Hindu American Foundation (HAF), one of the leading Hindu body in America has accused the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) of conducting hearings that perpetuate misinformation about the intent and impact of India’s amended Citizenship laws.

The USCIRF had on Wednesday, expressed concern over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying it could result in the “wide-scale disenfranchisement” of Muslims in the country.

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Members of the commission along with an invited panel of experts convened a hearing with focus on the issue of CAA in India and the Rohingya Muslims’ issue in Myanmar to help develop policy recommendations for the US government in response to the issues.

According to the Citizenship Act passed by Parliament in December 2019, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014, and facing religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.

After the enactment of the law, protests erupted across the country over fears that the CAA may marginalise the minority Muslim community.

The government has maintained that the CAA is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.

“It’s deeply troubling to see US governmental bodies, such as the USCIRF hold hearings that perpetuate misinformation about the intent and impact of India’s Citizenship Amendment Act,” Samir Kalra, HAF, Managing Director said.

“This (USCIRF hearing) only serves to further compound the irresponsible statements that have come from the media and some US lawmakers, which has only fuelled more tension and violence in India,” Kalra said.

“Tragically, lost in all the false and misleading propaganda are the real victims that the CAA intended to help – the religiously persecuted refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who are stuck in legal limbo and living on the margins of Indian society,” he said.

HAF also recommended that the government reconsider the definition of religious and ethnic refugees as “members of a religious or ethnic minority community who are unable to return to their home countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan, and unable to obtain protection in those countries due to past or well-founded fear of future persecution on account of religion or ethnicity.”

Indian-American Sunanda Vashisht, who last year testified before the Tom Lantos Commission on Human Rights on Kashmir, slammed Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies Ashutosh Varshney’s comments at the USCIRF hearing that CAA, and the National Register for Citizens (NRC) “can render stateless a large number of Muslims, even if they were born in India and lived in the country for decades, as have their ancestors.”

“I am not sure how Prof Varshney arrived on this conclusion,” Vashisht said. “CAA has no provision of rendering anybody stateless. It gives citizenship to persecuted minorities of three neighbouring countries. Nationwide NRC does not exist so to assume anything about that is merely fertile imagination.

“Unless Mr Varshney “is talking about Assam NRC, which is a culmination of a long-protracted struggle by the Assamese and is being implemented under the supervision of the Supreme Court of India. Assam NRC has a totally different context and has nothing to do with the present government at all,”  Vashisht said.

Meanwhile, in an unprecedented move, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on March 3, had filed an intervention application in India’s Supreme Court against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which has triggered some of the largest protests in the country.

In its statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has said, “the Citizenship Amendment Act is an internal matter of India and concerns the sovereign right of the Indian Parliament to make laws. We strongly believe that no foreign party has any locus standi on issues pertaining to India’s sovereignty.”

The government has clarified its position on the matter as it says, “the CAA is constitutionally valid and complies with all requirements of our constitutional values. It is reflective of our long-standing national commitment with respect to human rights issues arising from the tragedy of the Partition of India.”

Earlier, on the visit to India US President Donald Trump on February 25 had said,  “he discussed about Citizenship law protests and religious freedom with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and PM Modi wants people to have religious freedom”.

President Trump further said that he did not discuss “individual attacks” and those were “up to India.”

“We did talk about religious freedom. I will say that the Prime Minister was incredible and he told me that he wants people to have religious freedom. He told me that in India they have worked very hard to have great and open religious freedom. If we look back and look at what’s going relative to other places…they have really worked hard on religious freedom,” President Trump said.

Delhi witnessed one of its worst riots last week which left over 45 people dead and more than 250 injured. The violence was triggered by protests against CAA seen by many critics as anti-Muslim and part of BJP government’s Hindu nationalist agenda, the city’s worst sectarian violence in decades.

(With inputs on PTI)