The USCIRF time and again spins a one-sided tale cherry-picking facts, sidelining India’s constitutional pluralism, and pushing a loaded narrative that fits their playbook more than ground realities.
Pummy M. Pandita
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) 2025 India report has once again revealed the commission’s fundamentally flawed methodology, dependence on biased data sources & selection, lack of transparency in evaluating religious freedom, and a one-sided narrative that misrepresents India’s thriving democracy and plural society. By selectively choosing incidents, depending on questionable sources, and willfully avoiding India’s constitutional framework, USCIRF has created a report that is neither objective nor credible.
In selectively pointing out incidents in a vacuum and ignoring the broader framework of India’s constitutional protections for all religions, USCIRF goes against its own credibility. Not only does this report misrepresent the situation on the ground, but it also unfairly defames a nation that enshrines the rights of all its citizens.
USCIRF has repeatedly refused to provide its sources of data in a manner that meets rigorous journalistic or academic transparency standards. Much of the incidents quoted in the report rely on politically driven NGOs, lobby groups, and reports from organisations that have a recorded history of ideological bias against India.
Reports tend to be based on media reports instead of official government statistics, police records, or independent judicial evaluations. This selective information distorts the actual picture of religious freedom in India.
Most of these sources have already been identified as previously misreporting or manipulating facts to fit a specific agenda. The lack of primary research, government interaction, or varied local opinions in the report questions its credibility.
India is targeted for scrutiny, yet the USCIRF overlooks or disparages such incidents or worse in other democracies, showing a distinct double standard.
The report ignores the emergence of religious extremism among some minority communities, such as instances where religious radicalization put national security at risk or affected communal harmony. It disregards the constitutional protection afforded to minorities in countries like India’s strong judicial protections, affirmative action measures, and full participation of minorities in public life.
USCIRF selectively reports on local incidents without context, repeatedly leaving out legal proceedings, counter-reports, and government action taken to respond to grievances.
USCIRF consistently misinterprets India’s legal structure, labeling good governance actions like anti-conversion laws and policies regarding citizenship as discriminatory, although they are founded on constitutional provisions. The report also underplays violent extremism, secessionist forces, and foreign interference in Indian internal affairs, selectively labeling state reactions as “persecution” without drawing attention to threats to national security. USCIRF’s record of going after India has followed a general geopolitics design wherein reports have been used to lever diplomatic engagements.
The USCIRF has specifically targeted the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (“2019 CAA”) passed by the Indian Parliament in 2019 and its continued criticism since then reveals an inaccurate understanding of the genesis of the law and the disrespect towards sovereign Indian democratic institutions. CAA is designed to offer refuge to persecuted religious minorities—Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians—from neighboring Islamic states like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. These minorities have long faced systemic oppression in their home countries. CAA does not affect Indian Muslims, who are in no way disadvantaged by the law. Yet USCIRF frames it as a discriminatory tool, conveniently ignoring that it aims to address religious persecution in neighboring Islamic nations.
For good order sake, United States too has a similar Citizenship Act in the form of the Lautenberg Amendment, led by US Senator Frank Lautenberg in 1989-90, which facilitates citizenship to recognized persecuted religious minorities in the former Soviet Union. Iran was added subsequently through the Specter Amendment, that provided refugee status and ultimately citizenship to a group of minorities from three nations. Why is USCIRF silent on that and not condemned this act also?
The commission has also been accused of disproportionately targeting on some nations and ignoring serious religious freedom abuses in many other nations, which puts its motives and geopolitical agendas in question. Its inability to speak out against growing cases of persecution of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and other minority groups in the neighboring countries where blasphemy laws and institutional discrimination are prevalent.
This inconsistency erodes the credibility of the USCIRF and raises questions about whether its reports are motivated by facts or political goals.
Suggesting India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) is not only factually wrong but also smells of a conscious effort to mislead about India’s religious scenario. India is still one of the most religiously plural and diverse countries, where individuals from all religions are involved in government, business, and public life. However, USCIRF’s failure to recognize this diversity and continued legal protections for religious communities reveals its biased agenda.
The report also criticises India’s anti-conversion laws, which are in place to prevent coerced religious conversions, often under the guise of marriage or social coercion. These laws, intended to protect vulnerable individuals from exploitation, have become a focal point of controversy. USCIRF dismisses this as Hindu nationalist propaganda, sidestepping the genuine concerns that prompted these laws.
By recommending punitive measures like sanctions and diplomatic pressure against India, USCIRF has gone beyond its mandate and attempts to intrude into the sovereign decisions of a democratic country. These suggestions are not only counterproductive but also demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of India’s democracy and devotion to pluralism.
USCIRF Report 2025 is an extremely defective, ideologically charged document that fails objective scrutiny. Its selective ire, methodological shortcomings, and transparency deficiencies make it unsuitable for serious policy discussion. It is an instrument of geopolitical politics, not an objective evaluation of religious freedom. India’s commitment to religious freedom is classified in its Constitution and defended by its democratic institutions. It is essential that any honest evaluation of India is provided based on verifiable data, integrated analysis, and a recognition of India’s pluralistic fabric USCIRF 2025: Distorting India’s Realitysomething the USCIRF report utterly fails to accomplish.
USCIRF’s biased reports are not an isolated phenomenon. They fit into a larger pattern of U.S. foreign policy where human rights and religious freedom is used as tool for political influence. U.S. has long wielded these issues as a means of undermining countries that refuse to conform to its geopolitical interests. By portraying India as violators of religious freedom, the U.S. attempts to weaken its international standing and justify intervention—whether diplomatic, economic, or otherwise.
USCIRF must approach India in good faith, reevaluate its methodology, shed ideological predispositions, and engage with a broader array of independent, fact-based sources prior to releasing any future reports on India. In the meantime, its findings amount to politically driven propaganda and not a true assessment of religious freedom.
The political agenda of USCIRF members, who are political appointees, raises questions about the impartiality and objectivity of the Commission’s assessments, suggesting a bias towards advancing certain interests rather than genuinely promoting religious freedom globally. The USCIRF recommendations lack the basis in international law, operating beyond the framework of established international institutions. The USCIRF reports are unilateral actions that interfere with the internal affairs of other States in violation of international law.
(Author is head of operations at Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies, a non-partisan think tank based in New Delhi)
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