NEW DELHI, INDIA — Perhaps the most striking first impression for any visit to India, the world’s most populous nation and most complicated democracy, is the traffic. Even in the nation’s capital the roads are barely organized chaos. Lane markings mean nothing, as drivers create as many lanes as cars will fit abreast. Smaller towns don’t bother with lights, making every intersection an extended game of vehicular chicken. Everywhere cows have priority, wandering with calculated insouciance, irrespective of the inconvenience imposed on all. When Dalits, formerly the “untouchables,” choose to convert, Hindu nationalists blame Christians for demonstrating love and concern. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing India toward what he hopes will be superpower status. While no one can doubt the economic prowess of the Indian people — they have prospered while overspreading the globe — the country remains often hostile to markets and entrepreneurship. The so-called Permit or License Raj continues to resist Modi’s efforts at economic liberalization. Even in the capital of New Delhi extreme poverty, so unnecessary, is evident, and life in the countryside is very hard for many. Nevertheless, Modi recently won his third general election, a remarkable feat. However, his victory was incomplete. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its parliamentary majority, forcing him into a coalition government for the first time. Moreover, Modi is officially a lame duck. After a decade as premier, the 74-old is serving his last term. That should be cause for celebration, given his campaign to turn India in an authoritarian direction. One likely successor is his long-time number two, Home Minister Amit Shah. Alas, reports Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee, “Shah’s control over federal investigative agencies — and the way he used them against political opponents — has made him India’s most-feared man.” For instance, the government jailed and expelled from parliament Rajiv Gandhi, a leading opposition leader. Shah, who served with Modi in Gujarat state, “wants a Hindu nation much more than Modi,” contends journalist Rajdeep Sardesai. However, Shah may not be the worst choice. Other candidates share Modi’s political authoritarianism twinned with Hindu nationalism, which, more than economic reform, became the BJP’s overriding message. (Unfortunately, the Indian National Congress party has desperately responded by increasingly accommodating Hindu violence.). Mukherjee points to Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The latter “has acquired a reputation as a strongman. He is known for carrying out house demolitions, particularly of Muslim properties, as extrajudicial punishment following episodes of communal violence. He appeals to the hardliners as someone who can take forward Modi’s agenda of religious polarization at a national level.” Modi was a product of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, a virulently Hindu organization, and its ideology of Hindutva, which equates India and Hinduism. The RSS is likely to play an important role in anointing his successor. He came to the political fore while running the government in Gujarat state, in which he was implicated in mob violence against local Muslims, in which some 1,200 or more were killed. Conveniently, much of the evidence disappeared and he was never held accountable. His foreign backers also have worked assiduously to whitewash his record. Yet Modi has brought his commitment to Hindu nationalism with him to national leadership: “Founded as a secular republic, India now functions as a de facto Hindu state.” Unfortunately, politics has become the greatest threat to religious minorities. Explained the Washington Post, “a broader truth about India today: that antipathy toward the Abrahamic religions of Islam and Christianity — often portrayed as alien religions brought to India by its historical invaders — can be wielded as an effective mobilizing force for political ends.” These and other religious minorities suffered greatly in the recent political campaign, targeted by Modi and the government. Reported the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: In the leadup to the June 2024 elections, political officials increasingly wielded hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric against Muslims and other religious minorities. Prime Minister Modi repeatedly claimed that the opposition party would ‘wipe out [the] Hindu faith from the country’ and had plans to make Hindus “second class citizens in their own country.” He perpetuated hateful stereotypes about Muslims, referring to them as “infiltrators.” Union Home Minister Amit Shah echoed these statements and insisted falsely that opposition leaders would impose Shari’a if elected — despite the fact that the opposition election manifesto included no mention of Shari’a or Muslims. The growing intolerance for religious minorities poses an obvious threat to the most vulnerable communities in India. For instance, a report released earlier this year by the Religious Liberty Commission of Evangelical Fellowship of India concluded: The year leading up to the general elections in the spring of 2024 has seen an unfortunate increase in divisive rhetoric and inflammatory language. The same was not adequately addressed by official channels and sometimes it seemed to have been condoned in large and sensitive states of the Union. The resulting sense of immunity in sections of society has led to a painfully large number of incidents of violence against the Christian Community, and religious minorities in general. Data with the EFI Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC) shows an alarmingly steep rise in the number of violent incidents against the Christian community, climbing from 413 in 2022 to 601 at the end of 2023. The Indian political apparatus, its law enforcement agencies, and its justice system, specially at the level villages and small towns, have been found wanting and slow in its responses despite urgent pleas for help from victims, church leaders and civil society. Rising intolerance and violence like this undermines New Delhi’s claim to global leadership. Only last month, reported International Christian Concern: Two Hindu nationalist organizations are trying to stop two large public Christian conventions scheduled to take place in different provinces of the Central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal have submitted appeals to the police and district administrative officials, warning that unless the conventions are canceled, authorities will be responsible for any subsequent communal disturbances. That is, unless the police suppress Christians’ right to assemble, radicals will be forced to attack. Which will then be the government’s fault! BJP-dominated states are responsible for much discriminatory legislation and action. Indeed, Christian organizations privately fear retaliation for simply criticizing government misbehavior. A U.S. group concerned with religious liberty published an article of mine, only to remove it after its India-based staff expressed fear of being even indirectly linked to criticism of Modi. For ten years BJP rule has degraded India’s status as a secular state welcoming all faiths. In October the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a painful update on India: Religious freedom conditions in India have continued to worsen throughout 2024, particularly in the months prior to and immediately following the country’s national elections. In addition to the enforcement of discriminatory state-level legislation and propagation of hateful rhetoric, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government made a concerted effort to implement election promises that negatively and disproportionately impacted religious minorities and their ability to practice their faith. Such promises included enacting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), inaugurating the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and introducing a national code to replace religion-specific personal laws. Each action was justified by government officials as necessary to protect India’s ‘cultural [and] linguistic heritage’ — a common euphemism for Hindu supremacy, often at the expense of religious minorities. In raw numbers Muslims suffer the most from such public disabilities and private violence. However, Christians have faced special hostility for their evangelism, especially to those historically left behind by India’s Brahmin elite. When Dalits, formerly the “untouchables,” choose to convert, Hindu nationalists blame Christians for demonstrating love and concern. The CAA discriminates against Muslims in determining citizenship. The National Register of Citizens is used to expel those lacking citizenship, which also is biased against Muslims. Moreover, “Since the beginning of 2024, Indian authorities have facilitated the expropriation of places of worship, including the construction of Hindu temples on the sites of mosques,” including the Ram Temple, long a RSS priority. BJP-dominated governments have continued to transform laws governing family relations. The BJP also has maintained a nationwide assault on evangelism, restricting conversions and even prayer for healing. Christians are the chief victims of these restrictions: “Since the beginning of the year, authorities have arrested dozens of Christians on allegations of conducting or participating in forced conversions. In June, for example, police in Uttar Pradesh detained 13 Christians, including four pastors; in July, seven Christians faced accusations of violating the state’s anti-conversion law in two separate incidents.” Indeed, according to the Fellowship anti-conversion statutes have become a prime weapon of persecution. “For Christians, the main whip hand is the false bogey of proselytization which is used to justify horrific crimes against the community. Dalit Christians, Adivasi Christians, and Christian women are vulnerable to violence and discrimination due to their intersectional identities.” One of the worst sources of violence is cow vigilantism. Non-Hindus are threatened by both state governments and private mobs. Indeed, “20 of India’s 28 states currently enforce anti-cow slaughter laws. Vigilante groups and self-proclaimed ‘cow protectors’ frequently exploit such laws to target religious minorities, including Muslims, Christians, and Dalits.” One mob killed a Hindu student mistakenly accused of smuggling cattle. Alas, government officials often promote violence: “perpetrators of such attacks often operate with impunity; they rarely face punishment and are often released on bail within 24 hours.” Unfortunately, such assaults are common. A special United Nations panel noted reports of violence and hate crimes against minorities; dehumanizing rhetoric and incitement to discrimination and violence; targeted and arbitrary killings; acts of violence carried out by vigilante groups; targeted demolitions of homes of minorities; enforced disappearances; the intimidation, harassment and arbitrary and prolonged detention of human rights defenders and journalists; arbitrary displacement due to development mega-projects; and intercommunal violence, as well as the misuse of official agencies against perceived political opponents. Violent Hindu nationalists spare no religious minority from their wrath. Reported the Commission: From January to March 161 incidents of violence against Christians in India were reported — 47 of which occurred in the state of Chhattisgarh. Such incidents ranged from violent attacks on churches and prayer meetings to physical assaults, harassment, and false allegations of forced conversion. Muslims continued to be targeted, as well. In March, a group of Hindus in Gujarat violently attacked foreign Muslim university students as they gathered for prayer during Ramadan. The university subsequently issued new guidelines, instructing students not to pray in common spaces. Moreover, following the election results, during which the BJP lost its national majority, at least 28 attacks against Muslims occurred from June to August. Unfortunately, this is unexceptional. Last May saw the start of substantial, continuing violence against Christians in the Northeast state of Manipur that a year later had “led to the loss of over 100 lives, the destruction of at least 228 churches, 300 people being injured and tens of thousands displaced.” Last October a meeting of an even smaller sect, Jehovah’s Witnesses, was bombed by Hindu extremists. As 2023 dawned, the Washington Post reported: “Since December, Hindu vigilantes in Chhattisgarh state in eastern India, enraged by the spread of Christianity and rallied by local political leaders, have assaulted and displaced hundreds of Christian converts in dozens of villages.” The UN panel warned against the violence. Like the People’s Republic of China, New Delhi punishes its critics in foreign nations. In 2023 the Modi government apparently plotted the assassination of an Indian-born Canadian Sikh. Moreover, reported USCIRF: “In 2024 the government of India has expanded its tactics of repression to target religious minorities and their advocates abroad…. including the revocation of Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards as well as threats of violence and surveillance.” In response to this awful record, the Commission recommended that Washington designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern.” That remains unlikely, running afoul of policymakers of both parties who hope to make New Delhi into another informal “partner,” if not formal ally. However, India has made clear it will not be America’s catspaw. Indeed, Indians have dramatically increased trade with Russia since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, India will naturally continue to expand its military and watch China warily, while engaging in naval exercises with Japan and others. Washington should see India plain. Concluded USCIRF: The Indian government continues to repress and restrict religious communities through the enforcement of discriminatory legislation like anti-conversion laws, cow slaughter laws, and antiterrorism laws. In doing so, authorities have arbitrarily detained individuals highlighting violations of religious freedom, including religious leaders, journalists, and human rights activists, without due process — in some cases for years. Indian officials have repeatedly employed hateful and derogatory rhetoric and misinformation to perpetuate false narratives about religious minorities, inciting widespread violence, lynchings, and demolition of places of worship. Americans in and out of government should call on New Delhi to act the part of a major international leader. It is particularly important for India’s friends to do so. After leaving most of its population in immiserating poverty for decades, the government has finally adopted more realistic economic policies. Now it should take a hard look at its increasingly authoritarian domestic practices. To become great India must be good, treating all of its people, irrespective of their religious faith, as Indians. READ MORE from Doug Bandow:  Constitutionalists Should Use Biden’s Judicial Proposals to Thwart the Legal Left North Korea: The World’s Worst Human Rights Black Hole Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.  He is a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and author of several books, including Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics and Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire. The post Hindu Nationalism Against Religious Freedom appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.