The Indian government has taken a strong exception to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 2025 Report, which has directly accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of propagating "hateful rhetoric" and called for "targeted sanctions" against the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the country's spy agency.
In this year's report, the USCIRF has called upon the US State Department to designate India as a "country of particular concern (CPC) for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violation", according to the report.
"We have seen the recently released 2025 Annual Report of the , which once again continues its pattern of issuing biased and politically motivated assessments," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response to media queries on Wednesday.
Jaiswal derided USCIRF'S persistent attempts to "misrepresent" isolated incidents and cast aspersions on India's vibrant multicultural society.
The MEA spokesperson stated that these unfounded claims by the federal US watchdog showed that it harboured a deliberate agenda rather than having a "genuine concern for religious freedom".
"India is home to 1.4 billion people who are adherents to all religions known to mankind. However, we have no expectation that the USCIRF will engage with the reality of India’s pluralistic framework or acknowledge the harmonious coexistence of its diverse communities," stated Jaiswal.