The US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) annual report 2015 is an egregious assault on India’s dignity as a sovereign nation, especially the tasteless reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi being the only person who’s tourist visa was revoked by the State Department in 2005 under a clause in the Immigration and Nationality Act which made any foreign government official who “was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom”, ineligible for a visa. Presumably the perpetrators of extreme brutalities against the populations of Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan have a free pass.
Boldly asserting, not merely alleging, that “Mr Modi was complicit in anti-Muslim riots” in Gujarat in 2002 – for which no evidence has been adduced in any court through which the cases have been dragged – the report duplicitously appreciates his assurance, at a function to honour Indian Catholic saints in February 2015, that his government would ensure complete freedom of faith without coercion or undue influence.
More insidiously, it cites President Barack Obama’s January 2015 visit to India, where he breached diplomatic decorum and accused India of rising religious intolerance: “religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targetted by other people of faith…. acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji…” The Commission underlines its bias by applauding that in February 2015, at the US National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama again made unwarranted allusions to religious freedom in India, urging the country to not be “splintered along the lines of religious faith.”
Politically, the Commission wants the decade long strategic relationship between the two countries reshaped into Viceroy-like status for Washington, which should “integrate concern for religious freedom into bilateral contacts with India, including the framework of future Strategic Dialogues.” This includes capacity-building of Central and State police agencies to prohibit and punish cases of religious violence and protect victims and witnesses. While brazenly intruding into our domestic affairs, the Commission forgot that in India (as elsewhere), punishment is meted out by courts of law, and not the police!
If such audacious meddling was not enough, the USCIRF recommends that the US embassy in India take special interest in matters related to religious freedom and human rights. It urges the Ambassador and diplomats to tour communally sensitive areas or places were incidents may have occurred, and meet with religious communities, local government leaders, and police. It proposes that the US mentor a programme where impartial government officials, interfaith religious leaders, human rights advocates, and legal experts discuss and recommend actions to promote religious tolerance and protect religious minorities from intimidation and violence. Given the rising incidence of violence by police against unarmed Afro-American citizens, may we ask just how many inter-racial meetings have been held across American cities and towns?
The end game, of course, is conversion. The report urges the US Government to pressure the Government of India to ask States with anti-conversion laws (passed mainly by non-BJP governments to maintain public order and prevent exploitation of tribal and backward groups by evangelicals) to either repeal or amend the statutes to conform to US demands. While grudgingly conceding that unethical tactics are used to secure conversions of vulnerable groups and that these exacerbate communal relations, the Commission bemoans the fact that the laws essentially protect native faith groups from predation.
Since its creation by the US Congress in 1998, successive USCIRF reports have never appreciated India’s open door policy towards evangelicals who come, ostensibly for interfaith dialogue or to meet the ‘flock’, but actually to gauge opportunities for conversion. Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Cardinal Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, has visited India a number of times. Most recently, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, was in India. His designation makes his mission explicit. Even Pope John Paul II visited India twice; he openly called for the conversion of the continent of Asia! There have also been visits by the Grand Imam of Mecca and numerous other dignitaries of both monotheistic traditions; the scope for genuine complaints is rather limited.
Interestingly, continuing the divisive politics of the British Raj, the Commission asserts that the Indian Constitution’s refusal to recognise Sikhism as a distinct religion denies Sikhs access to social services or employment and educational preferences available to other religious minority communities and to scheduled caste Hindus, and that this discrimination also affects Buddhists and Jains. The authors of the report cannot be unaware that this is false.
Yet the report adds that Sikhs are often harassed and pressured to reject their distinct religious practices and beliefs, such as dress, unshorn hair, and the carrying of religious items, including the kirpan. One is speechless at the untruth. While specific instances of communal unrest cited may be true – the attacks on churches proved to be criminal trespass by lay members of the community – the document as a whole is a “drain inspector’s report”.
The bottom-line is that the USCIRF, whatever its pretensions, is a political entity that caters to American strategic interests, using religion as a tool. Its greatest (self-claimed) success was to nudge the Bush administration to secure the secession of South Sudan!
20 October 2015