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How USCIRF Is Undermining Its Credibility By Attacking Hinduism And India
by rawemotions Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:52 am
How USCIRF Is Undermining Its Credibility By Attacking Hinduism And India
Excerpts
And last week, USCIRF did it again. As part of a series of special reports – separate from its annual report – the commission again set its sights on India, releasing Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by Religious Minorities in India. The report treads on well-worn grievances, including India’s Foreign Contribution Registration Act and Freedom of Religion Act that are crimping predatory proselytisation carried out by groups such as Compassion International and Gospel for Asia. And, shockingly, for the first time in USCIRF’s history, the commission makes the overtly Hinduphobic declaration that caste-based discrimination is rooted in Hindu scripture.
Why would USCIRF launch a spirited defence of American churches shilling for religious converts in India? Why would USCIRF substantiate the horrendous and easily refuted claim – one that evangelical churches make to goad converts away from Hinduism – that the scriptures of Hinduism not only condone, but divinely sanction the social evil of caste-based discrimination?
Throughout its history, the commission has been chaired by activist Christian conservatives – from leaders of the far-right Federalist Society, to Robert George, the previous chair and proclaimed leader of the Christian “theoconservative” movement, to Reverend Thomas Reese, the current chair who is the senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. Indeed, it was the activism of Christian Solidarity International, International Christian Concern, Open Doors, and other global evangelical organisations that led to the commission’s founding. Moreover, despite many nominations, USCIRF has seated only a single Hindu or Indian American commissioner, and none for nearly a decade.
Beyond the litany of attacks against India and the Hindu religion in the latest USCIRF special report, what should alarm any observer, is the document’s authorship.
Unlike other special reports, and certainly unlike the annual report that the commission releases, India’s report was not authored by any of the staff employed by USCIRF. Instead, USCIRF simply gave its imprimatur to a British activist, Iqtidar Cheema. Cheema, a native of Pakistan, has been honoured by several Pakistani government bodies, and is true to Pakistan’s foreign policy goals as well.
Cheema’s work provides cover to Pakistan’s long-standing support of a bloody proxy war to separate the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir from India. Not surprisingly then, this report fails to mention the plight of more than 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits cleansed from their ancestral homeland in the Valley at the hands of Islamist radicals. Previous commission reports have ignored the same.
Cheema is also an oft-quoted source to support various organisations that endorse a separatist movement calling for a separate Sikh state, Khalistan – a cause that the vast majority of Sikhs in India refuse to support. Khalistani terrorism led to an insurgency which left tens of thousands of Hindus and Sikhs dead in the Indian state of Punjab in the 1980s. This activism took its most bizarre and dangerous turn when Cheema addressed a crowd of Sikh separatists gathered in San Francisco calling for Khalistan and backed Babbar Khalsa, a terrorist organisation banned by the United Kingdom and India.
Cheema’s activism consistently suffers from a habit of citing fringe and discredited sources to corroborate his grotesque positions. Not only has Cheema accused Indian intelligence agencies of fomenting attacks within Pakistan, but he cited Webster Griffin Tarpley – the same person who claims that the military industrial complex perpetrated 9/11 attacks and just admitted to making false defamatory statements against Melania Trump!
Excerpts
And last week, USCIRF did it again. As part of a series of special reports – separate from its annual report – the commission again set its sights on India, releasing Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by Religious Minorities in India. The report treads on well-worn grievances, including India’s Foreign Contribution Registration Act and Freedom of Religion Act that are crimping predatory proselytisation carried out by groups such as Compassion International and Gospel for Asia. And, shockingly, for the first time in USCIRF’s history, the commission makes the overtly Hinduphobic declaration that caste-based discrimination is rooted in Hindu scripture.
Why would USCIRF launch a spirited defence of American churches shilling for religious converts in India? Why would USCIRF substantiate the horrendous and easily refuted claim – one that evangelical churches make to goad converts away from Hinduism – that the scriptures of Hinduism not only condone, but divinely sanction the social evil of caste-based discrimination?
Throughout its history, the commission has been chaired by activist Christian conservatives – from leaders of the far-right Federalist Society, to Robert George, the previous chair and proclaimed leader of the Christian “theoconservative” movement, to Reverend Thomas Reese, the current chair who is the senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. Indeed, it was the activism of Christian Solidarity International, International Christian Concern, Open Doors, and other global evangelical organisations that led to the commission’s founding. Moreover, despite many nominations, USCIRF has seated only a single Hindu or Indian American commissioner, and none for nearly a decade.
Beyond the litany of attacks against India and the Hindu religion in the latest USCIRF special report, what should alarm any observer, is the document’s authorship.
Unlike other special reports, and certainly unlike the annual report that the commission releases, India’s report was not authored by any of the staff employed by USCIRF. Instead, USCIRF simply gave its imprimatur to a British activist, Iqtidar Cheema. Cheema, a native of Pakistan, has been honoured by several Pakistani government bodies, and is true to Pakistan’s foreign policy goals as well.
Cheema’s work provides cover to Pakistan’s long-standing support of a bloody proxy war to separate the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir from India. Not surprisingly then, this report fails to mention the plight of more than 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits cleansed from their ancestral homeland in the Valley at the hands of Islamist radicals. Previous commission reports have ignored the same.
Cheema is also an oft-quoted source to support various organisations that endorse a separatist movement calling for a separate Sikh state, Khalistan – a cause that the vast majority of Sikhs in India refuse to support. Khalistani terrorism led to an insurgency which left tens of thousands of Hindus and Sikhs dead in the Indian state of Punjab in the 1980s. This activism took its most bizarre and dangerous turn when Cheema addressed a crowd of Sikh separatists gathered in San Francisco calling for Khalistan and backed Babbar Khalsa, a terrorist organisation banned by the United Kingdom and India.
Cheema’s activism consistently suffers from a habit of citing fringe and discredited sources to corroborate his grotesque positions. Not only has Cheema accused Indian intelligence agencies of fomenting attacks within Pakistan, but he cited Webster Griffin Tarpley – the same person who claims that the military industrial complex perpetrated 9/11 attacks and just admitted to making false defamatory statements against Melania Trump!
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