South Asia Human Rights Journalist Association

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Commissioner, David Curry, during a Congressional Briefing on Capitol Hill said that the US State Department’s decision to exclude India from its gallery of global religious freedom offenders was a “baldfaced political manoeuvre” and “shameful”. The briefing was organised by Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC). He also maintained that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department “did not honor the law” in its refusal to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern, despite the fact that India “clearly” qualifies as such.

 

David Curry expressed his deep frustration with the US State Department after its failure to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). “I cannot tell you how frustrated I, and all of us at USCIRF, are that the State Department did not take our recommendation to designate India as a CPC,” he said. “India clearly meets the threshold of a CPC as set out in the International Religious Freedom Act… This was a baldfaced political maneuver to ignore what’s happening in India. That’s why it’s so shameful,” he added.

On November 22, the USCIRF released a Country Update report on India, expressing concerns over rise in religious freedom violations and reiterating its recommendation that the State Department designate India as a CPC. Shortly after, Secretary Blinken and the State Department released the official CPC list for 2022, failing to include India despite multiple warnings from USCIRF.

“We reminded the State Department… [that] when the standards of the law are clearly met, they must designate the country as a CPC. They cannot waive action on the designation. They can only waive action once the designation is made, and that can only be done based on the important national interests of the United States,” David Curry said.

He also addressed the “double standard” apparent in the State Department’s willingness to list other US allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as CPCs while India is consistently left off the list. “We have to keep it real that [the Indian government] is spending a lot of money here, they’re spending a lot of time demonising anybody who speaks out on these subjects. And there’s a ripple effect of fear amongst the political class,” he told a crowd of people including congressional staffers, other government officials and members of the civil society.

The USCIRF Commissioner maintaining that speaking against Hindu extremism is “not a denigration of Indian culture,” said, “We understand the values and the cultural importance of the Indian people, but this point is not separate from that. It has to be addressed. We need the Indian government to stop encouraging the targeting of religious minorities.”

David Curry further thanked Indian American Muslim Council for organising the briefing, and called IAMC’s newly released report, “Genocide Convention and the Persecution of Muslims in India,” a “very important” document.

The briefing was moderated by Nadine Maenza, who served as USCIRF’s Vice Chair from 2018-2020 and Chair from 2020-2022. While commenting on the State Department’s decision to not include India on its list of CPCs for this year, Ms. Maenza said, “This is disappointing, and frankly unacceptable, on many counts.”

“I cannot emphasise enough how far past time it is for officials in the State Department and the US government as a whole to stop skirting around the issue of Muslim persecution in India. India is our ally, and just as importantly, it is the world’s largest democracy. And the systematic persecution of 200 million religious minorities in a democracy is simply unacceptable,” she said.

Dr Gregory Stanton, founder of the global watchdog organisation Genocide Watch, spoke on “the very worrying signs of genocide underway in India,” calling on the US government to be vocal in condemning the actions of  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We need to make very clear to Mr Modi that he’s not going to get away with this kind of persecution of Muslims,” he said.

Speaking specifically on India’s authoritarian crackdown on Muslim-majority Kashmir, Dr Ather Zia, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern Colorado, stated that “widespread xenophobia and Islamophobia, fueled by Hindu supremacy and ethnonationalism,” are at the heart of human rights abuses in the region.

“Kashmiris exist in a state of siege, caught amidst a dense web of Indian soldiers, checkpoints, barbed wires, bunkers, military convoys, trucks, drones, armored vehicles, garrisons, secret prisons, jails, and military bases,” Zia said.

Sunita Viswanath, Co-Founder of Hindus for Human Rights, said the State Department can and should designate Indian officials, like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who have committed religious freedom violations as Individuals of Particular Concern, effectively banning these individuals from entering or conducting business in the US”.

Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of IAMC said, “If there’s one thing the world should have learned from the Holocaust, it is that silence is complicity. That is why it’s of the utmost importance that Secretary Blinken and the State Department listen to the victims and designate India as a CPC in 2023.”

The briefing was cosponsored by Genocide Watch, World Without Genocide, Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, International Christian Concern, Jubilee Campaign, 21Wilberforce, Dalit Solidarity Forum, New York State Council of Churches, Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America, India Civil Watch International, International Commission for Dalit Rights, Center for Pluralism, American Muslim Institution, Students Against Hindutva Ideology, International Society for Peace and Justice, The Humanism Project and Association of Indian Muslims of America.