India defends its file on spiritual tolerance after US report accused officers of supporting assaults on minority worshippers.
India has defended its file on spiritual tolerance and rebuked america for its personal rights points after a report accused Indian officers of supporting assaults on minority worshippers.
Washington’s annual report on spiritual freedom all over the world contained a uncommon – if oblique – criticism of New Delhi, its rising ally, on Thursday, documenting incendiary feedback by Indian public officers and accounts of discrimination in opposition to Muslims and Christians in India.
New Delhi’s overseas ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi stated on Friday that senior US officers had made “ill-informed” and “biased” feedback coinciding with the report’s launch.
“As a naturally pluralistic society, India values spiritual freedom and human rights,” Bagchi stated in an announcement.
“In our discussions with the US, we have now often highlighted problems with concern there, together with racially and ethnically motivated assaults, hate crimes and gun violence,” he stated.
Our response to media queries concerning the discharge of U.S. State Division 2021 Report on Worldwide Non secular Freedom:https://t.co/zlwdjgzoOnpic.twitter.com/rBkJaVpxq5
— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) June 3, 2022
Like its neighbour China, India incessantly bristles at overseas criticism of its rights file.
New Delhi has routinely denounced the US Fee on Worldwide Non secular Freedom, an autonomous authorities panel, which has repeatedly beneficial India be placed on a blacklist.
The State Division is extremely unlikely to take motion in opposition to India, recognized by successive US administrations as a key strategic companion within the face of a rising China.
The report on spiritual freedom globally in 2021 stated assaults on members of minority communities, together with killings, assaults, and intimidation, occurred all through final yr in India. These included cow vigilantism – assaults on non-Hindus for allegedly slaughtering cows or buying and selling in beef.
Many Hindus, who account for about 80 % of India’s 1.35 billion individuals, take into account cows sacred and a number of other states dominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist celebration have enacted legal guidelines or toughened outdated ones in opposition to slaughtering cows.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist authorities has additionally championed a sequence of measures that critics have known as discriminatory.
“In India, some officers are ignoring and even supporting rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship,” Rashad Hussain, the US ambassador-at-large for worldwide spiritual freedom, stated on the report’s launch on Thursday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated the report confirmed spiritual freedom and the rights of spiritual minorities have been below menace all over the world.
“For instance, in India, the world’s largest democracy and residential to an incredible range of faiths, we’ve seen rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship,” Blinken stated.
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