“Proud Of Our Secular Credentials”: India Rejects US Religious Freedom Report

New Delhi: Rejecting the latest US religious freedom report that outlined alleged incidents of religious tension in India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Sunday said India is proud of its secular credentials and is committed to tolerance and inclusion, news agency PTI reported.

MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion.”

Questioning the locus standi of a foreign agency to comment on Indian citizens’ rights, it said, “The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including its minority communities. We see no locus standi for a foreign entity to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.”

The US State Department, in its annual 2018 International Religious Freedom Report released on Friday, said mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against the minority communities, particularly Muslims, continued in India in 2018. The report pointed out that though India’s Constitution guarantees the right to religious freedom, “this history of religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives”.

“Some senior officials of the Hindu-majority Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made inflammatory speeches against minority communities. Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef,” the report stated.

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