New Delhi: Condemning the “escalating attacks” on minorities in India, US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said that she was “proud” to have boycotted the address of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the joint sitting of US Congress.
Speaking at a Congressional briefing organised by 18 civil society groups on July 19, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said, “I’m proud to have stood with my colleagues in boycotting Prime Minister Modi’s speech [during his US visit]. This House should never be used as a platform to spread bigotry and hate.”
Around half a dozen Democrats had boycotted the speech by Modi last month, over his government’s human rights record when it came to minorities.
“For the last four years, we’ve witnessed severe escalating attacks on religious minorities under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party… And yet we know our own US State Department has yet to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern under US law,” she said, as per a press release on the briefing.
The bi-partisan US state-department funded US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recommended for four consecutive years that India should be designated as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ by the State department.
Till now, the US state department has refused to take any such action. The Indian government has accused USCIRF of reiterating “biased and motivated comments” about the country in its annual report.
At the briefing, USCIRF Commissioner David Curry pointed out that the Commission had urged the Biden administration to raise religious freedom concerns during the Indian PM’s state visit.
“Religious freedom was mentioned briefly during the visit but was certainly not a focal point… Modi denied that discrimination of religious minorities existed in India. We strongly disagree,” he said, as quoted by the press communique from the organisers.
The Indian PM had been asked a question about the state of minorities at a rare press interaction in the White House. Modi had claimed that there India’s constitution and ‘DNA’ ensured that there was no discrimination against religious minorities and suppression of dissent.
Also speaking at the briefing, United Nations Special Rapporteur of Minority Rights Fernand de Varennes stated that there was an “obvious and disturbing trend in the increasing allegations” of human rights violations against minorities in India that are being submitted.
“We are talking of millions of minorities who are directly affected in some of these allegations,” said de Varennes.
Calling on US to put pressure as the self-proclaimed defender of global human rights, noting that the “massive persecution” in India is “is difficult to reconcile with democracy”. “What we are now seeing is a perversion of what India can be, has been, and should be,” he added, as per the press note.