Why the U.S. should designate India a ‘country of particular concern’

By ELLEN KENNEDY, BERNARD HEBDA, ANANTANAND RAMBACHAN AND DEBRA RAPPAPORT 

August 11, 2022 

Several congressional briefings have been held recently to express concern about the persecution of Muslims in India today.

On June 6, two senior officials of India’s ruling BJP party made remarks labeled “insulting” and “derogatory” against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. At least seven Muslim nations registered official protests with India and the officials were fired. The remarks led to street protests by Muslims, and the BJP responded by demolishing Muslim homes.

India has a population of 1.4 billion people. Fully 80%, or a billion, identify as Hindu. The second largest group, 14% and 200 million people are Muslim.

For the third consecutive year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recommended that the U.S. State Department designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” because of ongoing harassment and violence against the Muslim minority.

How is this happening in India, a secular, democratic state?

Religious rights are enshrined in Article 25 of India’s Constitution.

However, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP took control of the government in 2014, they advanced a radical Hindutva nationalist agenda based on a view of Hinduism as the only true Indian way of life.

This view is propounded by the RSS, a right-wing, Fascist-inspired militant Hindu organization of which Modi was long a leader. The doctrine spreads in thousands of RSS schools, on radical social media, in speeches at Hindu temples, and at mass demonstrations.

The legendary RSS Chief M.S. Golwalkar proclaimed Hindutva as the only way to maintain unity in India, saying, “The foreign races must either adopt Hindu culture and language and must lose their separate existence or they may stay in the country wholly subordinate to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, not even citizens’ rights.”

His vision shapes BJP laws and policies.

The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 grants quick citizenship to people who have fled to India to escape religious persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.  This citizenship is only for refugees who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians – tying citizenship to religious faith in a constitutionally secular country. The Citizenship Amendment Act’s exclusion of Muslims essentially became a license for anti-Muslim violence.

The government then removed citizenship and voting rights from 1.9 million people, of whom 700,000 were Muslims, with a National Register of Citizens, prepared under the supervision of the Supreme Court and carried out by the government.

Without citizenship, people have no right to have rights.

The Indian judiciary appears headed down a treacherous path, not only against Muslims who have a long history in India, but against all Muslims.

In February 2021, military leaders in neighboring Myanmar overthrew the democratically elected government. Subsequent civilian protests have resulted in more than 1,500 deaths, 15,000 arrests, and the displacement of 500,000 people. Amidst this upheaval, some Rohingya, a small Muslim minority in Myanmar designated by the UN as “the most persecuted people on earth,” fled to India for sanctuary.

Human Rights Watch reported, however, that on March 6, 2021, Indian authorities detained and planned to deport nearly 170 Rohingya.

Two Rohingya petitioned India’s Supreme Court to release the detainees and block the deportations.

India’s Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde said the deportations could go ahead.

On April 2, 2022, more Rohingya were detained. The forcible return of refugees is an international crime called refoulement, a “cruel disregard for human life and international law.”

Members of the Modi government call the Rohingya a security threat.

The Washington Post reports recent outbreaks of anti-Muslim violence in at least six Indian states, with Hindu nationalists beating and murdering Muslims in public places, including mosques, while police watch. There are open calls for compulsory sterilizations, murder, and outright genocide of Muslims.

Several hundred prominent Muslim women have been put up for “auction” on social media sites. Women and girls wearing hijabs have been denied entrance to schools and universities. Hindu-Muslim mixed-faith marriages are excoriated. There is public incitement for Hindus to rape Muslim women.

Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch warns that a genocide of Muslims in India is about to take place.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch have expressed concern.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ranks India second in the world in this year’s Early Warning Statistical Risk Assessment.

On May 20, 2020, the Saint Paul City Council passed a resolution “expressing solidarity with Saint Paul’s South Asian community regardless of religion and caste by rejecting the BJP’s Islamophobic ideology and opposing India’s National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act.”

We recognize the strong ties between the world’s two largest democracies. India and the U.S. belong to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue along with Japan and Australia, and India and the U.S. partner in anti-terrorism efforts. Economically, the U.S. and India are deeply connected. The U.S. imported $44.8 billion worth of goods from India in 2020 and exported $77 billion to India. Minnesota has a significant trade relationship with India as well, with 2021 exports to India totaling nearly $300 million.

Despite these bilateral relations, we urge U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, and our eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives, to designate India a “country of concern.”

Dr. Ellen Kennedy is the Executive Director of World Without Genocide at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and an adjunct professor at Mitchell Hamline. The Rev. Bernard Hebda is the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Dr. Anantanand Rambachan is an emeritus professor of religion at Saint Olaf College. Rabbi Debra Rappaport is co-chair of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association.

https://www.twincities.com/2022/08/11/ellen-kennedy-et-al-why-the-u-s-should-designate-india-a-country-of-particular-concern/