The Joe Biden administration was urged by a United States watchdog on Friday to name India as a “country of particular concern” under the US Religious Freedom Act, accusing it of targeting religious minorities abroad.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal body, said “recent efforts by the Indian government to silence activists, journalists, and lawyers abroad pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”
It said in a statement: “USCIRF implores the US Department of State to designate India a Country of Particular Concern due to India’s systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief.”
USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck said he was “deeply troubled” by the Indian government’s alleged role in the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and a conspiracy to kill another Sikh activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in the US.
The Indian embassy in Washington did not comment immediately. The Indian government, which leads a Hindu-majority nation, regularly denies any discrimination.
This month, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said an Indian citizen had collaborated with an unnamed Indian government official on the scheme to assassinate a New Yorker who campaigned for a separate Sikh state in northern India. India’s government has rejected any involvement in the plot.
The matter is very sensitive for both India and the Biden administration as they seek to strengthen their ties amid the rise of China, seen as a menace by both democracies.
USCIRF said it had advised the State Department to label India a country of particular concern every year since 2020, a status under the 1998 US Religious Freedom Act. The act permits various policy actions, such as sanctions or waivers, but they are not mandatory.
USCIRF Commissioner David Curry said India’s use of domestic oppression to target religious minorities from India residing abroad “is especially dangerous and cannot be ignored.”
India’s foreign ministry had rejected the recommendation when it was first made in 2020, calling it “biased and tendentious.”
