How USCIRF reports on religious freedom are barriers to America’s strategic partnership with India

The United States is the self-appointed governor of the world that seeks to promote democracy, freedom and rule of law that are as defined, legislated, understood by Americans and are, of course, in US national interest.

As a superpower, it tries to shape the global order after its image and is insensitive to culture, history, customs and traditions of other countries. It has often succeeded in using American values as tools of diplomacy and has criticised, condemned and sanctioned other countries that do not abide by the American values.

While the former Soviet Union challenged the United States leading to decades old Cold War and finally disintegrated making the US the only superpower in the world, China has emerged as the next important challenger to the US. The US obviously did not like the former Soviet Union and now it seeks to prevent China from emerging as a rival.

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Those who sided with the United States against the former Soviet Union were the allies and those who opposed the US or stayed non-aligned in the Cold War faced US displeasure or sometimes punishment. India did not side with the US in the Cold War and does not side with the US in containing China now.

But India has become an indispensable strategic partner of the United States due to the altered geopolitical landscape where Russia has re-emerged as a powerful actor and China has emerged as a strong rival. But the real American problem is while India is willing to partner the US in strategic terms on the areas of convergence and for mutual economic benefits, India is determined to maintain its strategic autonomy. This is the reason why India remains a strategic partner of Russia in the midst of the Ukraine War and an economic partner of China despite differences over territorial disputes.

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Angry America perhaps does not find it in US interest to abandon strategic partnership with India. But it has other ways to needle India. One of the means by which an organ of the US government tries to irritate India is issuing biased annual reports on international religious freedom. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is such an organ, which is a bipartisan organ of the federal government. The commission not just compiles incidences of violation of religious freedom but also recommends to the State Department and the US Congress actions to be taken against such violations.

Recently, when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was visiting the United States, such a biased report was released raising several issues which are completely within the domain of Indian sovereign decisions. Had the USCIRF been an academic institution, its data, sources of its data, analysis of the data and recommendations could have been academically countered.

The report has a wide range of criticisms against Indian government, political leaders, including the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, political parties and Indian legislations, among others, that raises questions over the American government’s real motivations. For example, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in March 2024 criticised the Indian government’s notification of the Citizenship Amendment Rules (CAR) for implementing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). In August 2024, the USCIRF said that the “use and dissemination of misinformation and disinformation by Indian government officials has contributed to increased hate speech toward religious minorities, specifically Muslims”. The updated report released recently includes “NRC, Waqt Amendment Bill, Uniform Civil Code, personal status laws, anti-conversion laws, anti-cow slaughter laws”.

The Ministry of External Affairs rightly rejects such reports and advises the concerned members of the USCIRF to look at their mirrors before commenting on other countries. But then it has almost become an annual affair that generates new mistrusts and reinforces existing trust deficits.

Those in the USCIRF who drafted the report need to explain their views on the following few facts. First, an NGO named Equality Now, founded in New York and now having offices in many parts of the world, says that the “human rights of women and girls are not secured in the US Constitution” and that in the United States “girls are disproportionately affected by the absence of a solid legal foundation to challenge and combat harmful cultural practices such as child marriage, which remains legal in 37 states”. It seems incredible that in the US over “300,000 minors — some as young as ten years old — were married in the US between 2010 to 2018”.

Second, the US Religious Freedom Restoration Act does protect religious freedom on a federal level, but it has been adopted in only 28 out of 50 states. Yet, the headline of an article in the magazine The Nation, published on June 24, 2024 is worth noting and it reads: “Muslim Women Are Having Their Hijabs Torn Off by Police All Over America: Women across the country are having their civil rights blatantly violated while in police custody.”

Third, in October 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Committee brought out a report regarding the US government’s failure to meet its human rights obligations and highlighting “violations of various human rights issues including Indigenous rights, voting rights, freedom of expression and assembly, gender equality and reproductive rights, criminal legal reform, immigrants’ rights, and more”.

Fourth, according to ACLU or American Civil Liberties Union, the US “touts itself as a global leader of universal human rights” but there remains “immense gap between US laws and policies and international human rights norms — even in the area in which the US has heralded itself as a leader for decades: civil and political rights”.

Fifth, The Human Rights Watch recently drew attention to the UN Human Rights Committee’s concern about US “laws limiting transgender people’s access to healthcare, athletics, and public accommodations, and restricting discussions of race, slavery, sexual orientation, and gender identity in schools” and highlighting the discrimination against LGBT people “in housing, employment, correctional facilities, and other domains.”

Sixth, the Human Rights Watch has an office at 350 Fifth Avenue in New York. Its 2024 Report says, “Racism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and threats to democracy remained pressing human rights problems in the United States in 2023.”

Seventh, what does the USCIRF have to say on reports of the abuses that Native Americans suffered at the hands of the Catholic churches as part of decades-long forced assimilation programme. The schools were reportedly created by the US federal government in the 19th century and lasted for about a century and half. Native children, according to reports, “were removed from their homes, forbidden to speak their own languages and given new English names”.

Eighth, what does the USCIRF have to say about rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiments in various parts of the US and thousands of cases of hate crimes reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation!

Should a government committee in India produce annual reports about human rights conditions and various forms of social discrimination in the United States and advise the relevant US governmental agencies to read while considering the recommendations of the USCIRF? The USCIRF is slowly erecting barriers to India-US strategic partnership that would not be in the interest of either country.

The author is founder chairperson, Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, and formerly professor at JNU. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.