Freedom of Religion Undermined by Sectarian Politics in India

As India embraced the path of secularism and democracy with Independence, there were still some forces which were opposed to these values and harped on India being a nation for Hindus only. This organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, as it has completed 100 years of its existence, through its dogged work in spreading its narrative, has reached the peak during the past few decades.

The RSS’s ideology of ‘hate minorities’ has consistently demonised Muslims right from the beginning and Christians from the past few decades. The result has been that ‘freedom of religion’ has gone into a free fall and atrocities on religious minorities have gone up exponentially.

This phenomenon of hate has been going through the roof from the past decade or so as the Hindu Nationalist government is in power and mischief-mongers now know that they can get away without any punishment, rather their acts of violence will be duly rewarded by the government.

With this the propaganda against religious minorities and vast network of hate spreaders has become the ‘social common sense’, and very difficult to combat. Consequently, we have seen a continuous rise of the marginalisation of the religious minorities. This is accompanied by the decline in the global indices of India, pertaining to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, hunger index and most other assessments related to India’s social and political freedom.

This gets reflected aptly in many of the reports related to lives of Indian minorities not done by Indian but also of global agencies. One such agency is USCIRF, an independent, bipartisan federal body established under the ‘International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 ‘to monitor global conditions of religious freedom or belief, review violations, and provide policy recommendations to the U.S. President, Secretary of State, and Congress.

The USCIRF releases its reports every year reflecting on the minorities of various countries. In the past seven odd years, it has been labelling India as a ‘country of particular concern’. Its report this year is very disturbing as it has called India not only the country of “particular concern” but has also asked for a ban on RSS and its affiliated organisations.  

The report says that RSS as the body being responsible for the worsening intercommunity scenario and the intimidation of religious minorities. As per the report, “The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh should face targeted sanctions for its responsibility for and tolerance of violations of religious freedom in India. This US panel has made recommendations to the Donald Trump administration. The sanctions could include freezing the organisation’s assets and barring entry to the US.”

In the India-specific report, it points out that RSS is the parent organisation of the ruling BJP, under whose rule. “… the commission had noted that the “interconnected relationship between the RSS and BJP allows for the creation and enforcement of several discriminatory pieces of legislati4on, including citizenship, anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws”.

The spokesman of India’s External Affairs Ministry has rejected the report as biased. The main Opposition party, the Indian national Congress, in a tweet has stated that "The US Should impose a ban on RSS. This recommendation was made to the Donald Trump administration by the USCIRF, an official US government body. The USCIRF has warned that the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) poses a threat to people's religious freedom. Its recommendations are clear, Ban the RSS immediately. Seize its assets. Prohibit entry into the US for RSS members.”  

The US-based organisation, ‘Hindus for Human Rights’ has been opposing the politics of RSS combine in a serious way. They agree with the Commission's recommendations. The report underlines most of the policies of BJP which has tormented the Indian minorities.

We know here the violence against these sections of society is becoming more widespread. Though the ghastly violence of the type of Gujarat violence in 2002 is not there, we observe that it is occurring on regular manner in a lynching or other acts of violence here and there. The attacks on prayer meetings take place on a regular basis.

What happened on the occasion of Christmas 2025 by Bajrang Dal activists was a new low in the violence. It also mentions the move of Central government in disenfranchising the Muslims through NRC-CAA. It reported the abandoning of over 50 Rohingyas of which around 14 were Christians; in the high seas. The dastardly imprisonment of Umar Khalid and Sharjil Imam, who are in the prison for over five years, without any trial reflects the status of the justice delivery system. The cow vigilantes, ‘love jihad’ and ‘jihad’ of various types remains its core method of targeting the Muslim minorities.

The Freedom of Religion Acts are basically to prevent conversions by those who wish to convert and are prevalent in nearly 11 states, and now Maharashtra is the new one to join this list. While conversion to Islam and Christianity is a pretext to beat up some, there is an open call for conversion to Hinduism by a phenomenon called ‘Ghar Wapasi’. This is a clever move to impose Hinduism on those who belong to other religions.

The USCIRF is calling for the need for such a strong move now. The first person to realise and ban this organisation was India’s first Home Minister and Deputy prime Minister Sardar Patel himself. A communique of the Ministry of Home Affairs stated, ‘The objectionable and harmful activities of the Sangh have, however, continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and the most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself.”

The RSS was banned yet again in 1975 during Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi and then in 1992 after demolition of the Babri Mosque by the ‘kar seva’ called by BJP. Today, its activities of spreading hate are qualitatively and quantitatively at much worse level.

While within the country, most people feel the pinch of the atmosphere where democratic norms are being stifled, the USCIRF has put the hammer on the head of the nail to underline the impact of this organisation calling for Hindu Rashtra. It has already spread its wings in many a country with innumerable organisations affiliated/associated with it.

Now the ball is in the US President’s court. But, of course, he has his own weird ways of working.

The writer is a human rights activist, who taught at IIT Bombay. The views are personal.