New Delhi: India took “minimal credible steps” to punish officials accused of human rights violations, the US state department said in its latest annual review, which also lists allegations of the US and Canadian governments that Indian officials were involved in targeting Khalistani separatists.

The India chapter in the 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released on Tuesday (August 12) is significantly shorter than last year’s and drops detailed sections on gender-based violence, caste discrimination, the harassment of NGOs and LGBTQI rights, while noting cases of sterilisation linked to population control measures – reflecting the ideological priorities of the second Trump administration.

Despite these omissions, the report opens its executive summary with the Manipur violence and goes on to outline significant human rights concerns, including arbitrary killings, transnational repression, enforced disappearances, violence against journalists and censorship.

“The government took minimal credible steps or action to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses,” it stated, echoing language in last year’s report.

Both the 2023 and 2024 reports contain sections on “transnational repression”, noting allegations from “governments, diaspora communities and human rights groups” that the Indian government had “killed, or used violence or threats of violence, against individuals in other countries for reprisal”.

In the 2023 report, the last under the Biden administration, this section referred only to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh Canadian citizen, whose death led to a freeze in India-Canada relations after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that Indian government agents were involved.

The 2024 report expands the section to include the arrest of three Indian men by Canadian authorities in connection with Nijjar’s killing. It also records that in October 2024, Trudeau said there was “clear and compelling evidence that agents of the government of India engaged in and continue to engage in activities that pose a significant threat to public safety”.

For the first time, the 2024 report also mentions the US government's allegations, by referring to a second indictment filed by the Department of Justice in October 2024, which announced murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against “Indian government employee Vikash Yadav in connection with his role in directing a plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US citizen, in New York City.”

Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, is already in custody and awaiting trial later this year in the case.

Although the first indictment in the murder-for-hire case was filed in November 2023, it was not included in last year’s state department human rights review.

Unlike the 2023 edition, which devoted extensive subsections to a wide spectrum of women’s rights issues ranging from sexual violence, trafficking and dowry-related killings to discrimination in employment, the 2024 report touches on gender matters only briefly and focuses instead on “coercion in population control”.

It states that there were “reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilisation on the part of government authorities,” noting that some women, particularly those from poor or lower-caste backgrounds, were pressured by husbands, families or local officials to undergo procedures such as tubal ligations or hysterectomies.

It added that several states maintained sterilisation quotas and monetary incentives. Many women, it said, were left with “risky, substandard procedures and limited access to nonpermanent methods” as a result of government promotion of sterilisation.

Citing a March 2025 investigation by the New York Times, the report said women in Maharashtra’s sugar harvesting sector faced strong economic and social pressures to undergo hysterectomies. A government inquiry found that in Beed district, roughly 20% of the 82,000 women sugarcane workers had undergone hysterectomies.

Coverage of violence and discrimination against LGBTQI persons has disappeared entirely from this year’s report. Similarly, references to caste-based killings and atrocities against Dalits have been dropped.

Religious freedom, which had its own subsection in 2023 with examples of communal violence and anti-conversion laws, is reduced in the latest report to a single line directing readers to the department’s separate annual religious freedom assessment.

Other sections absent in 2024 include those on political participation, government corruption and official attitudes towards domestic human rights organisations.

In 2023, there had been extensive description about restrictions faced by NGOs under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, but there is not even a single mention this time.

The state department has condensed its coverage of press freedom and assembly rights as well. While both reports note violence, harassment and legal action against journalists, the 2024 edition includes fewer domestic case studies and more references to global rankings and international NGO reports.

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