State Department’s Religious Freedom Report on India Finds Continued Violent Attacks on Minority Groups
- Of particular concern are increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship for members of minority faith communities.
Violent attacks on minority groups, especially Muslims and Christians, including killings, assaults and vandalism of houses of worship, continued last year, the U.S. State Department’s 2023 religious freedom report on India has revealed. The report was released on June 26 by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who mentioned that it “advances our vision for a future where everyone is able to choose and practice their beliefs, including the right not to believe or ascribe to a faith.” Talking about India he noted the “concerning increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship for members of minority faith communities.”
The report also cited concerns from international nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch which state that the “actions and statements by members and supporters of his (Modi’s) BJP party [Bharatiya Janata Party] contradicted” government officials’ positive statements. They further stated that the government should investigate and prosecute those responsible for carrying out violence against members of minority groups.
Senior U.S. officials have continued to “raise concerns about religious freedom issues” with their Indian counterparts, the report also noted.
According to the report, the National Crimes Record Bureau reported 272 instances of communal violence in 2022 compared with 378 in 2021. “Attacks on members of religious minority groups, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, occurred in various states throughout the year,” the report said. It included cases of “cow vigilantism, based on allegations that Muslim men were participating in cow slaughter or trade in beef.” There were also “attacks on religious leaders, disruption of Christian and Muslim worship services, vandalism of religious minorities’ houses of worship, and violence between religious groups. Islamic groups in Jammu and Kashmir also reportedly attacked non-Muslims during the year,” the report added.
It also citied data from the United Christian Forum (UCF) which reported 731 attacks on Christians in 2023, compared with 599 such incidents the previous year. “The UCF data by state showed the most incidents in Uttar Pradesh (301) and Chhattisgarh (152),” the report said. Meanwhile, in April, “the government told the Supreme Court said that the UCF exaggerated claims of attacks against Christians to create a false narrative,” the report added. But it also noted UCF’s national coordinator saying that “the government data (on violence against Christians) downplays the severity of the situation.”
The report listed several incidents as well like the violence in Manipur that started on May 3 between minority Christian Kuki and majority Hindu Meitei ethnic groups. During that time, “Hindu and Christian places of worship were destroyed, as well as two synagogues of the small Bnei Menashe Jewish community.” A fatal shooting of a security official and three Muslims on a train near Mumbai by a suspect who was a railway security official, was another incident that the report listed.
India, meanwhile, has rejected the report, calling it “deeply biased,” according to reports in the Indian media. Speaking in New Delhi today (June 28), MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the report “lacks an understanding of India’s social fabric, and is visibly driven by votebank considerations and a prescriptive outlook.” He called the exercise “a mix of imputations, misrepresentations, selective usage of facts, reliance on biased sources and a one-sided projection of issues, and said it has “selectively picked incidents to advance a pre-conceived narrative as well.”
Noting that “human rights and respect for diversity have been and remain mentioned that last year, India “took up a numerous cases in the U.S. of hate crimes, racial attacks on Indian nationals and other minorities, vandalism, and targeting of places of worship, violence and mistreatment by law enforcement authorities.”