Sanctimonious Meddling

A familiar ritual unfolds in Washington every few years. A little-known American body issues a stern report about Hindu majoritarianism and the alleged persecution of its minorities while solemnly diagnosing its democratic decline and prescribing remedies with the confidence of an imperial magistrate. Regardless of whether the Democratic or Republican Party administrations occupy the White House, the pattern endures.

This week it was the turn of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which demanded that India ban the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - the world’s largest volunteer organization and a cultural movement that has been part of India’s public life for a century. The recommendation would be laughable were it not so revealing. The USCIRF, in its 2026 annual report, recommended that the American government impose sanctions on the RSS and India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

The recommendation is as extraordinary as it is unserious. The USCIRF is not a judicial body, nor a global authority on human rights. It is an advisory commission with no legal standing, no enforcement powers and judging by its increasingly shrill pronouncements, no credibility as well. Worse, it is headed by people of Pakistani origin who glibly pronounce anti-India judgements whilst ignoring the brutal persecution of minorities in their own countries. Yet, its reports are dutifully circulated by activist networks who treat them as authoritative verdicts on the internal affairs of sovereign countries.

That India’s principal opposition party, the Indian National Congress, should endorse or amplify such a document is particularly dispiriting. To treat the claims of a foreign lobbying outfit as gospel reflects poorly on a party that once prided itself on guarding India’s sovereignty.

The 2026 USCIRF report repeats familiar accusations where Hindu nationalism is cast as the central villain, while Muslims and Christians appear solely as victims.

This selective reading becomes particularly stark when the report addresses violence. The horrific April 2025 Pahalgam massacre in which Pakistan-sponsored terrorists targeted a group of Hindu tourists gets short shrift. The USCIRF report instead stresses upon an allegedly ‘anti-Muslim sentiment’ that followed in the country after Pahalgam. In other words, Hindus being murdered for their religion becomes a secondary detail, while the primary concern is the reaction to Islamist terrorism.

Legislative reforms are similarly recast as persecution. The report criticises amendments to the Waqf Act 1995, passed by the Parliament of India, which aim to reform the administration of Waqf properties that have long faced accusations of corruption, opaque governance and arbitrary property claims.

But never mind the laughable USCIRF report, the only real question is why the Congress, a party that once spoke the language of sovereignty and non-alignment, should echo the talking points of a foreign advisory body. It says less about the report and more about the poverty of its own political arguments. That the Congress treats such banal foreign missives as political ammunition suggests how far the party has fallen.