Targeted sanctions against India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), over its involvement in murder schemes against Sikh separatists overseas, were recommended by a United States government body on religious freedom.
Based on the worsening conditions for religious minorities, especially Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in its annual report published Tuesday, also urged India be declared a “country of particular concern.”
“In 2024, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate as attacks and discrimination against religious minority continued to rise,” the panel said.
In reference to minorities during the 2024 general elections, USCIRF charged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of disseminating “hateful rhetoric and disinformation.” As an example of provocative language, it quoted Modi’s comments characterizing Muslims as “infiltrators” with “more children.”
Given New Delhi’s geopolitical relevance to Washington as a counterbalance to China, it seems doubtful that the Biden or Trump government will move against RAW; the panel’s recommendations are not legally binding.
Still, the panel’s recommendation adds to mounting worldwide criticism of India’s treatment of civil liberties and religious freedom. The advice follows US officials charging former Indian intelligence officer Vikash Yadav in 2023 in relation to an allegedly planned assassination of US-based Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
India deems Sikh separatist movements, a national security danger, while denying involvement in such actions.
The United Nations has labeled the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) “fundamentally discriminatory,” and USCIRF’s report highlighted other issues including continuous anti-conversion laws in many Indian states.
Further evidence of systematic discrimination the panel also cited as India’s renunciation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status, the destruction of properties owned by Muslims, and the deployment of bulldozers to target minority-owned homes and businesses.
Though strategic links between the US and India, especially over defense, trade, and Indo-Pacific cooperation, have muted official criticism, rights campaigners have long encouraged Washington to confront these issues more directly.
With the commission citing recent government directives enhancing state control over religious practices, Vietnam was also listed in the report as a nation that should be declared “of particular concern”. As of December 2024, the report stated more than eighty Vietnamese people were imprisoned for religious activity or activism.
Notwithstanding the results, the Indian and Vietnamese embassies have not yet reacted to the recommendations of the commission.
Comprising a bipartisan federal panel, USCIRF advises the White House, State Department, and Congress and watches religious freedom around the world. Although India has been added to the “countries of particular concern” list for some years now, no US government has acted in line with that advise.
