India on Friday rejected the US State Department report on International Religious Freedom 2023, saying it is deeply biased, lacks an understanding of this country’s social fabric and is visibly driven by votebank considerations and a prescriptive outlook.
”The exercise itself is a mix of imputations, misrepresentations, selective usage of facts, reliance on biased sources, and a one-sided projection of issues. This extends even to the depiction of our constitutional provisions and duly enacted laws of India,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a media briefing.
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The report, he said, has selectively picked incidents to advance a preconceived narrative as well. In some cases, the very validity of laws and regulations are questioned by the report, as are the right of legislatures to enact them, he added.
The spokesperson said the report also appears to challenge the integrity of certain legal judgments given by Indian courts. The report has also targeted regulations that monitor the misuse of financial flows into India, suggesting that the burden of compliance is unreasonable. It seeks to question the need for such measures, he added.
He noted that the US, on its own part, has even more stringent laws and regulations and would surely not prescribe such solutions for itself.
”Human rights and respect for diversity have been, and remain a legitimate subject of discussion between India and the US. In 2023, India has officially taken up numerous cases in the US of hate crimes, racial attacks on Indian nationals and other minorities, vandalization and targeting of places of worship, violence and mistreatment by law enforcement authorities, as well as according to political space to advocates of extremism and terrorism abroad,” the spokesperson said.
However, such a dialogue should not become a license for foreign interference in other polities, he added.
The report, released by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claimed that there is a concerning increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship for members of minority faith communities.
