"Bailing out" Modi, US religious freedom panel now attacks his right-hand Amit Shah

Even as giving the impression that it has spared Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the influential US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in its just released annual report has attacked his right-hand, BJP chief Amit Shah, along with other "high-ranking members of the ruling BJP" , for declaring the need for a "nationwide anti-conversion law".
Report says, the US government should instead ensure, through the Government of India, that Indian states, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Arunanchal Pradesh and Odisha, repeal or amend their respective anti-conversion laws to "conform with internationally-recognized human rights standards."
Wanting the US government put its foot down on this score, the USCIRF wants the White House to "integrate concern for religious freedom into bilateral contacts with India, including the framework of future strategic dialogues, at both the federal and provincial level".
While "bailing out" Modi, the USCIRF appreciates his recent statement where he stressed on the need for religious freedom, calling it "a positive development", recalling how he "honored" some Indian Catholic saints, telling them for the first time that his government “will ensure that there is complete freedom of faith and that everyone has the undeniable right to retain or adopt the religion of his or her choice.”
But it recalls that in 2005, referring to the 2002 riots in Gujarat, the US State Department revoked Modi's tourist visa under a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that makes any foreign government official who 'was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom' ineligible for a US visa." It underlines, "Prime Minister Modi remains the only person known to have been denied a visa based on this provision."
The report sharply attacks efforts by the Sangh Parivar, especially RSS and VHP, for its "ghar vapsi" campaign, referring to how in December 2014, "Hindu nationalist groups announced plans to forcibly 'reconvert' at least 4,000 Christian families and 1,000 Muslim families to Hinduism in Uttar Pradesh on Christmas day. In advance of the programme, the Hindu groups sought to raise money for their campaign, noting that it cost nearly Rs 200,000 (US $3,200) per Christian and Rs 500,000 (US $8,000) per Muslim."
While the programme was postponed after widescape outrage, the report says, ever since the last 2014 polls, "religious minority communities have been subject to derogatory comments by politicians linked to the ruling BJP", and this has continued alongside "numerous violent attacks and forced conversions by Hindu nationalist groups, such as RSS and VHP".
Voicing concern of "Christian NGOs and leaders", the report says, they particularly feel insecure because of the "Freedom of Religion Act, commonly referred to as anti-conversion laws" in existence in many states. As for Muslims, it adds, they have been "facing undue scrutiny and arbitrary arrests and detentions, which the government justifies by the need to counter-terrorism", all of which has followed terrorist attacks in 2008 and 2010.
Pointing towards 823 deaths during 2013 because of communal incidents, the report notes, "According to Muslim and Christian NGOs that track communal incidents, 2014 statistics, yet to be released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, will be likely higher." Giving instances of violence against minority groups in Bihar and Gujarat this year, the report points towards how hundreds of Muslims were forcibly “reconverted” to Hinduism in a mass ceremony in Agra.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog