Sunday, December 22, 2024

Indian Christian diaspora demands US law to sue those who promote religious violence

 “The US Congress [must] pass a law that would allow the victims of religious violence to sue the perpetrators, be it a non-state actor or a government official, in the courts under the US jurisdiction for both criminal and civil negligence.”

— Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations, said in a new report.

The US failure to call out religious persecution in India will hurt America’s business and security interests in South Asia, a leading Indian American Christian group has said. The US Congress must pass a law so that perpetrators of such persecution in India can be sued in US courts, it added, according to a report in counterview.net.

“The US Congress [must] pass a law that would allow the victims of religious violence to sue the perpetrators, be it a non-state actor or a government official, in the courts under the US jurisdiction for both criminal and civil negligence,” the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA) said in a new report.

The US must designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), America’s formal name for persecuting nations, it said. The US Departments of State and Treasury must also “impose travel sanctions” under “the Global Magnitsky Act” on those involved in “leading, aiding or abetting terror campaigns against Christians, other religious minorities, women, Dalits, farmers, indigenous people, and other affected groups.”

Just as America’s failure to call out persecutions in China and Pakistan enabled persecution in those countries, the US turning “a blind eye to India’s slide into a religious fundamentalist state [will] directly threaten America’s national security interest”, it said.

The report recorded 1,198 cases of violence against Christians in India last year, “planned and orchestrated” by Hindutva nationalist political parties as “a part of a larger design to create a Hindus-only state, to the exclusion of the people of Abrahamic faiths.”

“America seems to be ignoring India’s epic slide into a radical religious state,” FIACONA chairman John Prabhudoss wrote in the foreword to the group’s second annual report. “Successive American Administrations are again making a wrong choice in India.”

The report flagged “several Hindutva militant extremist organizations” operating “in plain sight” in the US as cultural and educational groups, with newer ones registered every month. “[Hindu] extremist sleeper cells operate in the United States as Hindu religious, cultural, and business associations,” some of them even “affiliated with the Democratic or Republican parties,” promoting “an extremist ideology,” the FIACONA report said.

These organizations raised funds “to aid a religious terror agenda” in India, and “must be flagged prominently in public debates in the US and… brought to the attention of the Justice Department and local law enforcement officials.”

The report named the Hindu Heritage Foundation that raised funds in Frisco, Texas, in November to demolish Churches in India, and the Ekal Vidyalaya that raised funds in New Jersey to spread Hindu supremacist ideology in schools affiliated to the RSS, a paramilitary organization founded decades ago by those said to be admirers of Adolf Hitler.

These organizations were “not just creating trouble” but were “becoming an American problem… creating a radical network under the radar in calm and peaceful neighborhoods in America,” the report said.

The report recorded 1,198 cases of violence against Christians in India last year, “planned and orchestrated” by Hindutva nationalist political parties as “a part of a larger design to create a Hindus-only state, to the exclusion of the people of Abrahamic faiths.”

**************************************************************

Readers

These are extraordinary times. All of us have to rely on high-impact, trustworthy journalism. And this is especially true of the Indian Diaspora. Members of the Indian community overseas cannot be fed with inaccurate news.

Pravasi Samwad is a venture that has no shareholders. It is the result of an impassioned initiative of a handful of Indian journalists spread around the world.  We have taken the small step forward with the pledge to provide news with accuracy, free from political and commercial influence. Our aim is to keep you, our readers, informed about developments at ‘home’ and across the world that affect you.

Please help us to keep our journalism independent and free.

In these difficult times, to run a news website requires finances. While every contribution, big or small, will makes a difference, we request our readers to put us in touch with advertisers worldwide. It will be a great help.

For more information: pravasisamwad00@gmail.com

Roma Ghosh
Roma Ghosh
Roma Ghosh has recently retired as Associate Professor for Media Studies from an international university. She was with the Times of India as a correspondent for many years. Her passion is cooking and she has been doing recipes and photo shoots for Women's Era for the last 15-odd years.

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

- Advertisement -

EDITOR'S CHOICE