“In 2019, religious freedom conditions in India experienced a drastic downturn, with religious minorities under increasing assault.” This is how the recent situation in India is described in the annual report of religious freedom released by USCIRF yesterday. 

Religious minorities have been subjected to violence in 2019 which increased a climate of fear among Muslims, Christians and other minorities.

Inflammatory rhetoric and discriminatory policies are often used against the non-Hindu communities and “India continued on this negative trajectory,” the report finds. 

The commission also recommended that the State Department describe India as a “country of particular concern” (CPC), a designation reserved for the worst violators of religious freedom or the countries where these concerns remain unaddressed. 

The report mentions an account in Delhi in 2020 when mobs attacked the Muslim neighbourhood and local police failed to halt attacks and “even directly participated in the violence.” The number of victims of this attack alone was at least fifty. 

Attacks on India’s Christians continue to escalate in early months of 2020

See the full report here. 

Photo is courtesy of Unsplash.