New Delhi: A US federal advisory body has recommended targeted sanctions against India's external intelligence agency and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for their alleged role in religious freedom violations, which the Congress party highlighted to argue that the RSS poses a threat to national unity.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) made the recommendations in its 2026 annual report, released on March 4, alongside a call to designate India as a "country of particular concern" for the seventh consecutive year. The US State Department has not acted on the designation in any previous year.

The report asks the US government to impose sanctions on the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the RSS "for their responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom." The commission's 2025 annual report had recommended sanctions against RAW and its former official, Vikash Yadav, linked to an alleged 2023 assassination attempt on an American national in New York.

Pointing to the USCIRF’s recommendation, the opposition party wrote on X that the commission, "an official US government body," had warned that the RSS "poses a threat to people's religious freedom."

Invoking Sardar Patel's ban on the RSS following Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, the Congress wrote that the organisation "opposes the Constitution and advocates running the country according to the Manusmriti" and is "poison to the unity and brotherhood of this nation.

The commission also asked the US government to link future security assistance and bilateral trade policies with India to improvements in religious freedom. It asked Congress to enforce Section 6 of the Arms Export Control Act to halt arms sales to India, citing "continued acts of intimidation and harassment against US citizens and religious minorities.

While responding to Indian media queries on the report, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, said what really needed the USCIRF's attention was the "vandalism and attacks on Hindu temples in the United States, selective targeting of India and growing intolerance and intimidation of members of the Indian diaspora in the United States".

He said the government had "taken note" of the latest report and that "we categorically reject its motivated and biased characterisation of India" regarding religious freedom.

Jaiswal also said that the USCIRF had presented a "distorted and selective picture of India" for several years, relying on "questionable sources and ideological narratives rather than objective facts".

The previous year's report had asked for a review of arms sales rather than a halt. The commission additionally asked the US government to press India to allow in-country assessments by USCIRF and the US State Department.

The latest findings follow a series of recent USCIRF interventions on India. In a November 2025 issue update, the commission said the “interconnected relationship” between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS had enabled the creation and enforcement of laws it described as discriminatory toward religious minorities, citing measures such as citizenship, anti conversion and cow slaughter laws.

The update described the RSS as a "Hindu nationalist group" whose "primary mission is to build a 'Hindu Rastra,' or Hindu state," and said it "promotes the notion that India is a Hindu nation, excluding Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Parsis, and other religious minorities." While the RSS does not field political candidates directly, the update noted, it provides volunteers to campaign for the BJP, including Prime Minister Modi himself, who was an RSS pracharak before serving as chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014.

In a statement issued on February 6 this year, the commission flagged “violent attacks by Hindu nationalist mobs targeting Christians” and said that such attacks further justify its calls for India to be designated as a Country of Particular Concern.

According to the latest annual report of USCIRF, “religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate” in 2025 as authorities introduced and enforced legislation targeting minority communities and their houses of worship.

The report pointed to the passage of the Waqf Bill in May, which adds non-Muslims to the boards managing Waqf land endowments. These endowments include mosques, seminaries, and graveyards. Protests in West Bengal over the bill left three people dead.

In September, the Supreme Court suspended key provisions of the bill, including one allowing the government to decide whether a disputed property is Waqf or not, and capped non-Muslim membership on the federal board at four. In the same month, Uttarakhand's legislative assembly passed the State Authority for Minority Education Act, which dissolves the Madrasa Board and brings madrasas and other educational institutions for Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians under state control.

The report cited the April attack in Pahalgam in Kashmir, in which three gunmen attacked a group of predominantly Hindu tourists, killing 26 people. The commission said the perpetrators reportedly asked victims to recite an Islamic verse and killed those who could not. It noted that the Indian government "seized the aftermath of the attack to justify deportations of religious minorities it considers 'illegal' migrants."

The USCIRF listed that Indian authorities expelled hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims from Assam to Bangladesh despite being Indian citizens. The Indian government passed a new set of rules for the Foreigners Act in September last year, expanding the authority of Foreigner Tribunals to issue arrest warrants and detain those suspected of being foreigners without due process, the commission observed.

It further highlighted the continued detention of several individuals, including Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, and others detained during the 2020 protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, who remained in jail for the fifth year without trial. 

Jagtar Singh Johal, a British Sikh citizen arrested in 2017, remained in solitary confinement under eight charges after a district court acquitted him in March of conspiracy charges and membership of a terrorist gang. 

Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an Ashoka university professor, was arrested in Haryana last year under India's Criminal Code for social media comments about the Kashmir attack and its aftermath for Muslims in India. On Monday the Haryana government told the Supreme Court it will not sanction prosecution against him.

The commission noted that religious freedom was absent from public discussion during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official state visit to Washington in February 2025 and during US Vice President J.D. Vance's visit to India a few months later in April.

After the commission's 2025 annual report, the Ministry of External Affairs had called USCIRF's assessment "biased and politically motivated" and said it was USCIRF that "should be designated as an entity of concern."

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