Expert: White House 'Red Carpet' Treatment for India's Modi a 'Miss' for Religious Freedom

President Joe Biden’s warm welcome to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose tenure has seen a 300-percent spike in attacks on Christians in the country, was a “big miss” for human rights, David Curry, the president and CEO of Global Christian Relief, told Breitbart News this week.

Modi was in New York and Washington, DC, the week of June 18 on an official state visit designed to elevate ties between the American and Indian governments. Modi has refocused much of India’s foreign policy towards containing the rising threat of neighboring communist China, which regularly invades Indian territory. In addition to boosting India’s military presence on the border, Modi has launched a campaign known as “Make in India” to challenge China’s stranglehold on global manufacturing, achieved largely on the back of Uyghur slavery.

While barely mentioned by name, China was a top priority for Biden and Modi during the state visit. Largely absent amid the calls to become “closest friends” and declarations of love for democracy, however, was the large gap in respect for human rights, and particularly religious freedom, between America and India. Some Democrats requested, politely, that Biden address the situation in a letter to the president, and four Democrats boycotted Modi’s address to Congress: Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Summer Lee (D-PA). Former President Barack Obama condemned Modi’s record of policies towards Muslims, only to have Modi’s finance minister respond that, under Obama, “the U.S. bombed six Muslim countries and dropped more than 26,000 bombs in these countries.” Republicans largely abstained from the religious freedom conversation.

Biden himself, meanwhile, received minimal criticism for largely ignoring the issue.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is explicitly Hindu nationalist, meaning it rejects the idea that a true Indian could adhere to any belief but Hinduism. Since 2014, when Modi became prime minister, the country has seen an explosion of religious persecution, particularly against Christians and Muslims. The violence has surfaced in many forms, from attacks on and destruction of churches to lynchings of Christians to police attacks on known Christians accused of alleged attempts to “convert” Hindus.

The Indian government regularly faces accusations of doing little to prevent mob violence against religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims. It also faces condemnation for explicit acts such as the passage of anti-“conversion” laws and “love jihad” persecutions of interfaith couples.

Modi addressed the collapse in religious freedom in his country only once on his state visit – after Wall Street Journal reported Sabrina Siddiqui asked, “What steps are you and your government willing to take to improve the rights of Muslims and other minorities in your country and to uphold free speech?”

“I’m actually really surprised that people say so. And so, people don’t say it. Indeed, India is a democracy,” Modi replied, entirely ignoring Siddiqui’s question and instead affirming decisively, “there’s absolutely no discrimination neither on basis of caste, creed, or age, or any kind of geographic location.”

Siddiqui subsequently faced a barrage of harassment from Hindu nationalists online, which the White House condemned long after Modi departed America.

Responding to Modi’s denial of religious strife in his country, Curry, whose organization offers humanitarian aid to persecuted Christians in India and around the world, told Breitbart News in remarks last week, “Modi continues to perpetuate this lie. In the last decade attacks against Christians and churches have risen 300%.”

“We’ve documented countless cases in Chhattisgarh, Manipur, and many other places in India where Christians have had their homes and churches burned to the ground, and faced beatings and even death,” he noted.

On the visit generally, Curry lamented that feting Modi with little serious consideration for religious persecution was a lost opportunity.

“India is an important partner, perhaps more so considering the current stress with China. Even so, The White House rolling out the red carpet, given Modi’s track record around human rights and religious freedom, is a big miss,” Curry remarked. “Adding insult to injury, Modi’s visit was an opportune time to press him on the religious issue, but the Biden administration decided to not talk about the riots and other violent acts committed against Christians and Muslims.”

Modi secured several concrete agreements while in Washington, paramount among them a deal to jointly manufacture jet engines with General Electric. Curry warned, however, that such agreements were fragile if not based on common understandings of fundamental human rights.

“President Biden rightly sees India as an important counterbalance to China and Russia, but if we lack shared values around human rights, every other agreement is tenuous and built on sand,” he noted.

Curry recommended the State Department add India to its list of Countries of Particular Concern for religious freedom, a designation that could hurt India economically and damage its international reputation – and spur the government to seek change.

“This designation allows the U.S. to apply targeted sanctions to government officials who are either allowing or engaging in this type of behavior,” Curry noted.

The State Department described outrageous human rights abuses against religious minorities in India in its 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, including “killings, assaults, and intimidation;” instances of “cow vigilantism” where non-Hindus suspected of eating beef are lynched; and the destruction of Muslim and Christian homes and businesses. The violations were not, apparently, enough to designate the country as being of “particular concern,” a term that brings with it certain expanded sanctions.

The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an agency with less power than the State Department, did add India to its own list of countries of particular concern in May.

“Religious freedom conditions in India are taking a drastic turn downward, with national and various state governments tolerating widespread harassment and violence against religious minorities,” USCIRF details in its country profile of India. The organization has highlighted the situation in northern Manipur as particularly outrageous, where the majority-Hindu Meitei tribe has launched a campaign of eradication against several smaller, mostly Christian tribes in the region. The violence is believed to have displaced as many as 40,000 people in the past month and has continued into July.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.