Nonetheless, west has broken its prolonged silence when this year, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has placed India on the watch list owing to its severe discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities. The USCIRF is emphasising President Barack Obama to put pressure on New Delhi for its largely inadequate response to fundamentalist violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and Christians in Orissa in 2008-2009.
Meanwhile, Fr. Babu Joseph, the spokesman of the Indian Bishops’ Conference (CBCI), said that the decision of the USCIRF “is a clear indication of the growing concern of the international community to the repeated failure of India to take decisive corrective measures to curb religious intolerance.”
