US religious freedom panel urges sanctions against India's external spy agency

By Kanishka Singh and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Minorities in India face deteriorating treatment, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said on Tuesday, and it recommended targeted sanctions against India's external spy agency over alleged involvement in assassination plots against Sikh separatists.

The panel's annual report also said communist-ruled Vietnam stepped up efforts to regulate and control religious affairs. It recommended Vietnam - a country like India with which Washington has sought to build close ties given shared concerns about China - also be designated a "country of particular concern."

Analysts say Washington has long seen New Delhi as a counter to China's rising influence in Asia and elsewhere, and, hence, overlooked human rights issues in India. It is unlikely the U.S. government will sanction India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) spy service, as the panel's recommendations are not binding.

Since 2023, India's alleged targeting of Sikh separatists in the U.S. and Canada has emerged as a wrinkle in U.S.-India ties, with Washington charging an ex-Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, in a foiled U.S. plot. India labels Sikh separatists as security threats and has denied involvement.

"In 2024, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate as attacks and discrimination against religious minorities continued to rise," the U.S. commission said in a report released on Tuesday.

It said Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) "propagated hateful rhetoric and disinformation against Muslims and other religious minorities" during last year's election campaign.

Modi in April last year referred to Muslims as "infiltrators" who have "more children."

U.S. State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom have noted minority abuses in recent years. New Delhi calls them "deeply biased."

Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, denies discrimination and says his government's policies like electrification drives and subsidy schemes help all communities.

The panel recommended the U.S. government "designate India as a 'country of particular concern'" for religious freedom violations and "impose targeted sanctions" against Yadav and RAW. The Indian embassy had no immediate comment.

Rights advocates, in noting the plight of Indian minorities, point to rising hate speech, a citizenship law the U.N. called "fundamentally discriminatory," anti-conversion legislation that critics say challenges freedom of belief, the revoking of Muslim majority Kashmir's special status and the demolition of properties owned by Muslims.

The commission is a bipartisan U.S. government advisory body that monitors religious freedom abroad and makes policy recommendations.

On Vietnam, the panel said a new decree issued this month allowed Vietnamese authorities to further demand financial records from religious organizations and suspend religious activities for what the report said were vaguely worded "serious violations."

As of December, the U.S. panel's Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List included over 80 prisoners whom the Vietnamese government punished for religious activities or religious freedom advocacy. The Vietnamese embassy had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)