EDITORIAL: Following up on the annual report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF), the other day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated Pakistan, along with nine other nations including, of course, China, as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for alleged continued violations of religious freedom during 2019-20. He issued a waiver though for the presidential action requirement of sanctions for some of the counties so designated, including Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, for being important nations for US interests. But a glaring omission from the list is India, even though the CIRF, which recommends CPS designation, had suggested placing it among countries engaged in egregious violations of religious freedom. At a later news briefing, America's Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Samuel Brownback, tried to explain why the US treated India differently, claiming that in the case of Pakistan "a lot of actions are done by the government". He, however, did not mention any particular action. In the case of India, he said, violence is a problem, much of it is communal violence, adding that "when that takes place, we try to determine whether there has been effective police enforcement, judicial action." The justification falls flat in the face of the fact that only last February anti-Muslim violence in Delhi that went on for three days - because the police played an enabling role -left 52 people dead and another 200 people injured. Yet no one was held to account.
There is no denying that religious freedom guaranteed by this country's constitution is under constant threat, though from religious extremists created and nurtured by the Zia regime in aid of the US proxy war against the erstwhile Soviet Union in neighboring Afghanistan. Getting rid of that legacy is not easy. But efforts are on to do that. In India, on the other hand, the ruling Hindu extremist BJP-RSS combine has openly been resorting to grave violations of religious communities' rights, making hate speeches, demolishing ancient mosques with judicial support, and sanctioning enforced conversions of poor Muslims and Christians under the "Ghar Wapsi (return home)" programme. The government backed vigilantes, 'cow rakhshaks' (protectors of cow, a venerated animal in Hinduism) have lynched several Muslims on mere suspicion of eating cow meat. Further inflaming the situation during the CIRF's latest reporting period, the Delhi government passed a blatantly anti-Muslim law, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in gross violation of its secular constitution as well as international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights and the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The law sparked widespread protest demonstrations within that country; it also drew serious expressions of concern from globally respected rights groups. A patent example of systematic, horrendous violations of religious communities' rights is the Muslim majority illegally Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir where arbitrary arrests, torture and custodial killings and flagrant denial of basic human rights are rampant. And yet India is not designated as CPC for turning that region into an open jail for its eight million people.
Fairness demanded that India be placed on the State Department's CPC list. Considering its economic and geopolitical interests the least favour Washington could give it was a sanctions waiver. Instead that serial violator receives not even a rap on the knuckles. That though is unsurprising since the US and other Western nations are in the habit of castigating only their rival states, China and Russia, for real or perceived rights violations and having no qualms about letting pass far graver crimes perpetrated by their allies. Islamabad has rightly questioned the credibility of the US' report and the subsequent action.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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