Hyderabad: The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), a Washington-based advocacy organization, asked the US Department of State to accept the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) recommendation to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for its egregious violations of human rights and religious freedoms.
The IAMC released its annual report, “365 Days of Hate: 2023 in Modi’s India,” which gives a detailed analysis of BJP policies and their relationship to human rights conditions in India. It documents the alleged state-led persecution, hate crimes, religious apartheid policies, and economic discrimination that have come to dominate everyday life in Modi’s India.
Rasheed Ahmed, IAMC Executive Director, said the President of the US has the power to place sanctions on individuals who have committed, directly aided, ordered, or are complicit in gross human rights violations through the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. These sanctions include barring entry to the US or blocking any transactions relating to property or interests held in the US. “These sanctions could also apply to those responsible for—or complicit in—the ongoing persecution of religious minorities, including politicians and elected officials from India’s ruling political party, the BJP,” the IAMC stated.
The report highlighted the bureaucrats at the federal level and in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttarakhand, along with the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), for their alleged decades-long persecution of religious minorities and dissenters, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, the northeastern states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh, and the eastern states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, Odisha.
“The US government should use its diplomatic channels to express concern over the issue of religious persecution in India and publicly condemn any acts of violence or discrimination against religious minorities. The U.S. State Department must include human rights and religious freedoms as an integral part of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue,” the IAMC demanded.
The IAMC stressed the US government must also make defense relations and the sale of U.S. weaponry and systems conditional on an improvement of human rights conditions in India. Also, it must use its trade and economic leverage to encourage the Indian government to take action to protect the rights of religious minorities. This can include linking trade agreements and economic aid to improvements when it comes to human rights.
The IAMC advised that, as state parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention, the Union government is obligated to take the repeated calls for genocide and mass violence against Muslims and Christians throughout India seriously, condemn the genocidal sentiments, and hold those who made the speeches accountable.
It stated, “As signatories to the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious, and Linguistic Minorities, the Union government has a responsibility to ensure that police effectively investigate, prosecute, and prevent instances of harassment and violence committed against religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians.”
The Union government must ratify the Convention against Torture, to which India has been a signatory since 1998, and ensure that comprehensive legislation to prevent, prosecute, and punish torture is enacted in line with India’s international obligations. Furthermore, it must be ensured that the 2015 DK Basu Guidelines issued by the Indian Supreme Court for the prevention of torture are implemented and action is taken against the erring officials.
The IAMC recommended the Union government reformulate the existing guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) for police and other forces coming under the ambit of the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding their conduct in dealing with protesters and stop using draconian laws, including the UAPA, PSA, and NSA, to arbitrarily arrest and detain activists, journalists, and dissenters. Also, it asked the government to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and stop using the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to disenfranchise Muslims.
“The Union government must pass a national anti-lynching bill to protect religious minorities from Hindu militias and cow vigilante groups. It must uphold every citizen’s right to a safe home and immediately stop bulldozing Muslim homes, livelihoods, and places of worship in the name of anti-encroachment,” the IAMC stated.
It said the BJP-ruled state governments should repeal their beef ban laws, which it stated are used as a pretext by the Hindu militias and cow vigilante groups to commit atrocities against Muslims over allegations of selling, transporting, slaughtering, or consuming beef.
