USCIRF Report: Modi govt should treat it as a bad joke – R. Jagannathan

“The USCIRF is little more than a US busybody created to appease the US evangelical fundamentalist lobby. The US government uses USCIRF when its recommendations are in tune with its national interests and foreign policy. Otherwise, it is ignored. Likewise, we should ignore it. A joke deserves a laugh and embarrassed dismissal, not serious rebuttal or the expending of angry energy.” – R. Jagannathan 

The United States Commission of International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is a bit of a joke. It is a busybody created by US law to appease evangelical bigots at home. Its outpourings are used by the US state department — selectively — to rap countries that are difficult to handle diplomatically. It thus pontificates annually on the state of religious freedom everywhere. Everywhere, but the US and other developed countries of the largely Christian west.

It is only we in India who work up a lather over it…