The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has accused the Indian government of doing little to prevent violence against religious minorities and socially poor Dalit people.

The commission’s latest report, released on April 25, said the government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not addressed the problem of sectarian violence despite government statistics showing that sectarian violence has increased sharply over the past two years.

It categorized India in its Tier 2 countries along with Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia and Turkey.

Tier 2 countries are those with at least one of the elements of the “systematic, on-going and egregious” standard in a set of criteria the commission uses to gauge violations of religious freedom.

Ten countries including Pakistan are in the worst category.

The report noted that at least 10 Indians were lynched by Hindu groups in the name of cow protection.

“In 2017, religious freedom conditions continued a downward trend in India. India’s history as a multicultural and multi-religious society remained threatened by an increasing exclusionary conception of national identity based on religion,” the report said.

Hindu nationalist groups working to turn India into a Hindu-only nation stepped up their actions through violence, intimidation and harassment against non-Hindus and Hindu Dalit people. Both public and private actors pursued this effort, the report said.

About one third of state governments enforced “anti-conversion and/or anti-cow slaughter laws against non-Hindus, and mobs engaged in violence against Muslims or Dalits whose families have been engaged in the dairy, leather or beef trades for generations, and against Christians for proselytizing,” stated the report.

Even government records, presented on Feb. 6 in parliament, show increased sectarian violence. In 2017, 111 persons were killed and at least 2,384 injured in 822 communal clashes across the country.

In 2016, 86 persons were killed and 2,321 injured in 703 incidents. In 2015, there were 751 incidents.

Thousands of indigenous people marched through the streets of Gumla town in India’s Jharkhand State demanding recognition of their traditional religions.

The rally of about 10,000 people on April 24 aimed to put pressure on the eastern state’s government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which considers indigenous people as Hindus and refuses to give official status to the animist Sarna religions.

Church leaders and acti-vists working for indigenous people said the rally succeeded in bringing together indigenous people of diverse groups and religions.

The government is counting Sarna followers as Hindus as part of a political game, said Father Cyprian Kullu, vicar general of Gumla Diocese, which supported the rally.

“It is certainly a positive move because this was the first time in the region that indigenous people of all religions have come on a single platform and demanded their rights,” Father Kullu told ucanews.com.

Two Pentecostal Christian pastors were dragged into a Hindu temple, seated in the corridors and covered with ash on their faces. Sajan K.George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), told AsiaNews that the violence took place on April 22nd in Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu. The GCIC, states its leader, “is embittered by the deplorable [gesture] of humiliation and repeated harass-ment against the faithful and places of worship.”

The Christian leader complains that at least 15 similar inci-dents have occurred in the southern State of Tamil Nadu in the last three months. All of them had Pentecostal Christians as their target. Specifically, the aggression suffered by the two pastors “was filmed by criminals, who then posted the images online. The video shows that the religious leaders being forced to cover themselves with the sacred ashes inside the Mutharamman temple in Sandhaivalai. Then they were insulted despite one of the two sang the Bharat Mata ki jai [song typical of the Indian tradition that celebrates India as Mother Earth, ed].”

After initial opposition to a government plan to involve private companies in the maintenance of heritage sites in India, church officials in Goa have agreed to accept the scheme for the famous Basilica of Bom Jesus.

A meeting between church and state officials on May 7 resolved differences and the church has agreed to let a private firm take over the management of the 16th century Portuguese church, Minister for Archives Vijay Sardesai said.

The agreement came after it was “clearly understood that the scheme is not about taking over the monument but rather its preservation under international standards,” he said.

Church officials in the former Portuguese colony earlier express-ed their dismay when media reported a federal government plan to have private players manage ancient religious sites under its “Adopt a Heritage” tourism project announced last September.  The federal and Goa governments, both run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, listed six heritage sites in Goa under the plan, including the Basilica of Bom Jesus that holds the remains of St Francis Xavier.

Church officials have accepted the plan “unanimously because it is beneficial to the monument,” said Father Loila Pereira, secretary to Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao of Goa.

Church leaders in Goa are upset over a federal government plan to offer ancient religious sites to private companies for maintenance under its new “Adopt a Heritage” tourism project.

The project launched last September by the government, run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), plans to entrust heritage sites across India to private firms for the development of tourist amenities.

Six heritage sites in former Portuguese colony Goa, including the Basilica of Bom Jesus that holds the remains of St Francis Xavier, have been listed for adoption but the state government was not consulted, local media reported.

The state government, which is also run by the BJP, has been kept completely in the dark about the plan, state Archives Minister Vijai Sardesai said.

Sites in Old Goa, the 16th century Portuguese capital, are assets of the state, and the church has to be taken into confidence, he said.

Church leaders are equally upset after learning about the plan from the media.

“It pains me to know that our religious monuments are in danger of being privatized, reducing significantly their universal ownership,” said Father Victor Ferrao, professor of philosophy at Rachol Major Seminary.