Why US' commission should fix its own house before questioning India’s religious freedom

Recently, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedoms (USCIRF) released its annual report on India. It recommended that the US State Department designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” for allegedly engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. Some serious questions are being raised about this report and about the credibility of the USCIRF itself.

The USCIRF is a US federal government commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad. The USCIRF is tasked by the US government with monitoring religious freedom violations globally, and it makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and the US Congress.

The 2024 report on India is curated by Sema Hasan, a Pakistani American who is a senior analyst in the USCIRF. Does the USCIRF really believe that she would be unbiased when it comes to assessing religious freedom in India?

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The current composition of the Commission also raises some questions. The Commission is composed of ten members. Currently there are only nine, as there is a vacancy. The US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom is an ex-officio member. Although a non-voting member, he has considerable sway in regard to the functioning of the USCIRF. Rashad Hussain, the son of Indian American Muslim immigrants, has held this position since January 2022. Earlier, under President Barack Obama, he had served as the United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) from February 2010-February 2015 and had played a key role in forging relations between the US and some Islamic countries, which made him influential within the Democratic Party.

Rashad Hussain is a prominent member of the American Muslim community and has been quoted as expressing concern over “India’s dehumanising and genocidal treatment of Muslims” during a panel discussion at the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, DC. He is on record as having stated that it is the “responsibility” of the United States to speak out on human rights and religious freedoms in India. Many Indian-Americans are of the view that he has a strong bias against India.

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Two out of the eight other current members of the USCIRF have strong Pakistani connections. They are Asif Mahmood, a Pakistani American, and Mohamed Elsanousi, a graduate of Shariah and Law from International Islamic University, from Islamabad, Pakistan. Both are considered unsympathetic and hostile towards India.

The USCIRF has been publishing biased reports against India in the past too. It may be mentioned that in 2019, Tenzin Dorjee, who was the chairman of the Commission, had himself disagreed with its report in which India was designated as a Country of Particular Concern. Tenzing Dorjee had said that having lived in India for 30 years as a religious refugee, he could state that “India is an open society with a robust democratic and judicial system”. Tenzin Dorgee also said that “India is a great civilisation, and since ancient times it has been a country of multireligious, multilingual, and multicultural diversity”. If the chairman of the Commission had himself said this and disagreed with the report, then what is the credibility of such reports?

The fact is that the US Commission for International Religious Freedom does not even make an effort to understand India’s diverse, pluralistic, and democratic ethos. The criticism of India by the USCIRF is due to American lobbies and vote banks. Its report has used partial and isolated incidents in a wrongful manner.

The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Indian constitution. Citizens are free to preach, practice, and propagate any religion of their choice. The courts in India uphold and protect this right. The USCIRF report is based on the omission of facts, utilising partial data, hiding the full context, generalising isolated incidents, and questioning the implementation of the law of the land.

In response to questions on the USCIRF report, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson 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.”

On its part, the US State Department has so far refrained from accepting the recommendations in this report. Commenting on the suggestion made in the report about designating India as ‘a country of particular concern over its religious freedom’, the State Department spokesman said that India did not meet the threshold. He also underscored that USCIRF is not a part of the state department but just an independent commission that provides policy recommendations.

Americans like to think that their country is a bastion of freedom and opportunity. However, this is not quite the case. In a report on human rights by the Global Rights Project for 2023, the US secured a D grade and got the 59th rank out of 195 countries. Again, according to Amnesty International, there is a lack of progress in the US on human rights issues such as the prevalence of hate crimes, gun violence, excessive use of force by law enforcement, and violence against women.

In fact, many observers in the US believe that religious freedom in their own country is under threat. So, instead of pointing fingers at India, the US needs to correct the wrongs in its own society. The spokesman of India’s External Affairs Ministry rightly put it when he said, “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 US.”

The writer is a retired Indian diplomat and had previously served as Consul General in New York. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.