On Thursday (3rd October), India junked a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) calling it “malicious”. The Foreign Ministry described the USCIRF as a “biased” organisation with a “political agenda”.
Reacting sharply to the USCIRF’s religious freedom report concerning India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the USCIRF should utilise its time “more productively” on addressing human rights issues in the United States.
Notably, the USCIRF report furthers the smear campaign against India. Reacting to the same, spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry, Randhir Jaiswal said, “Our views on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) are well known. It is a biased organisation with a political agenda. It continues to misrepresent facts and peddles a motivated narrative about India. We reject this malicious report, which only serves to discredit USCIRF further.”
He added, “We would urge USCIRF to desist from such agenda driven efforts. The USCIRF would also be well advised to utilise its time more productively on addressing human rights issues in the United States.”
USCIRF report: A pliable US toolkit to further the agenda against Nationalist governments
It is pertinent to note that the USCIRF has been notorious for peddling biased, unscientific, and agenda-driven reporting to malign the country especially those run by Nationalist governments who refuse to play second-fiddle to the US. In the recent edition, the annual report alleged that religious freedom was worsening in India and called on the US government to designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern”.
It alleged that India’s legal framework, including laws such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and state-level anti-conversion regulations, is being used to disenfranchise religious minorities.
“This report highlights how, throughout 2024, individuals have been killed, beaten, and lynched by vigilante groups, religious leaders have been arbitrarily arrested, and homes and places of worship have been demolished. These events constitute particularly severe violations of religious freedom,” the USCIRF alleged.
Turns a blind eye to the plight of Hindus under US stooge, Mohammad Yunus’ regime
Conspicuously, the annual USCIRF report finds no mention of anarchy-gripped Bangladesh neither in the ‘Countries of Particular Concern” nor in the countries recommended to be put under the State’s “Special Watch List” (SWL).
The only mention of Bangladesh comes in the reference to Rohingya Muslims. It recommends the US government to “work’ with the Bangladesh government, which is accused of being a US puppet installed as part of a colour revolution by the US deep state. The allegations of the US’s interference and hand in the Bangladesh crisis leading to the countless killings of Hindus and their religious persecution, gained strength when US President Joe Biden “proudly hugged” Mohammad Yunus, the de-facto leader who replaced Sheikh Hasina, the arch-nemesis of US.
Interestingly, in the context of Bangladesh, the report expressed concerns only during her regime, as she had been a vocal critic of the US ‘meddling’ and ‘foreign interference’ in other countries. She had blamed the US administration for de-establishing her government and toppling her in a violent coup because she denied to hand them over the Saint Marine Island and compromise on the sovereignty of her country.
After Sheikh Hasina’s violent ouster, the Hindu community in Bangladesh has been facing the brunt of communal attacks from Islamist mobs. The radical mobs torched and demolished multiple Hindu temples, their houses, and businesses, killed, raped, and maimed countless Bangladeshi Hindus, purged them from academic institutions, forced hundreds of Hindu teachers to resign.
However, the only concerning thing to flag for the USCIRF happened during Sheikh Hasina government, alleging that the Ahmaddiya Muslims were targeted.
While Mohammad Yunus too had initially expressed concerns over the plight of Hindu and other religious minorities in Bangladesh only to downplay his remarks later, the USCIRF didn’t even offer lip service for the Bangladeshi Hindu community, alluding to its abject discontent for Human lives and steadfast resolve to its core agenda of serving Geopolitical interests of the deep state.
Strikingly, the US has been time and again, accused of using ‘pliable’ organisations like USCIRF and other so-called “Rating agencies” to further the agenda of the Deep State. This includes destablishing Nationalist governments who refuse to play ball with the US administration and take dictation from them, an elaborate scheme notorious as “Regime Change operations” or manufacturing “Colour revolution”.
Reality of ‘Minorities under attack’ in India boogie
Incidentally, the majority of the global-hyped attacks on minorities in India, particularly, Muslims, were found to be blatantly false. This includes allegations of Muslims being targeted during cricket match, for train seats, and beards getting pulled among a host of others. Yet, the US body alleged religious attacks on Muslim minorities in India to further the boogie of “Muslim victimhood”.
On the contrary, the malicious USCIRF report failed to put their smear campaigns against India on test with the fact that how come the so-called ‘victimised’ minority indulged in wanton violence on trumped-up charges and hearsay allegations of blasphemy? While the Muslim victimhood boogie continues to get steam from foreign media, Indian opposition, and its supportive ecosystem, it has been providing shield to the dastardly communal attacks like the beheading of a Hindu tailor Kanhaiya Lal, killings of Umesh Kolhe, Kamlesh Tiwari, or the communally-charged Islamist mobs terrorising the streets with calls for beheading and chanting ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ (STSJ).
While on the domestic front, New Delhi needs to strengthen its laws against communal instigations like criminalising beheading calls, and STSJ slogans, it needs to set the record straight on the global front as well, as busting the falsehoods of such malicious reports with a factsheet/ranking of its own. It also has to end its policy of not holding the US administration publicly accountably for racism against Indians, attacks on Hindus, and state protection for Khalistani elements in the US of A.