The US State Department said in its annual report to Congress on international religious freedom that attacks on members of minority groups in India, including deaths, assaults, and intimidation, occurred throughout the year 2021.
India slammed the US State Department’s report on attacks on minorities on Thursday, calling it “unfortunate vote bank politics in international affairs.”
“We’ve taken note of the publication of the US State Department’s 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom and prominent US officials’ ill-informed remarks.” Regrettably, vote bank politics is still being used in international affairs. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, assessments based on motivated inputs and prejudiced viewpoints should be avoided.
The US State Department said in its annual report to Congress on international religious freedom that attacks on members of minority groups in India, including deaths, assaults, and intimidation, occurred throughout the year 2021.
India previously rejected the US report on religious freedom, claiming that a foreign government had no authority to comment on the condition of its citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The report’s India section avoids expressing a judgment on religious minorities’ status instead of documenting different facets of it as reported in the Indian press and official papers.
It also extensively recounts the complaints of numerous non-profit organizations and minority institutions regarding attacks on them, but is mostly silent on the findings of the authorities’ investigations and the government’s reactions.
Throughout the year, there were attacks on members of religious minority communities, including deaths, assaults, and intimidation.
“Cow vigilantism’ against non-Hindus, based on charges of cow slaughter or beef trading, was one of them. ” According to the report’s India section,
It does mention RSS chairman Mohan Bhagwat’s claim that Hindus and Muslims in India share the same DNA and should not be separated based on religion.
“In July, Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS’s chairman and widely regarded as the ideological parent of India’s ruling party, the BJP, officially proclaimed that Hindus and Muslims in India share the same DNA and should not be separated by religion,” According to the story,
“There will never be any supremacy of either Hindus or Muslims (in the nation); there can only be Indian dominance,” Bhagwat said, adding that Muslims should not be concerned that Islam is under threat in India. According to the article, he also stated that murdering non-Hindus for cow slaughter was an act against Hinduism.
According to the article, non-Hindus were detained for making comments in the media or on social media that were deemed disrespectful to Hindus or Hinduism.
NGOs, including faith-based organizations, have continued to criticize 2020 amendments to the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) as restricting civil society by lowering the amount of foreign funding that NGOs, including religious organizations, can use for administrative purposes and increasing the amount of foreign funding that NGOs, including religious organizations, can use for administrative purposes.
According to the government, the bill improved the monitoring and accountability of foreign NGO financing in the nation.
FCRA licenses for 5,789 NGOs, including hundreds of faith-based organizations, reportedly lapsed after the government stated the organizations did not file for renewal in a timely manner, according to media sources. In addition, the government suspended the FCRA licenses of 179 NGOs during the year, including several that were faith-based, according to the study.
