Concerns About Religious Freedom For Indian Christians

Allies of the Indian government are working to pressure the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to reverse its recommendation that the State Department label India as a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom violations, an activist warns.

John Prabhudoss, the chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations, spoke at a panel event Wednesday to discuss “India’s Designation as CPC” hosted by International Christian Concern.

The panel discussed the state of religious freedom in India and the need for the State Department to designate the world’s second-largest nation as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in or tolerating religious freedom violations.

In recent years, Christians in India have faced escalating persecution that has seemingly coincided with the rise to power of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The country is ranked by Open Doors USA as the 10th-worst in the world regarding the severity of Christian persecution.

Countries subject to the State Department’s “CPC” designation face negative consequences, including the possibility of crippling sanctions.

While USCIRF, a congressionally mandated body of independent experts tasked with advising the federal government on religious freedom issues, included India on its list of countries of particular concern in its 2020 annual report, the U.S. State Department never acted on that recommendation.

USCIRF cited the implementation of “national-level policies violating religious freedom acrossIndia” as a cause for particular concern. However, the Indian government rejected the report's findings as "biased."

ICC’s Wednesday panel discussion comes as USCIRF’s 2021 annual report is scheduled forrelease later this month.

“Indian American Christians are deeply concerned about a campaign run by a foreign Hindunationalist government through its proxies in Washington to reverse the USCIRFrecommendation on India,” Prabhudoss said.