US panel says India religious freedom worsens ‘significantly’

A US commission stated Monday that nonsecular freedom has deteriorated “notably” in India under the Hindu nationalist government because it again endorsed focused sanctions over abuses.

It changed into the third instantly year that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom requested that India be placed on a listing of “nations of precise concern” — a recommendation that has angered New Delhi and is clearly positive to be brushed off by using the State Department.

In an annual document, the panel — that’s appointed to offer hints however does not set US coverage — voiced wide concern about South Asia and additionally subsidized the State Department’s inclusion of Pakistan at the blacklist.

In India, the commission pointed to “numerous” attacks on religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, in 2021 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government promoted “its ideological vision of a Hindu state” through policies hostile to minorities.

“Religious freedom conditions in India significantly worsened,” the report said.

It pointed to a “culture of impunity for nationwide campaigns of threats and violence by mobs and vigilante groups” and arrests of journalists and human rights advocates.

The Indian government in previous years has angrily rejected the commission’s findings, accusing it of bias.

President Joe Biden, like Donald Trump before him, has sought to increase ties with India, seeing common cause in the face of a rising China.

Biden is expected to meet Modi next month in Tokyo as part of a four-way summit of the “Quad” with Japan and Australia.

The commission additionally recommended adding Afghanistan to the blacklist following the triumph of the Taliban and relisting Nigeria, which become eliminated via the Biden administration.

The countries on the State Department’s spiritual freedom blacklist, which could trigger sanctions, are China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.