[ Lalit K Jha ]
WASHINGTON, 15 Sep: The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has announced that it will hold a hearing on religious freedom in India next week.
Coming on the heels of two successful bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden – the official state visit of the Indian leader here in June and a bilateral meeting in New Delhi in September – the USCIRF in its announcement of the meeting said that the congressional hearing is on how the US government can work with the Indian government to address violations.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, has been invited to testify before the commission along with Law Library of Congress’ foreign law specialist Tariq Ahmed, Human Rights Watch Washington director Sarah Yager, Hindus for Human Rights executive director Sunita Viswanath, and Georgetown University’s Indian Politics Professor Irfan Nooruddin.
Modi’s state visit to Washington, DC, reflects the close bilateral relationship between the United States and India. “However, over the last decade, the Indian government has enacted and enforced discriminatory policies targeting religious minorities, including anti-conversion laws, cow slaughter laws, legislation granting citizenship preferences based on religion, and restrictions on foreign funding for civil society organisations,” the USCIRF said.
“Recent trends include the eruption of violence between Hindus and Muslims in Haryana in July and targeted attacks against Christian and Jewish minorities in Manipur, highlighting the need for new strategies to mitigate violence against religious minorities in India,” it said.
Since 2020, the USCIRF has recommended that the US department of state-designate India as a country of particular concern (CPC) for its systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, it said.
“Witnesses will discuss the Indian government’s legal framework and enforcement of discriminatory policies, explain current religious freedom conditions, and offer policy options for the United States to work with India to combat abuses of religious freedom and related human rights in the country,” the USCIRF said. (PTI)