India Rejects U.S. Religious Freedom Report as Politically Motivated
New Delhi, March 26 – India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Wednesday dismissed the 2025 Annual Report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), calling it biased and politically motivated.
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal criticized the report, stating that it misrepresented isolated incidents and sought to undermine India’s diverse and multicultural society.
“The USCIRF’s persistent attempts to misrepresent isolated incidents and cast aspersions on India’s vibrant multicultural society reflect a deliberate agenda rather than a genuine concern for religious freedom,” Jaiswal said in a statement.
India, home to 1.4 billion people of various faiths, has long maintained that it upholds religious freedom and pluralism. “We have no expectation that the USCIRF will engage with the reality of India’s pluralistic framework or acknowledge the harmonious coexistence of its diverse communities,” the statement added.
The MEA further condemned what it described as an attempt to undermine India’s democratic and tolerant ethos, suggesting that “it is the USCIRF that should be designated as an entity of concern.”
The USCIRF report recommended that the U.S. government designate India as a “country of particular concern” for alleged violations of religious freedom. It also called for targeted sanctions against India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), over claims of involvement in assassination plots against Sikh separatists.
New Delhi has previously rejected such assessments from the USCIRF, arguing that they reflect a lack of understanding of India’s social and cultural landscape.
