Each year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom names those nations whose governments engage in or tolerate “particularly severe” violations of religious freedoms, especially of minorities. It calls such nations ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ and it asks the US state department to sanction individuals and institutions in these nations.

This year, these are Afghanistan, Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

India first arrived on the list in 2020 and has been on it each year since.

In the 2020 report, the USCIRF said that ‘India took a sharp downward turn in 2019. The national government used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national-level policies violating religious freedom across India, especially for Muslims’.

It said the Modi government’s prejudice against India’s Muslims was showing through India’s actions on citizenship laws, cow slaughter, Kashmir and conversions. The report noted the Ayodhya ruling and the conduct of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

It recommended to Donald Trump, then US president, that he designate India as a Country of Particular Concern ‘for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act’. It sought sanctions against India.

The response from our ministry of........

© National Herald