New Delhi: Mere days after the US State Department’s scathing report on significant human rights abuses in India, another report by an independent US Congressional research body noted that the downslide took place under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and called on the US Congress to consider tying aid money to human rights improvements.
The Congressional Research Service is an independent body and says that it serves as nonpartisan shared staff to US congressional committees and Members of Congress.
The CRS said in its three-page ‘India: Human Rights Assessment’ report that “the reported scope and scale of abuses has increased under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, particularly since their reelection in 2019.”
The report quotes extensively from the US State Department’s human rights report and other assessments which also warn of democratic backsliding in India like the 2023 the Varieties of Democracies classification of India as “one of the worst autocratizers in the last 10 years.”
It also says that since 2021, the U.S.-based Freedom House has redesignated India as “Partly Free,” contending that “Modi and his party are tragically driving India itself toward authoritarianism.” It also observes the Modi’s government’s “rebuttal,” calling this report false.
India has, notably, also decried the latest US State Department report, calling it “deeply biased” and noting that the government attaches “no value to it.”
The CRS report also has a missive to the US Congress on its role with regards to India:
“The Biden Administration requests $103 million in foreign assistance to India for FY2025. Congress could consider whether to condition some or all such aid on improvements in human rights and civil liberties in India.”
The CRS notes how the 2023 US State Department report, for the first time, includes a section on India’s “transnational repression against individuals in another country,” noting reports the government engaged in transnational repression against journalists, members of diaspora populations, civil society activists, and human rights defenders.
