#dnaEdit: Modi government right to deny US religious commission permit to visit India

The Modi government has done the right thing by refusing permission to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit India and examine conditions of religious freedom in the country.

The Manmohan Singh government took a similar decision in 2009 with regard to the commission. One of the reasons cited by the government is that the commission has no locus standi. The arguments against allowing the commission are so commonsensical that they need not be enumerated. But on an occasion like this, it would be better to re-examine the reasons.

According to norms of international law, a commission created by a sovereign state cannot claim to have an oversight in the territory of another sovereign state. The USCIRF is a creation of the US Congress — the House of Representatives and the Senate — and its members are nominated by the American President, the House speaker, and the leaders of the party of the president and of the party which is not in the White House. This commission is not an international body like the United Nations and many of its affiliated organisations like the WHO or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Though the USCIRF claims to be not part of the State Department, which deals with foreign affairs and has its own religious freedom monitoring body, it remains an agent, however autonomous, of the US government.

The question that naturally comes up is as to why the Americans presume to monitor the conditions of religious freedom in other countries. It is indeed a matter of realpolitik, where the US wields enormous influence through its economic and military aid programmes to many countries in the world. The US Congress, and through it the American people, want to know whether the American tax-payers money is being used to support tyrannies. As a democracy with an evangelical zeal to promote democracy, the American government and its people are quite justified in wanting to know whether their money is going to the right places. Interestingly, the commission claims to test the condition of religious freedom in other countries not by any American statute but by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The commission invokes Article 18 of the Universal Declaration which deals with freedom of thought, conscience and belief. The argument that the commission puts forward is that it is applying international standards and is not imposing American values. But the commission is one of the many organisations through which the US wants to play the role of a generous donor who demands to know from recipient countries whether they adhere to democratic norms.

It can be argued that India will not have much to fear from such a committee at the worst of times because religious freedoms in the country are enshrined in the chapter on the Fundamental Rights of the Constitution, that the courts interpret and defend the religious rights of the individuals and groups, and that there are always disputes and contests regarding the issue. There are instances of violation and there are also instances where the right is fully honoured in practice. It can be asserted that in terms of religious freedom India is second to none. The commission should be allowed into the country, and its report should be treated benignly. India has nothing to lose. For its part, the US should move the UN to set up such a commission to gain international acceptance.