“BJP Govt’s Policies Violating Religious Freedom of Indian Muslims”: US Commission on International Religious Freedom

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Dealing in detail with the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) and nationwide protest against it led by Muslims, the report pointed out that the CAA was brought on the advice of Home Minister Amit Shah and other BJP leaders “as a corrective measure to protect Hindus” who had been excluded from the National Register of Citizens(NRC) in Assam.

Syed Khalique Ahmed | India Tomorrow

NEW DELHI, JUNE 11—While stating that the Bharatiya Janata party(BJP) government’s policies after it returned to power in 2019 with a huge majority are “violating the religion freedom of minorities across India, especially Muslims”, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIRF) released on Thursday also asked the US government to “impose targeted sanctions on Indian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individual’s assets and barring their entry into the United States”.

The report alleges that the BJP government “allowed violence against minorities and their houses of worship to continue with impunity, and also engaged in and tolerated hate speech and incitement to violence”.

CAA brought to protect Hindus
Dealing in detail with the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) and nationwide protest against it led by Muslims, the report pointed out that the CAA was brought on the advice of Home Minister Amit Shah and other BJP leaders “as a corrective measure to protect Hindus” who had been excluded from the National Register of Citizens(NRC) in Assam.

It says that the BJP government also “approved a National Population Register (NPR) as a first step toward a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) to identify illegal migrants in India. The report says that “according to government statements and under the Citizenship Rules, 2003, the NPR-which allows residents to be marked as “doubtful citizens” and placed under scrutiny-is the first step towards a nationwide NRC”.

Over 19 lakh residents of Assam-both Muslims and Hindus-were excluded from statewide NRC in Assam and many of them have been detained in camps on the pretext of being foreigners as these people could not prove their Indian citizenship.

The CAA is a fast-track to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan already residing in India by treating them “as refugees fleeing religious persecution”. The CAA thus provides non-Muslims a path to restore their citizenship and avoid detention or deportation.

Muslims will become stateless if nationwide NRC is conducted
The report says that if a nationwide NRC is conducted as advocated by BJP leaders, the citizenship of millions would be in question, but only the Muslims will bear its consequences of statelessness because they are excluded from the provisions of CAA that grants citizenship to non-Muslims even if they fail to pass the NRC test. It says that during the NRC process in Assam impoverished families could not present the necessary documents due to poor record keeping or illiteracy. “Even with documentation, citizens were excluded because of minor inconsistencies; some were excluded despite using the same documents as included by their relatives”, says the report.

“The exclusion from the NRC could result in statelessness, deportation, or prolonged detention”, says the reports. It says that Home Minister Amit Shah referred to migrants as “termites” to be eradicated. As BJP was feeling troubled after exclusion of lakhs of Hindus from Assam NRC, Amit Shah and other BJP leaders advised for enactment of the CAA to protect them in Assam.

Protest against CAA met with violence by police/govt-aligned agencies
Stating that the “nationwide protests against the CAA in December 2019 was met with violence by police and government-aligned groups”, the report says Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath pledged “revenge” against anti-CAA protesters and stated that they should be fed “bullets, not biryani”. According to the report, 25 people died in attacks against protesters in UP alone. The police, according to USCIRF, particularly targetted Muslims.

Culture of impunity promoted violence against minorities
The report says that “throughout 2019, government action, including the CAA, continued enforcement of cow slaughter and anti-conversion laws, and the November Supreme court ruling on the Babri Masjid site, created a culture of impunity of nationwide campaigns of harassment and violence against religious minorities”.

Stating that the “mob lynching of persons suspected of cow slaughter or consuming beef often took on overtly Hindu nationalist tones”, the report specifically mentions the mob attack on Jharkhand’s Tabrez Ansari, who was forced to chant “jai Shri Ram (Hail Lord Ram)” as the mob beat him to death.

Police arrested victims, not perpetrators
The report notes that the police often arrested victims, that is, those attacked for cow slaughter or conversions activities rather than the perpetrators. The report says that “the Home Ministry instructed the National Crime Records Bureau to omit lynching from the 2019 crime data report”.

Stating that “the cow protection has been promoted as a key issue by the BJP and RSS”, the report says that “the lynch mobs have attacked Muslims, Christians and Dalits under suspicion of eating beef, slaughtering cows, or transporting cattle for slaughter”.

Revocation of J-K’s autonomy impacted religious freedom
The USCIRF notes that the revocation of the autonomy of the only Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 and imposing of restrictions like cutting internet and phone access negatively impacted religious freedom. “There were also several reports of mosques being closed, imams and Muslim leaders arrested and detained, and threats and violence by extremist groups”, says the USCIRF report.

Violence against Christians go up
The report points out that during the current BJP regime, “the violence against Christians also increased, with at least 328 violent incidents, often under accusations of forced conversions”. According to the report, the BJP government amended the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act to limit the activities of certain faith-based NGOs.

“During 2019, discriminatory policies, inflammatory rhetoric, and tolerance for violence against minorities at the national, state, and local level increased the climate of fear among the non-Hindu communities”, the report says.

Police fail to check Delhi violence
The report also briefly discusses the February 2020 anti-Muslim violence, saying that “India continued on this negative trajectory” even after 2019. “In February 2020, three days of violence erupted in Delhi with mobs attacking Muslim neighbourhoods”, says the report.

The report alleges failure of the police to check the violence and even directly participating in the violence. “There were reports of Delhi police, operating under the Home Ministry’s authority, failing to halt attacks and even directly participating in the violence”, the report states. As many as 53 persons were killed in the violence, mostly Muslims.

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