The US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) latest report slammed India for its alleged abuse of religious minorities, with a specific emphasis being placed on its Christian ones. Prior reports tended to focus on Muslims and recently Sikhs, with the first traditionally being supported by the US’ Democrats while a Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist from the second is at the center of the latest Indo-US dispute that can be read about here since it’s beyond the scope of this piece to explain.
“Bangladesh Warned About A Western Plot To Carve Out A Christian Proxy State In The Region” in late May after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina publicly claimed that an unnamed Western country, which was understood by context to be the US, is pursuing this geopolitical project for military-strategic reasons. The background concerns the violence that narco-trafficking Christian Kuki terrorist-separatist gangs from Myanmar, where the US is backing a slew of rebels, provoked in Manipur over a year ago.
One month prior at the end of April, “American Evangelicals Spun India’s Border Fence With Myanmar As Anti-Christian” after the late Billy Graham’s “Christianity Today” published a hit piece about that country, which in hindsight can be seen as an attempt to get Republicans to sour on it. The Democrats’ narrative of alleged state abuses against Muslims is therefore combining with the emerging one about alleged abuses against Christians to create bipartisan support for taking a tougher line against India.
The US will never forget how India proudly rebuffed unprecedented pressure upon it to dump Russia and defiantly pledged to redouble ties with it instead, which proved that this South Asian state remains strategically autonomous in the New Cold War despite its close ties with the US. Even though those two have shared interests vis-à-vis managing China’s rise, which are nowadays taking the form of tacitly reopening the “Tibet Question”, the US is still angry with its partner for refusing to become a proxy.
Therein lies the reason why the USCIRF has begun emphasizing India’s alleged abuse of Christians since this emotive information warfare narrative is intended to secure bipartisan support for potentially forthcoming sanctions of the sort that the commission explicitly recommended in its report. Although they only suggested targeted ones, their possible imposition would still toxify bilateral ties, not to mention if the US takes their advice to bring this issue up in all bilateral and multilateral events.
It’s with these credible scenarios in mind, whose writing was already on the wall prior to the latest provocative report’s publication, that Prime Minister Modi decided to visit Russia soon in order to further strengthen their special and privileged strategic partnership as a hedge against Indo-US troubles. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov also recently praised India for its multipolar approach to International Relations, which sets the stage for the upcoming Modi-Putin Summit to be a milestone in their ties.
The US’ latest faux concerns about Indo-Russo tech ties, which the mastermind of its Indo-Pacific strategy hinted could impede Indo-US cooperation in this sphere, won’t deter closer cooperation between them in any respect. The Indian government already knew that the US was unreliable, but the USCIRF’s report proved that beyond a doubt in the minds of its people, who object to it waging Hybrid War against them by manipulating perceptions about their historically cosmopolitan civilization-state.
Christians aren’t being abused in India, it’s only narco-trafficking terrorist-separatist gangs from Myanmar which exploit Christianity as the false pretext for their crimes that are being targeted by the security forces. The American plot to carve a Christian proxy state out of the region via militant Kuki extremists will fail and Russia will fully support India, including through the further dispatch of arms and ammunition, as it defends its territorial integrity in the face of this betrayal by its new strategic partner.
