCIRF report. The country’s foreign ministry dismissed the report as “biased” and accused the USCIRF of spreading “objective rhetoric”.
In this regard, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs of India Randhir Jaswal said, “Our views on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) are well known. It is a biased organization with a political agenda. We reject this biased report, which only brings USCIRF into disrepute.’
