[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 175 (Tuesday, October 24, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5147-S5148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SENATE RESOLUTION 424--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT THE 
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ENGAGE THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA TO SEEK A SWIFT 
 END TO THE PERSECUTION OF, AND VIOLENCE AGAINST, RELIGIOUS MINORITIES 
   AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS IN INDIA AND A REVERSAL OF GOVERNMENT 
POLICIES THAT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS ON THE BASIS 
                       OF THEIR RESPECTIVE FAITHS

  Ms. BALDWIN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 424

       Whereas religious freedom is a core human right and a right 
     recognized by international law and treaties;
       Whereas religious freedom is--
       (1) a necessary component of United States foreign policy 
     and our Nation's commitment to defending democracy and 
     freedom globally; and
       (2) a vital element of national security, which is critical 
     to ensuring a more peaceful, prosperous, and stable world;
       Whereas India is the world's most populous democracy, which 
     has long, unique, and important relationship with the United 
     States in promoting common values and upholding regional 
     stability;
       Whereas the strong relationship between the United States 
     and India is fundamentally premised on both countries'--
       (1) cherished common values of liberty, freedom, justice, 
     and equality before law; and
       (2) opposition to every type of discrimination;
       Whereas, during a visit to India in July 2021, Secretary of 
     State Antony Blinken stated, ``[W]e view Indian democracy as 
     a force for good in defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific 
     [and] a free and open world'';
       Whereas the existence of a truly free and open Indo-Pacific 
     is conditional on the protection of the freedoms and rights 
     of all civilians;
       Whereas, on June 2, 2022, while releasing the Department of 
     State's 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom, 
     Secretary Blinken commented, ``[I]n India, the world's 
     largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, 
     we've seen rising attacks on people and places of worship'';
       Whereas, less than 1 year after becoming India's Prime 
     Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi promised, ``My government 
     will ensure that there is complete freedom of faith and that 
     everyone has the undeniable right to retain or adopt the 
     religion of his or her choice without coercion or undue 
     influence'';
       Whereas India has historically been a strong and 
     pluralistic democracy, being the birthplace of several of the 
     world's great religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, 
     Sikhism, and Jainism;
       Whereas India's 1,300,000,000 people include Hindus, who 
     are the majority at 80 percent, 200,000,000 Muslims, which 
     constitute the world's third largest Muslim population, 
     40,000,000 Christians, and millions of Sikhs, Jains, Baha'is, 
     Jews, Zoroastrians, and people of innumerable animist and 
     indigenous faiths;
       Whereas the preamble to the Constitution of India states, 
     in part, ``We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved 
     to constitute India into a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, 
     Democratic Republic, and to secure to all its citizens: 
     Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, 
     expression, belief, faith and worship. . .'';
       Whereas article 14 of the Constitution of India states, 
     ``The State shall not deny to any person equality before the 
     law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory 
     of India.'';
       Whereas article 25 of the Constitution of India states, in 
     part, ``[a]ll persons are equally entitled to freedom of 
     conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and 
     propagate religion.'';
       Whereas violence against India's religious minorities, 
     especially Muslims and Christians, has escalated in the last 
     decade;
       Whereas such violence against religious minorities has 
     included--
       (1) public lynchings by vigilante groups;
       (2) the disruption of prayer services at, and the 
     vandalizing and demolition of, mosques and churches;
       (3) the demolition of homes and businesses of Muslims 
     without due process by state authorities in retaliation for 
     protesting for their constitutional rights; and
       (4) arrests of Muslim men for marrying Hindu women in the 
     name of the false theory of ``Love Jihad'';
       Whereas India's federal government and various state 
     governments have failed to prosecute the culprits and bring 
     justice to the victims, which has been noted in the 2021 
     Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 
     and the 2021 Department of State Report on International 
     Religious Freedom;
       Whereas in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the United States 
     Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 
     recommended that the Department of State designate India as a 
     country of particular concern for ``engaging in and 
     tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious 
     freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious 
     Freedom Act (IRFA)'';
       Whereas India has failed to act against partisan leaders 
     from the Hindu religious community for repeatedly calling for 
     a genocide of India's Muslims, such as Pooja Shakun Pandey, a 
     leader of Hindu Mahasabha, who stated, in December 2021, in 
     the holy Hindu city of Haridwar in Uttar Pradesh, ``If 100 of 
     us are ready to kill 2,000,000 [Muslims], then we will win 
     and make India a Hindu nation'';
       Whereas the Indian state of Karnataka has, without cause, 
     banned Muslim female students from wearing the hijab in 
     schools and colleges, which violates their fundamental rights 
     guaranteed under article 14 of the Constitution of India;
       Whereas in August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir, the only Indian 
     state with a majority Muslim population--
       (1) was deprived of its special autonomy without ensuring 
     consultation or any participation of the people living in 
     Jammu and Kashmir; and
       (2) was split into 2 federally governed union territories;
       Whereas, in December 2019, the Indian Parliament passed the 
     Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (referred to in this 
     resolution as the ``CAA''), which allows expedited 
     citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, and 
     Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, but 
     excludes Muslims, which imposes a religious basis to the 
     bestowal of citizenship for the first time;
       Whereas Indian police have wrongfully arrested hundreds of 
     people throughout India, most of them Muslims, merely for 
     protesting against the enactment of the CAA over concerns 
     that this law would be used in conjunction with a nationwide 
     head count to deny citizenship to Muslims, a concern that has 
     been repeatedly expressed by the USCIRF;
       Whereas the Indian police arrested prominent Muslim 
     activists on charges of carrying out violence against Muslims 
     in Delhi coinciding with a visit by then President Donald 
     Trump to the Indian capital, but failed to act against 
     violent mobs that actually carried out the anti-Muslim 
     violence as documented by the Delhi Minorities Commission of 
     the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi and 
     Amnesty International India;
       Whereas, during the widespread protests against the CAA and 
     the National Register for Citizens (referred to in this 
     resolution as the ``NRC'') the police, instead of stopping 
     the violence against the protesters, sometimes joined crowds 
     shouting Hindu nationalist slogans and fired indiscriminately 
     on peaceful protestors, which killed many of them;
       Whereas USCIRF has recommended that the ``United States 
     Government should consider sanctions against Minister of Home 
     Affairs Amit Shah and other principal leadership'' for the 
     passage of the CAA;
       Whereas a headcount for the NRC held in Assam state in 2019 
     determined that 1,900,000 of the state's 31,000,000 residents 
     do not have sufficient documents proving that they or their 
     parents lived in Assam from before 1971, and they are now 
     likely to be stripped of their citizenship by quasi-judicial 
     bodies known as Foreigners Tribunals;
       Whereas approximately 500,000 of these 1,900,000 
     undocumented people are Muslims and thousands of them have 
     been uprooted from their homes, where they have lived for 
     generations, and sent to detention centers;

[[Page S5148]]

       Whereas, according to Human Rights Watch, government 
     operatives in states ruled by the Prime Minister Narendra 
     Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party have resorted to summary 
     punishments by demolishing Muslim homes and businesses 
     without legal authorization;
       Whereas, according to Federation of Indian American 
     Christian Organizations, India's 40,000,000 Christians are 
     increasingly targeted by police and vigilante mobs throughout 
     India, leading to a steep rise in incidents of violence 
     against Christians, with 1,198 incidents recorded in 2022, 
     which represents a staggering increase from the 761 such 
     incidents reported in 2021;
       Whereas International Christian Concern, a United States-
     based nongovernmental organization, has reported that anti-
     blasphemy and anti-forced conversion laws, which effectively 
     criminalize minority religious beliefs and freedom of 
     conscience, are becoming increasingly common throughout India 
     and have led to numerous cases of violence against religious 
     minorities;
       Whereas a culture of impunity for radical Hindu 
     nationalists has led to an unprecedented level of violence 
     against Christian, Muslims, and other vulnerable religious 
     minorities: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) recognizes the security challenges faced by the 
     Government of India and the continuing threat of state-
     supported cross-border terrorism;
       (2) encourages the Government of India to amend the 
     discriminatory laws and executive orders based on the love, 
     jihad conspiracy theory, including the Citizenship 
     (Amendment) Act, 2019, by treating Muslims the same as other 
     religious groups, and the Foreign Contribution Regulation 
     Act;
       (3) urges the Government of India--
       (A) to end the discriminatory and undemocratic NRC and 
     return citizenship to the estimated 1,900,000 people who 
     declared noncitizens in a wholly dubious manner;
       (B) to immediately release individuals unnecessarily 
     detained in detention centers, protect the right to health of 
     such individuals, and ensure access to healthcare and safe, 
     sanitary conditions for anyone who remains detained;
       (C) to immediately release any unjustly detained human 
     rights defenders, journalists, and other critics, many of 
     whom have been held in custody for longer than 1 year without 
     being charge with a crime;
       (D) to establish accountability for the brutal police 
     violence against the anti-CAA protesters by prosecuting the 
     policemen and others in the chain of command who are found to 
     be complicit in such violence;
       (E) to repeal the anti-conversion and anti-blasphemy laws 
     that are widely misused against religious minorities, 
     especially Christians;
       (F) to repeal the hijab ban in Karnataka and allow 
     thousands of Muslim girls and women to attend classes, as 
     students or teachers, while wearing the hijab;
       (G) to end the demolition of homes, businesses, and places 
     of worship belonging to Muslims and Christians; and
       (H) to allow unrestricted access to Jammu and Kashmir by 
     independent human rights observers and international press; 
     and
       (4) calls on the Government of India to repeal the 
     colonial-era sedition law (section 124 of the Indian Penal 
     Code) that is used to stifle dissent and debate and has been 
     used against individuals who express their opposition to the 
     CAA.

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