Abuse of Muslims, Christians, and other minorities in India drew the attention of a federal religious freedom watchdog in its annual report released on April 28 by U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

USCIRF is a bipartisan federal commission that studies religious persecution and adverse circumstances facing religious minorities around the world, and makes policy recommendations to the State Department.

India’s Hindu nationalist BJP party won elections in 2017 and again in 2019 to gain a majority in the national legislature. The government then “used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national-level policies violating religious freedom across India, especially for Muslims,” USCIRF said.

USCIRF released its annual report on Tuesday, documenting progress and setbacks for religious freedom in 29 countries around the world during the previous year. The commission recommended that India be designated by the State Department as a “country of particular concern” (CPC)—a designation reserved for the worst violators of religious freedom or the countries where the worst abuses are taking place and the governments do not stop them. USCIRF has not recommended India for the CPC list since 2004. Of concern is the country’s new policy of fast-tracking citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from neighboring countries which, combined with a National Register of Citizens, could leave many Muslims without legal protections and saddled with burdens of having to prove their citizenship.