On Wednesday, India categorically rejected the recent report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) which as usual alleged that the minorities were facing deteriorating treatment in the country. The Ministry of External Affairs further asserted that the USCIRF should be designated an “entity of concern”.
The MEA issued a strongly worded response stressing that efforts to undermine India’s standing as a beacon of democracy and tolerance would not succeed.
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated that the latest USCIRF report continues its pattern of issuing “biased and politically motivated assessments”.
The MEA statement said, “The USCIRF’s persistent attempts to misrepresent isolated incidents and cast aspersions on India’s vibrant multicultural society reflect a deliberate agenda rather than a genuine concern for religious freedom… In fact, it is the USCIRF that should be designated as an entity of concern.”
India has consistently rejected such reports as “biased” and “agenda-driven”.
Recent tirade by USCIRF against India
The USCIRF’s 2025 report alleged that attacks and discrimination against religious minorities continued to rise in India in 2024. It even brazenly accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of propagating “hateful rhetoric” against Muslims and other religious minorities during the Lok Sabha election campaign.
In line with its ambitions to be the moral police around the world, the USCIRF report even went on to recommend sanctions against India’s premier Intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for its alleged involvement in the murder plots against Khalistani extremists, giving a veiled reference to the Gurpatwant Singh Pannun case.
It even advised the Trump administration to designate India as a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom violations.
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”.
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.
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 matches, 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.
