NEW DELHI: India on Thursday came down hard on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and said it continues to publish its propaganda on the country "masquerading" as part of an annual report.
In an unusually sharp reaction to the USCIRF's latest report that has criticised India for alleged violations of religious freedom, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the organisation is known to be a "biased" entity with a political agenda.
"The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is known as a biased organisation with a political agenda. They continue to publish their propaganda on India masquerading as part of an annual report," Jaiswal said.
"We really have no expectation that the USCIRF will even seek to understand India's diverse, pluralistic and democratic ethos," he added.
"Their efforts to interfere in the largest electoral exercise of the world will never succeed," Jaiswal said at his weekly media briefing.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is a US federal government commission created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Earlier on Wednesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) which alleged that last year, Indian government failed to address communal violence disproportionately affecting Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Jews, and Adivasis (indigenous peoples).
"In 2023, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate. The government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reinforced discriminatory nationalist policies, perpetuated hateful rhetoric, and failed to address communal violence disproportionately affecting Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Jews, and Adivasis (indigenous peoples)," it said.
"Continued enforcement of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws resulted in the arbitrary detention, monitoring, and targeting of religious minorities and those advocating on their behalf," the report said.
"Both the news media and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) reporting on religious minorities were subjected to strict monitoring under FCRA regulations. In February 2023, India's Ministry of Home Affairs suspended the FCRA licence of the Centre for Policy Research, an NGO dedicated to reporting on social issues and state capacity, including discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities," the USCIRF report continued.
"Similarly, authorities raided the offices and homes of NewsClick journalists, including Teesta Setalvad for her reporting on anti-Muslim violence during the 2002 Gujarat riots," the report added.
The USCIRF report also criticised the Union government over its handling of the ethnic violence in Manipur last year. "In June 2023, more than 500 churches and two synagogues were destroyed and over 70,000 people displaced during clashes in Manipur State. Home Minister Amit Shah received widespread criticism, including by United Nations (UN) experts, for his delayed response to the violence," the report said.
"Similarly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced a vote of no confidence for his administration’s lack of response to the ongoing conflict. In August, India’s Supreme Court called for an investigation of the violence, arguing that police had “lost control over the situation," it added.
The report went on to recommend to the US government that India be designated as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) for its engagement in "systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA)."
The USCIRF report also called on the US government to impose "targeted sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for severe violations of religious freedom."
The report called for the freezing of "those individuals’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States under human rights-related financial and visa authorities, citing specific religious freedom violations.
(With additional inputs from PTI and ANI)