New Delhi, India - Despite change in government, attacks on religious minorities continue.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in a report issued in May asked that India be removed from the list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (or CPCs), citing progress in religious freedom.
India was designated a CPC in 2004, due to a series of violent actions against Muslims and Christians that took place under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, elected in 1998.
The USCIRF felt the BJP government had not adequately addressed the killing of up to 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat state riots in 2002, nor had it addressed a growing number of violent attacks on the Christian minority in many states.
Created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the USCIRF monitors freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief in countries outside the United States, and gives independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress.
While the USCIRF cannot implement sanctions, it can recommend the designation of a country as a CPC on the basis of systematic, ongoing and serious violations of religious freedom. The designation is then made by the U.S. State Department and followed by U.S. diplomatic and economic actions.
'Significant Developments' in Freedom of Belief
This year, the USCIRF said it would no longer recommend that India be designated as a CPC due to “significant developments affecting freedom of belief” over the past year.
One of the developments cited by the USCIRF was the defeat of the BJP party in last year’s parliamentary elections. The USCIRF pointed out that the BJP was closely associated with a group of Hindu extremist organizations that operated freely under BJP rule.
However, Christian leaders have voiced concern and surprise at the removal of India from the list of CPCs. They say a climate of strong religious hostility is still evident despite the election of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the Indian National Congress Party, in May 2004.
Speaking to Compass, Dr. John Dayal, a prominent Christian and a member of the National Integration Council of the Government of India, emphasized that the root cause of continuing religious violence was the fundamentalist ideology spread by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu extremist organization that had close ties with the BJP.
“The RSS is ... spreading hate among the tribals and buying its way into the bureaucracy and judiciary,” Dayal said.
“The international community must fully and publicly investigate the RSS and all its sub-organizations, their funding, ideology and spread among the Indian diaspora in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the U.K., Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean,” he added.
Recent Anti-Christian Violence
Dayal also pointed to numerous incidents of anti-Christian violence during the past 12 months.
The BJP and its political allies still control state governments in Rajasthan, Orissa, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Incidents of violence against Christians have reportedly increased in these states over the past year. Sporadic violence has also occurred in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala, states ruled by the Congress Party.
For example, Hindu extremists violently attacked Bible students of the Emmanuel Mission in Kota district, Rajasthan, on February 19. State support of the attackers was clearly visible. (See Compass Direct, “Indian Hindus Attack Christian Students in Rajasthan,” February 22, 2005.)
Extremists also assaulted several other Christians in the state, apparently with an agenda to push forward the enactment of anti-conversion laws in Rajasthan. (See Compass Direct, “Hindu Extremists in India Assault Rajasthan Christians,” March 18, 2005.)
Numerous other incidents over the past year prompted a delegation of Christian leaders to present an unofficial white paper to the government in March 2005. The paper listed over 200 incidents in the first quarter of this year in which Christians had faced severe harassment or physical attacks.
In the 2005 “Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom,” the USCIRF stated that the new Congress-led government had “pledged to reject any kind of religious intolerance and return the country to its pluralistic traditions; proposed a law to halt and criminalize inter-religious violence; and taken immediate steps to remove the religiously intolerant portions of school textbooks issued by the BJP government.”
However, the five states most susceptible to religious violence are still ruled by the BJP and its allies. Under terms of the Indian Constitution, the central government can do little to ensure the protection of religious minorities in those states.
Following their election to power, the UPA promised to enact a federal law against religious violence. However, a year after the election, no such law exists.
The USCIRF also said the Supreme Court had taken “significant steps designed to bring to justice those responsible for the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002.”
The Supreme Court has indeed reopened hundreds of cases connected with the Gujarat riots, which had been withdrawn by the Gujarat state administration.
However, the Gujarat state government, led by Narendra Modi — a renowned Hindu fundamentalist — has caused numerous delays in the judicial process, both for the Gujarat riot trials and the Best Bakery case in which 14 Muslims were killed in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
“The current central government has taken several healthy steps to reassure minorities,” Dayal admits. “But as long as the killers of the Gujarat massacres remain free, and as long as Modi rules in Gujarat ... India cannot claim to have cleansed itself of the blood of innocent minority communities.”