State Department urged to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern — the highest classification reserved for nations committing ‘systematic, ongoing and egregious violations’ of religious freedom
NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON, DC – The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has delivered one of its sharpest assessments yet on the condition of religious freedom in India, warning that the world’s largest democracy is witnessing rising intolerance, discrimination, and systematic persecution of minorities. In its new report, the federal watchdog has strongly recommended that the State Department designates India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) — the highest classification reserved for nations committing “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations” of religious freedom.
In its latest report, Issue Update: Systematic Religious Persecution in India, released on Tuesday, the US religious commission argues that India’s political, social, and criminal-justice institutions are being reshaped around a Hindu majoritarian vision championed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and implemented by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It cited “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations,” by the Narendra Modi government.
This sharp assessment comes amid growing alarm over India’s democratic backsliding under Prime Minister Modi — a leader who was once barred from entering the United States following allegations of complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat.
Secular Constitution Under Strain
India’s Constitution envisions a secular republic guaranteeing equal rights to all faiths. Yet, according to USCIRF, this promise has steadily eroded since Modi and the BJP first came to power in 2014. The report describes the rise of laws, policies, and political rhetoric that mirror the ideological contours of Hindutva, which seeks to define India as a homeland for Hindus and relegates other communities to the margins.
Despite constitutional protections, USCIRF notes a rapid expansion of restrictions on religious practice, intensifying hostility toward minorities, and a dangerous shrinking of civic and democratic space. “Fear and disenfranchisement,” the report says, increasingly shape the lived experience of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and other vulnerable groups.
While the BJP operates as India’s most dominant political party, the USCIRF report stresses that the RSS remains the ideological engine powering the country’s rightward shift. Founded in 1925, the RSS is the core of the Sangh Parivar, a network of dozens of affiliated bodies that influence education, culture, politics, and grassroots mobilisation.
The RSS envisions a Hindu rashtra (nation), where non-Hindu communities must accept a subordinate place. For decades, its cadres have been linked to acts of extremist violence — from the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 to numerous more recent lynchings and attacks on mosques and churches. With millions of members and thousands of local units, the organisation shapes narratives in schools, fuels street-level mobilisation, and provides the political machinery that underpins BJP electoral victories.
The report underscores that the RSS is neither apolitical nor benign: it is a mass ideological movement guiding the BJP’s governance agenda.
Modi remains the most prominent RSS product in Indian politics. His political trajectory — from an RSS pracharak to Gujarat chief minister to three-term prime minister — is inseparable from the organisation’s influence.
The 2002 Gujarat riots, in which over 1,000 Muslims were killed, cast a long shadow over Modi’s early leadership. In 2005, the US denied him a visa under the International Religious Freedom Act, citing “severe violations of religious freedom.” This ban lasted until Modi became prime minister in 2014.
Today, key members of Modi’s inner circle, including Home Minister Amit Shah, come from the same ideological lineage. Shah, long seen as Modi’s closest political ally and potential successor, has repeatedly used rhetoric that portrays Muslims as outsiders and threats.
Laws Weaponised Against Minorities
USCIRF identifies an expanding legal architecture that disproportionately targets religious minorities and limits protections guaranteed under the Constitution:
1. Citizenship and Nationality
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019, which fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim refugees, is India’s first explicitly religion-based citizenship law. Combined with the proposed National Register of Citizens, it risks rendering millions of Muslims stateless.
2. Anti-Conversion Laws
Eleven states now enforce laws criminalising or restricting religious conversion, often used to harass pastors, priests, and Muslim community leaders. Hundreds have been arrested under these provisions on tenuous grounds.
3. Cow Protection Laws
Strict penalties on cow slaughter have emboldened vigilante groups whose attacks on Muslims and Dalits frequently result in death — with little accountability.
4. Funding Crackdowns
The Foreign Currency Management Act (FCMA) has curtailed or cancelled NGO registrations, disproportionately affecting Christian charities and Muslim organisations.
5. Blasphemy-type Provisions
Penal Code Section 295A, used to prosecute actions that “hurt religious sentiments,” is frequently deployed to silence minorities while majoritarian hate speech goes unchecked.
Policing, Courts, and the Culture of Impunity
USCIRF highlights a deeper institutional problem: India’s federal system places policing under state governments, leading to politically driven enforcement and selective justice.
Premier investigation agency, the CBI, cannot investigate state-level crimes without permission, creating an accountability vacuum. As a result, mob attacks, mosque demolitions, church burnings, and vigilante violence often proceed with impunity.
Meanwhile, the criminal justice system itself becomes an instrument of punishment. With 70 percent of prisoners under trial — many from minority backgrounds — and more than 46 million cases pending in courts, accused individuals often languish for years without conviction. Activist Umar Khalid’s continued detention since 2020 under UAPA for protesting the CAA exemplifies this systemic failure.
States as Hindutva Laboratories
The BJP now governs 17 of India’s 28 states, many led by chief ministers with strong RSS ties. USCIRF identifies these states as testing grounds for Hindutva-aligned policies:
Uttar Pradesh: bulldozing Muslim homes, anti-conversion policing, cow-protection vigilantism.
Karnataka & Madhya Pradesh: textbook revisions erasing Muslim contributions from history.
Uttarakhand: laws restricting interfaith marriages under the “love jihad” conspiracy.
Across these states, the pattern is consistent: either direct state enforcement of discriminatory policies or deliberate inaction in the face of violence.
A Republic at a Crossroads
USCIRF’s conclusion is blunt: India’s political system has evolved to facilitate discrimination, not prevent it. The RSS-BJP nexus has generated ideological, legislative, and administrative frameworks that undermine secularism and pluralism at their core.
The Commission’s push for India to be named a Country of Particular Concern signals a major diplomatic turning point — raising difficult questions about whether the US can continue balancing strategic ties with urgent human-rights concerns.
For India, the crisis is existential. The report portrays a nation where belonging is increasingly defined through a majoritarian religious lens, and where constitutional safeguards are being systematically hollowed out.
As USCIRF warned, “What we are witnessing in India is not an organic social shift — it is an engineered, systematic transformation led by state-allied ideological forces.”
For millions of Indians — Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, or simply dissenting — these pressures are not abstractions but lived, daily realities.
