The US must not lecture India on religious freedom

The United States International Commission for Religious Freedom has yet again criticised India for the decline in religious freedom, in its 2023 report. Releasing the report, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said, “In India, we see a concerning increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship for members of minority faith communities.” The new amendments proposed to the Uttar Pradesh conversion law give legitimacy to such criticism. The 2022 overruling of the progressive Roe v. Wade is a reflection of the religiosity of America’s judges “The Bible is an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone”, said Oklahoma state superintendent of public instruction Ryan Walters — on June 28 — through a State Board of Education press release. New York, in 1955, merely recommended a prayer: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.” In 2015, almost an identical prayer was made mandatory in central schools in India, and a challenge to this is pending with the Supreme Court. Justice David J Brewer of the Supreme Court in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States held that America is a “Christian nation.” The US Supreme Court, in Vidal v. Girard Executors, held America is a ”Christian country”, and, in US v. Macintosh, observed that the country was “filled with Christian people”.