Indian government and mainstream media say the era of measuring human rights with Western yardsticks is over, but are there efforts to stay out of 'naughty lists' and why is the inclusion of a country like Pakistan acknowledged with gusto?
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RECENTLY, the US Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, in a press release, designated Burma, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as "countries of particular concern for having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom".
On January 4, Blinken designated Algeria, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic, Comoros and Vietnam as "special watch list countries for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom".
Lastly, Blinken designated eight non-sovereign entities including the Taliban and Boko Haram as "entities of particular concern".
As per Blinken's press statement: "Significant violations of religious freedom also occur in countries that are not designated."
He added: "Governments must end abuses such as attacks on members of religious minority communities and their place of worship, communal violence and lengthy imprisonment for peaceful expression, transnational repression, and calls to violence against religious communities, among other violations that occur in too many places around the world."
The designations as "countries of particular concern" are based on the recommendations of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan, US federal government commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). Its mandate is to monitor the universal right to freedom of religion or belief across countries through the lens of international human rights standards, such as those found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The US has its own Office of International Religious Department, established under the IRFA. The difference between the mandate of the USCIRF and the US's Office of International Religious department is that the latter only documents religious freedom violations in every country in the world and publishes an annual report on it.
The USCIRF has a bigger mandate to not just recommend 'countries of particular concern' but also make policy recommendations to the US government.
The legal threshold for recommending a country under the list of countries of particular concern is that a country must be engaging in or tolerating "systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedoms".
As per the IRFA, which was amended by the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, 2016, a country of particular concern is one where the violation of religious freedom is "particularly severe".
Whereas, the countries designated as the 'special watch list' are those where the government engages or tolerates "severe" violations of religious freedom.
In its 2023 annual report, the USCIRF had recommended seventeen countries namely Afghanistan, Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, India, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam as countries of particular concern.
The USCIRF has been recommending India as a country of particular concern since 2020. On many occasions, it has expressed its outrage towards the US for the failure to designate India as a country of concern.
On January 4, 2024, the USCIRF responded to Blinken's press release and expressed its views against the US State department's omission to designate Nigeria and India as countries of particular concern despite the two countries meeting the threshold of particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
The USCIRF's chairman Abraham Cooper and vice chairman Frederick A. Davie said: "There is no justification as to why the State department did not designate Nigeria or India as a country of particular concern, despite its own reporting and statements."
"The USCIRF calls on Congress to convene a public hearing on the failure of the State department to follow our recommendations," they averred.
Last year, on December 15, the USCIRF issued a statement expressing how deeply concerned it is by India's increased 'transnational' targeting of religious minorities and those advocating on their behalf.
It said: "Due to India's systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief, the USCIRF implores the US department of State to designate India a country of particular concern."
Transnational repression is said to occur when States use intimidation, harassment or violence against those living outside their borders. This kind of violence is often used to target political and human rights activists, journalists and members of religious and ethnic minority groups.
In extreme cases, tactics include detention, reprisals against family members, kidnapping or assassinations.
In this context, the USCIRF commissioner Stephen Schneck said: "The Indian government's alleged involvement in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the United States is deeply troubling, and represents a severe escalation of India's efforts to silence religious minorities and human rights defenders both within its country and aboard."
On October 3, 2023, the USCIRF reiterated its concerns against India while calling for the release of religious prisoners of conscience. As per USCIRF's 'Frank R. Wolf Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List', 37 individuals of different faiths have been imprisoned in India since 2020.
This includes the names of human rights defender Irfan Mehraj, journalist Teesta Setalvad, fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, and Bhima-Koregaon accused Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba.
In the past, the USCIRF has urged US President Joseph R. Biden to address the concerning issues of religious freedom during his visit to India.
The USCIRF pointed out that Biden must address the discriminatory policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led ruling government at the Union level and in many states that led to the implementation of hijab ban in educational institutions in Karnataka, anti-conversion laws of states and the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 negatively impacts Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits and Adivasis in India.
It also requested the President to address the cases of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act which suppress critical voices particularly those of religious minorities in India.
Particularly, on anti-conversion laws, the USCIRF has analysed laws of 12 states and remarked that the laws must be repealed to uphold international human rights principles. The USCIRF called out these laws as consisting of vague definitions which are usually "aimed at preventing so-called 'love-Jihad', a derogatory term for conversion in the context of interfaith marriages".
The 2023 annual report of the USCIRF takes note of all these issues including the increasing incidents of demolition of property including the place of worship of minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians.
Reportedly, Biden on his visit to the G-20 summit was not allowed to address the media on the Indian situation. When he reached Vietnam, he told the press: "As I always do, I raised the importance of respecting human rights, the vital role of civil society, and a free press and building a strong and prosperous country with Mr Modi. We got a lot of important work done."
A congressional hearing was hosted by the USCIRF weeks after Biden's visit to India.
Renowned scholars and United Nations Rapporteur on Minorities Issues testified on cow slaughter laws, incidents of hate crimes and genocidal calls against minority communities.
The hearing took note of the incidents of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in Nuh, Haryana and the targeted attacks against Christians and Jewish minorities during the Manipur violence and Sikhs in Punjab and elsewhere.
In the wake of the Manipur crisis, UN experts raised the issue of serious human rights violations and abuses including gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, torture and ill-treatment amongst others in the state.
In 2022, three renowned scholars Sonja Biserko, Mazruki Darusman and Stephen Rapp published a report on the panel on independent international experts to examine alleged violations of international law committed against Muslims in India since July 2019.
The report states that while the violence perpetrated on Muslims through anti-Muslim hate speech and incitement disseminated on several platforms poses serious threats to the survival of the religious community, the violence against them particularly in Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir has potentially reached the threshold of international crimes such as crime against humanity.
While India has been repeatedly designated as a country of particular concern since 2020, it does not mean that violations of religious freedoms were not flagged by the USCIRF previously.
Visas to India have been denied to the members of the USCIRF since 2001. After the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, the USCIRF designated India as a country of particular concern.
Despite the change of governments— from Atal Bihari Vajpayee's BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to Dr Manmohan Singh's Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the Narendra Modi-led NDA government— India's foreign policy on visits by the USCIRF remained unchanged.
In 2016, the Indian government led by Modi rejected the visa of USCIRF members.
However, what has perhaps changed is the government's response to these reports, for a skirting around, denial and playing down of the human rights situation in India, to a more aggressive approach where the Indian government questions the motivation and locus standi of governments and agencies offering criticism or highlighting human rights abuse in India.
For example, in 2019, the Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Raveesh Kumar rejected the USCIRF's 2018 report. He said: "We do not see the locus standi of a foreign entity such as the USCIRF to pass its judgment and comment on the state of Indian citizens' constitutionally protected rights."
In 2022, according to news agency PTI, responding to comments from Blinken that the US government was monitoring the human rights situation in India, India's external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said, "Look, people are entitled to have views about us. But we are also equally entitled to have views about their views and about the interests, and the lobbies and the vote banks which drive that. So, whenever there is a discussion, I can tell you that we will not be reticent about speaking out."
This shift in diplomatic stance, based as it is on a bold new assertion that the world is what it is has been a point of pride for the Modi government.
Yet the fact that India has managed to stay out of the list of 'countries of particular concern' suggests certain backchannel and diplomatic manoeuvring.
The question is, why bother if such lists are political in the first place?
Therein lies the rub.
Compare the coverage by the Indian mainstream media of the designation of Pakistan in the list with the coverage by these channels when India makes to a similar list and you will garland yourself with a festoon of delightful ironies.