The US State Department has dismissed the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report on India’s religious freedom, saying it is “an independent commission that provides policy recommendations” and that “after careful review in December of last year, the Secretary assessed that India did not meet the threshold for designation as a Country of Particular Concern”.

Matthew Miller, Spokesperson of the US State Department made these comments during a State Department press briefing on 8 October.

His full reply to a question asked by a journalist from Pakistan at the media briefing can be read below:

QUESTION: So the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom just released a new report on India, and asking the State Department to impose sanctions on some individuals and entities, and also designate India CPC. Any comments on that?

MR MILLER: Yeah, so I – we’ve seen the report. USCIRF is an independent commission that provides policy recommendations to the Executive Branch as well as to Congress. It’s not a part of the State Department or part of the Executive Branch. I think as you know, after careful review in December of last year, the Secretary assessed that India did not meet the threshold for designation as a Country of Particular Concern, but we continue to carefully monitor the religious freedom situation in every country, including India.

Read the full report here : https://www.state.gov/?post_type=state_briefing&%3Bp=92333

The report, which was released on 2 October, recommended that India be downgraded to the rank of a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).

Read the full report here : https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/uscirf/2010/en/72938

This is not the first time the USCIRF has made an effort to designate India as a country of particular concern or on the special watchlist for religious freedom.

Since 2009, the USCIRF has consistently criticized India for deteriorating religious freedom conditions.
Read the full report here : https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/uscirf/2010/en/72938

In its 2010 report, the USCIRF mentioned that the national Congress-led government had “failed to take effective measures to ensure the rights of religious minorities” while the state and local level governments were “largely inadequate”.

According to The Sunday Guardian, an Indian weekly, the USCIRF’s “lack of contextualizing, examining and explaining the complaints, grievances and news reports and then recommending to the State Department… has often discouraged the (US) State Department from implementing the recommendations.”

“As recently as January 2024, the USCIRF was frustrated that its recommendations to designate India and Nigeria as countries of particular concern did not find favor in the State Department,” the report says, adding that “(the USCIRF’s) recommendations should be based on a holistic understanding of societies and not just on unverified reports and number of grievances.”

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has reacted sharply to the report.
According to MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, “Our stance on the USCIRF is well established. This organization exhibits clear bias and pursues a political agenda.”

“We reject this malicious report, which only serves to discredit USCIRF further,” he added.
Interestingly, the USCIRF report hasn’t garnered much attention in the US media, with no mainstream news outlets covering it. In India, the local media houses have followed up on the reactions of the MEA to the report.

It is important to note that the USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan US federal government agency created under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). It monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in countries other than the US. Its assessments of countries are based on international human rights standards.

The 2024 report has been authored by Sema Hasan, a Pakistani-American senior policy analyst with the USCIRF.
Hasan has blamed Indian government officials for hate speech and criticized the Indian Supreme Court for upholding the decision to revoke Article 370, dissolving the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The report concludes with criticising the US State Department for failing so far, to designate India as a country of particular concern.