Three-peat: India on US religious freedom 'Watch List'

For the third year in a row, India was named to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s  Watch List for 2011 , joining the likes of Afghanistan, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Though no major acts of religious violence took place in 2010, the bipartisan commission found India to be Watch List-worthy because “justice for past communal violence continues to be slow and ineffective,” particularly when it comes to the religious violence that took place in Orissa between 2007 and 2008, in Gujarat in 2002, and against Sikhs in 1984.

The commission also cited concerns with the Freedom of Religion Act(s) in five Indian states.

The decision wasn’t unanimous, though. Two USCIRF commissioners submitted a written dissent that called India’s inclusion on the list “ill advised.”

‘A climate of impunity’

The commission’s twenty something-page report on India , issued this month, reads like an indictment of the country’s glacial and uneven justice system:

Reported police and judicial bias, corruption, low ratios of police and judges to the population, and an overburdened and antiquated judicial system hinder the process to redress past large-scale communal violence and create an environment perpetuating harassment and violence against India‘s religious minority population.

This lack of consistency in the courts “in some cases has fostered a climate of impunity,” the report stated.

Despite the Indian government’s attempts to create special structures to handle the backlog of cases—including Special Investigative Teams (SITs), fast track courts, and special commissions—these entities have only had “varying degrees of success in achieving justice for victims,” according to the commission.

Among the report’s criticisms are the February acquittal of Maulana Umarji in the train burning that triggered the 2002 Gujarat violence, and the fact that the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi resulted in few perpetrators being held accountable and then, only many years after the incident.

The USCIRF did, however, give the Indian government a gold star for its handling of the September 2010 Ayodhya mosque verdict when it “took proactive steps” to prevent Hindu-Muslim violence.

Not everyone agrees, though, that India’s legal system is in dire enough shape to warrant a Watch List mention. Commissioners Felice D. Gaer and William J. Shaw argued in a written dissent that placing India on the list was “ill advised” because the Indian government and court system have taken “commendable and significant steps” to prevent religious violence, punish offenders, and provide restitution to victims.

‘Anti-conversion laws’ problematic

The US commission also took issue with what it calls the “anti-conversion laws,” or the Freedom of Religion Acts that have been enacted in five states to prevent coercive religious conversions. The USCIRF panel found the laws “ill-defined and open to abuse,” with its vague language potentially promoting “societal harassment.” Human rights and Christian advocacy groups also told the commission that the laws create a “hostile atmosphere for religious minorities.”

The report stated:

These laws contribute to an atmosphere of hostility, and sometimes violence, against religious minorities, and are used by local authorities to harass and sometimes detain individuals perceived to be proselytizing or who convert to another religion, mostly Christianity.

The dissenting commissioners again offered a counterpoint:

Hindu and other groups point out that the laws prohibit coercive measures or forced conversion, not all acts of conversion per se. … The Hindu-American Foundation has written to the Commission about so-called “predatory proselytization,” claiming that the measures taken by Christian missionary organizations seeking converts in parts of India has denigrated individual believers and the Hindu religion itself and gives vent to added religious intolerance.

Stateside Reactions

India’s designation to the Watch List has prompted plenty of dissenting views among Indian American religious organizations.

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF), for example, “strongly criticized” India’s inclusion on the Watch List. “USCIRF’s decision to club India in with a dozen or so of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world, while overlooking others, again raises questions of bias and flawed methodology there,” said HAF Human Rights Commissioner Ramesh Rao in a statement. “The Commission’s censure of India in 2011, despite that country’s celebrated pluralism and absence of any significant recent religious discord—despite provocative terror attacks—seems based more on a disagreement over some states’ efforts to monitor coercive and forced conversions.”

The foundation offered extensive testimony to the commission in March.

But other stateside religious organizations believe that the USCIRF addresses the overlooked concerns of religious minorities.  According to Global Sikh News , a representative of Sikhs For Justice saw the report as a step toward spreading “international awareness regarding the plight of religious minorities and continuous denial of justice to members of religious minorities who suffered violence in India.”

Meanwhile, Shaheen Khateeb, president of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), said in a statement: “It is indeed unfortunate that India, with its long history of tolerance and multiculturalism, has now found a place in the list of countries where religious freedom is at risk. However IAMC firmly believes that the recommendations of USCIRF are based on factual information. They represent legitimate concerns about the treatment of religious minorities in India, and should not be seen as an exercise in India-bashing.”

When it comes to U.S.-India relations, this certainly won’t be last you’ll hear on this topic. The USCIRF has urged the U.S. government to “integrate concern for religious freedom and related human rights into all bilateral contacts with India,” and it has drafted policy recommendations prompting the U.S. government to “encourage and assist” the government of India to make improvements.

But did the USCIRF get India right? And does India need the assistance of the U.S. government to ensure religious freedom? What do you think?