The United States’ 2023 International Religious Freedom Report is “deeply biased”, “lacks an understanding of India’s social fabric” and is “visibly driven by votebank considerations”, the Union external affairs ministry said on Friday.
This came two days after the release of the report by the US State Department, which flags the repression of religious communities in India.
Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press briefing on Friday that New Delhi had rejected the document.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken had commented on the report’s findings on Wednesday, saying that there has been a “concerning increase” in hate speech, anti-conversion laws, and demolitions of homes and places of worship belonging to members of religious minorities in India.
Jaiswal, on the other hand, said that the report had “selectively picked incidents to advance a preconceived narrative”.
“In some cases, the very validity of laws and regulations are questioned by the report, as are the right of legislatures to enact them,” he said. “The report also appears to challenge the integrity of certain legal judgments given by Indian courts.”
Jaiswal also claimed that the report targeted regulatory processes intended to monitor the misuse of financial flows into India, “suggesting that [India’s] burden of compliance is unreasonable”.
He also noted that the US has “even more stringent laws and regulations” and said the country would not prescribe such solutions for itself.
According to the external affairs ministry, human rights and a respect for diversity are a legitimate subject of discussion between India and the United States.
“In 2023, India has officially taken up numerous cases in the US of hate crimes, racial attacks on Indian nationals and other minorities, vandalisation and targeting of places of worship, violence and mistreatment by law enforcement authorities,” said Jaiswal. “However, such dialogue should not become a license for foreign interference in other polities.”
Jaiswal also accused the United States government of “according political space to advocates of extremism and terrorism abroad”.
International Religious Freedom report
The US State Department report mentioned that Christians and Muslims were arrested under laws banning forced religious conversions, which the religious groups said in some cases were used to “harass and imprison members of religious minority groups on false and fabricated charges or for lawful religious practices”.
The report noted that attacks on members of religious minority groups included killings, assaults, and intimidation, including cases of “cow vigilantism” based on allegations that Muslim men were participating in cow slaughter or trade in beef.
“There were also attacks on religious leaders, disruption of Christian and Muslim worship services, vandalism of religious minorities’ houses of worship, and violence between religious groups,” it said.
It also said that following reports of assault and harassment of Christians in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted nearly 100 representatives from different denominations of the community.
However, more than 3,200 individuals from the Christian community had dissociated themselves from the meeting, citing growing anti-minority attacks and anti-minority hate speech by certain government officials, the report noted.
The report provides examples of such incidents that occurred in India between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2023.
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