DNA Edit: Visit India first - Reports about religious freedom are politically motivated

The United States, the world’s Big Brother, likes to keep its fingers in many pies, particularly those that deal with human rights and liberal aspirations, however unilateral it may be. In the last few years – not surprisingly, since the Narendra Modi government first took charge in 2014 – the constant refrain from various government and non-government groups in the US has been to downgrade India’s position as a country that accords full religious freedom to all its citizens.

That trend continues. The US State Department’s latest Report on International Religious Freedom, which was released last week, drew attention to episodes of mob violence by cow vigilantes, referred to ghar wapsi conversions and the liberal use of discriminatory language by members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. As if to preempt an Indian response, the report states that governments who have been called out for their actions “often decry ‘interference in internal affairs’ when they are rightfully admonished”.

India has done well to damn the US government report as one that is biased and devoid of facts. Slamming the US for its comments on the perceived threat to minority communities in India, New Delhi has reminded Washington that “India is proud of its secular credentials, it’s status as the largest democracy and pluralistic society with a long-standing commitment to tolerance and inclusion”.

The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including minority communities. This is not the first time – nor presumably, the last – when similar charges have been drummed up against India by vested interests in the US and elsewhere in the world.

Sadly, most such observations emanate from individuals and groups who have never had the occasion to visit India. Their reports are mere figments of imagination, undoubtedly fed by motivated anti-Indian forces. Those who know India will never agree. Even in this case, Tenzin Dorjee, Commission Chairperson, dissented with the view that India’s religious freedom continued to decline in 2018.

In his dissenting note, he said that India is an open society with a robust democratic and judicial system, and that overall, “I believe religious harmony exists in India.” Dorjee, unlike some of the authors of the report, has lived for over 30 years as a Tibetan refugee in India.

A new Commission member, Anurima Bhargava, a Chicago-native of Indian origin, hit the nail on the head when she wrote that the Commission had not had the opportunity to officially visit India in over a decade and sought stronger engagement and a productive dialogue with this country, before arriving at conclusions. There are also differing opinions on the definition of religious freedom.

The Indian position on the freedom of religion entails non-interference of the state in religious matters and the only permissible interference is confined to matters incidental to religion. This is a skeletal model of Indian secularism. How this skeletal model works out when life and blood are infused into it is a matter of ongoing observation.