Washington, May 16 : The International Religious Freedom report released by the US administration has said that attacks on religious minorities, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, in the name of cow protection, conversion, interfaith relationship and communal violence occurred throughout last year in India.
The State Department’s 2022 report dwells at length on India’s human rights violations against religious minorities. The report raised issues of house demolitions by the administration, police atrocities, arrest of minorities over conversion, the continued hijab ban in Karnataka colleges, hate speeches, discriminatory policies and draconian laws.
“There were numerous reports during the year of violence by law enforcement authorities against members of religious minorities in multiple states, including plainclothes police in Gujarat publicly flogging four Muslim men accused of injuring Hindu worshippers during a festival in October, and the Madhya Pradesh state government bulldozing Muslim-owned homes and shops following communal violence in Khargone in April,” noted the report.
According to the report, there were also cases of communal violence between religious groups. The National Crimes Record Bureau reported 378 instances of communal violence in 2021 (most recent data) compared to 857 in 2020. Religious leaders, academics, political figures, and activists were also accused of making inflammatory public remarks against religious minorities.
Illustrating the examples of inflammatory remarks against the minorities, the report noted that Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, described as a Hindu religious extremist, urging Hindus to “take up arms” against the threat of religious conversion and Muslim rule in the country; BJP state politician Haribhushan Thakur Bachaul, who said that Muslims should be “set ablaze”; P.C. George, a former legislator in Kerala state, who encouraged Hindus and Christians to not eat at restaurants run by Muslims; and BJP’s former Rajasthan legislator Gyan Dev Ahuja, who encouraged Hindus to kill Muslims suspected of cow slaughter.
During an interaction with media persons, a senior US official said that the US administration has urged the Indian government to condemn violence and hold accountable those perpetuating crimes against religious minorities.
“We’ll continue to speak directly with our colleagues and counterparts in India regarding these concerns. We’re continuing to encourage the government to condemn violence and hold accountable and protect all groups who engage in rhetoric that’s dehumanising towards religious minorities and all groups who engage in violence against religious communities and other communities in India,” said the US official.
The official stated that the international community, including human rights organisations, has drawn significant attention to the situation in India. The US Holocaust Museum continues to draw considerable attention to the human rights situation in India and lists it as one of the top countries of concern with regard to the potential for mass killings there. “So we’ll continue to work very closely with our civil society colleagues on the ground, with courageous journalists that are working every day to document some of these abuses, and we’ll continue speaking directly with our counterparts in India to address these issues,” said the official.
According to the report, 13 of the India’s 28 states – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana (as of March), Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka (as of September), Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh have laws restricting religious conversion.