US Congress members criticise Delhi riots

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 26

At least four members of the US Congress have expressed concern over the violence in Delhi and urged Washington to speak up about increasing sectarianism in India. They based their observations on US media’s negative coverage of the closing hours of Donald Trump’s two-day visit to India that ended on Tuesday. All three Representatives and the lone Senator are Democrats and critical of Trump’s domestic and foreign policies.

Rashida Tlaib, with nearly one million followers on Twitter, said the real story of the Trump visit should be the communal violence targeting Muslims in Delhi. “We cannot be silent as this tide of anti-Muslim violence continues across India,’’ she said while posting a Washington Post article that said the riots represent a serious escalation of tensions after months of protests against the CAA and growing frictions between PM Modi’s supporters and opponents.

Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren said, “It’s important to strengthen relationship with democratic partners like India. But we must be able to speak truthfully about our values, including religious freedom and freedom of expression, and violence against peaceful protesters is never acceptable.”

Representative Pramila Jayapal tweeted, “Democracies should not tolerate division and discrimination, or promote laws that undermine religious freedom. The world is watching.’’

Representative Alan Lowenthal also castigated Trump for “failure of moral leadership” and wanted the US Government to speak out. He quoted an article from Politico that wrote, “Trump did say, though, that he had confronted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in private about his country’s treatment of Muslims.”

Though US President Donald Trump reposed faith in PM Narendra Modi on finding the right answers to the CAA, an influential panel of the US Congress will hold a hearing on March 4 on how citizenship laws are leveraged to deny religious minorities the legal protections of citizenship, making them vulnerable to exploitation, discrimination and mass atrocities.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said the CAA and the proposed NRC could become a tool to target religious minorities.