By Krishna Jha
Communalism in our country has been emerging as a major dividing force, even at the cost of violating our Constitution. The credit goes to the ruling forces. Our Constitution in its preamble declares that we are moving towards a secular, democratic and socialist society, but attempts are made to destroy these values. The threat of communalism is constant despite the fact that it has no rational ground to be in our democratic system. There is a strong bond between the communities. They have no distinctly underlined community interests that stand in clash against each other. The interests of Hindu and Muslim peasants and workers are no different. The reality is that if there is any common ground among the Hindus and Muslims, that would be against imperialists and for social interest.
World has been aware of these challenges. It is reflected in the special report issued by the US Commission on Inter Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan federal government entity, established by the US Congress to monitor, analyse and report on religious freedom abroad. On October 2, the International Day of Non-Violence, the report was released. It was unusual since immediately after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, the release took place. But that is not all. The report also came on the day when India’s minister for external affairs S. Jaishankar was still in the US.
In its 2024 report, USCIRF recommended that US department of state designate India “as a country of particular concern, or CPC or as engaging in systematic ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.” The India Report 2024 had also pointed out that throughout 2024, “individuals have been killed, beaten, and lynched by vigilante groups, religious leaders have been arbitrarily arrested, and homes and places of worship have been demolished”. The report also mentioned that the use of misinformation and disinformation was continuing including hate speech, by government officials to incite violent attacks against religious minorities and their places of worship.
There has also been suggested changes that have been described as to target and disenfranchise religious minorities, including the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and several state-level anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws in India’s legal framework.
There have been even names mentioned in the special update for hate speech, directed at Muslims, released recently. Those are of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP MLAs from Maharashtra, Nitesh Rane and Geeta Jain, T Raja Singh in Telangana.
According to the updated report, before June 2024 elections, political leaders increasingly wielded hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric against religious minorities. Prime minister even asserted that the Opposition Congress party would “wipe out [the] Hindu faith from the country”. He added that Hindus would be, “second class citizens in their own country”. He perpetuated hateful stereotypes about Muslims, referring to them as “infiltrators”. Union home minister Amit Shah echoed these statements and insisted falsely that opposition leaders would impose sharia if elected — despite the fact that no opposition party election manifesto included a mention of sharia or Muslims.
In March, a group of UN experts raised an alarm about the level of violence and hate crimes against religious minorities in the lead-up to national elections, including vigilante violence, targeted and arbitrary killings, demolition of property, and harassment. From January to March, 161 incidents of violence against Christians in India were reported, 47 of them from Chhattisgarh. Such incidents ranged from violent attacks on churches and prayer meetings to physical assaults, harassment, and false allegations of forced conversion.
Following the Lok Sabha election results, at least 28 attacks against Muslims occurred from June to August. Religious educational institutions were also subjected to harassment and targeting. In April, India’s home ministry cancelled FCRA licenses of five NGOs, including the Church of North India (CNI), Synodical Board of Social Service, Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action, and Evangelical Fellowship of India.
In total, the Indian government has cancelled over 20,000 FCRA registrations since 2012.India reacted sharply to the report on October 3, Thursday, asking the USCIRF to “desist from agenda-driven efforts” and focus on human rights issues in America. In a statement, the foreign ministry called the USCIRF a “biased organisation with a political agenda”.
“Our views on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) are well known. It is a biased organization with a political agenda. It continues to misrepresent facts and peddles a motivated narrative about India. We reject this malicious report, which only serves to discredit USCIRF further,” the statement read. Instead of focusing so much on deflecting the accusations levelled by the US report, the Modi government should look within.
A similar report was released by the State Department in June where Secretary of State Antony Blinken flagged concerns over rising hate speech and violence against minority places of worship. The Indian foreign ministry “rejected” it, claiming the report showed “bias” and lacked “any understanding of India’s social fabric and is a set of misrepresentations”. (IPA Service)