Indian Christian diaspora: US must pass law to sue perpetrators of religious violence

By A Representative
The US failure to call out religious persecution in India will hurt America’s business and security interests in South Asia, a leading Indian American Christian group has said. The US Congress must pass a law so that perpetrators of such persecution in India can be sued in US courts, it added.
“The US Congress [must] pass a law that would allow the victims of religious violence to sue the perpetrators, be it a non-state actor or a government official, in the courts under the US jurisdiction for both criminal and civil negligence,” the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA) said in a new report.
The US must designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), America’s formal name for persecuting nations, it said. The US Departments of State and Treasury must also “impose travel sanctions” under “the Global Magnitsky Act” on those involved in “leading, aiding or abetting terror campaigns against Christians, other religious minorities, women, Dalits, farmers, indigenous people, and other affected groups.”
Just as America’s failure to call out persecutions in China and Pakistan enabled persecution in those countries, the US turning “a blind eye to India’s slide into a religious fundamentalist state [will] directly threaten America’s national security interest", it said.
“America seems to be ignoring India’s epic slide into a radical religious state,” FIACONA chairman John Prabhudoss wrote in the foreword to the group’s second annual report. “Successive American Administrations are again making a wrong choice in India.”
The report flagged “several Hindutva militant extremist organizations” operating “in plain sight” in the US as cultural and educational groups, with newer ones registered every month. “[Hindu] extremist sleeper cells operate in the United States as Hindu religious, cultural, and business associations,” some of them even “affiliated with the Democratic or Republican parties,” promoting “an extremist ideology,” the FIACONA report said.
These organizations raised funds “to aid a religious terror agenda” in India, and “must be flagged prominently in public debates in the US and… brought to the attention of the Justice Department and local law enforcement officials.”

The report named the Hindu Heritage Foundation that raised funds in Frisco, Texas, in November to demolish Churches in India, and the Ekal Vidyalaya that raised funds in New Jersey to spread Hindu supremacist ideology in schools affiliated to the RSS, a paramilitary organization founded decades ago by those said to be admirers of Adolf Hitler.
These organizations were “not just creating trouble” but were “becoming an American problem… creating a radical network under the radar in calm and peaceful neighborhoods in America,” the report said.
The report recorded 1,198 cases of violence against Christians in India last year, “planned and orchestrated” by Hindutva nationalist political parties as “a part of a larger design to create a Hindus-only state, to the exclusion of the people of Abrahamic faiths.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) fabricated propaganda narrative of a supposed Christian “forced conversion” wave had contributed to a 157% increase in the violence against Christians, the report said. The police falsely accused Christians of forced conversions to invade and destroy their homes, arrest them, and saddle them with crippling legal costs on charges thrown out by courts over 300 times. Such cases have cost Indian Christians $100 million, it added.
Attacks on Muslims on the false allegations of Love Jihad had caused damage in terms of legal fees, property damage, and loss of human life, the report said.

Comments

Academics urge Azim Premji University to drop FIR against Student Reading Circle

By A Representative A group of academics and civil society members has issued an open letter to the leadership of Azim Premji University expressing concern over the filing of a police complaint that led to an FIR against a student-run reading circle following a recent incident of violence on campus. The signatories state that they hold the university in high regard for its commitment to constitutional values, critical inquiry and ethical public engagement, and argue that it is precisely because of this reputation that the present development is troubling.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

UAPA action against Telangana activist: Criminalising legitimate democratic activity?

By A Representative The National Investigation Agency's Hyderabad branch has issued notices to more than ten individuals in Telangana in connection with FIR No. RC-04/2025. Those served include activists, former student leaders, civil rights advocates, poets, writers, retired schoolteachers, and local leaders associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Indian National Congress.

The ultimate all-time ODI XI: A personal selection of icons across eras

By Harsh Thakor* This is my all-time best XI chosen for ODI (One Day International) cricket: 1. Adam Gilchrist (W) – The absolute master blaster who could create the impact of exploding gunpowder with his electrifying strokeplay. No batsman was more intimidating in his era. Often his knocks decided the fate of games as though the result were premeditated. He escalated batting strike rates to surreal realms.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Aligning too closely with U.S., allies, India’s silence on IRIS Dena raises troubling questions

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The reported sinking of the Iranian ship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka raises troubling questions about international norms and the credibility of the so-called rule-based order. If indeed the vessel was attacked by the American Navy while returning from a joint exercise in Visakhapatnam, it would represent a serious breach of trust and a violation of the principles that govern such cooperative engagements. Warships participating in these exercises are generally not armed for combat; they are meant to symbolize solidarity and friendship. The incident, therefore, is not only shocking but also deeply ironic.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

Search This Blog