III 

118TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. RES. 424 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States Government 

engage the Government of India to seek a swift end to the persecution 

of, and violence against, religious minorities and human rights defenders 

in India and a reversal of government policies that discriminate against 

Muslims and Christians on the basis of their respective faiths. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

OCTOBER 24, 2023 

Ms. BALDWIN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 

Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States 

Government engage the Government of India to seek 

a swift end to the persecution of, and violence against, 

religious minorities and human rights defenders in India 

and a reversal of government policies that discriminate 

against Muslims and Christians on the basis of their 

respective faiths. 

Whereas religious freedom is a core human right and a right 

recognized by international law and treaties; 

Whereas religious freedom is— 

(1) a necessary component of United States foreign 

policy and our Nation’s commitment to defending democracy and freedom globally; and 


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•SRES 424 IS 

(2) a vital element of national security, which is critical to ensuring a more peaceful, prosperous, and stable 

world; 

Whereas India is the world’s most populous democracy, which 

has long, unique, and important relationship with the 

United States in promoting common values and upholding regional stability; 

Whereas the strong relationship between the United States 

and India is fundamentally premised on both countries’— 

(1) cherished common values of liberty, freedom, 

justice, and equality before law; and 

(2) opposition to every type of discrimination; 

Whereas, during a visit to India in July 2021, Secretary of 

State Antony Blinken stated, ‘‘[W]e view Indian democracy as a force for good in defense of a free and open 

Indo-Pacific [and] a free and open world’’; 

Whereas the existence of a truly free and open Indo-Pacific 

is conditional on the protection of the freedoms and 

rights of all civilians; 

Whereas, on June 2, 2022, while releasing the Department 

of State’s 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom, Secretary Blinken commented, ‘‘[I]n India, the 

world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity 

of faiths, we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places 

of worship’’; 

Whereas, less than 1 year after becoming India’s Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi promised, ‘‘My government 

will ensure that there is complete freedom of faith and 

that everyone has the undeniable right to retain or adopt 

the religion of his or her choice without coercion or 

undue influence’’; 


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•SRES 424 IS 

Whereas India has historically been a strong and pluralistic 

democracy, being the birthplace of several of the world’s 

great religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, 

and Jainism; 

Whereas India’s 1,300,000,000 people include Hindus, who 

are the majority at 80 percent, 200,000,000 Muslims, 

which constitute the world’s third largest Muslim population, 40,000,000 Christians, and millions of Sikhs, 

Jains, Baha’is, Jews, Zoroastrians, and people of innumerable animist and indigenous faiths; 

Whereas the preamble to the Constitution of India states, in 

part, ‘‘We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved 

to constitute India into a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, 

Democratic Republic, and to secure to all its citizens: 

Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, 

expression, belief, faith and worship . . .’’; 

Whereas article 14 of the Constitution of India states, ‘‘The 

State shall not deny to any person equality before the law 

or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of 

India.’’; 

Whereas article 25 of the Constitution of India states, in 

part, ‘‘[a]ll persons are equally entitled to freedom of 

conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and 

propagate religion.’’; 

Whereas violence against India’s religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, has escalated in the last 

decade; 

Whereas such violence against religious minorities has included— 

(1) public lynchings by vigilante groups; 


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•SRES 424 IS 

(2) the disruption of prayer services at, and the vandalizing and demolition of, mosques and churches; 

(3) the demolition of homes and businesses of Muslims without due process by state authorities in retaliation for protesting for their constitutional rights; and 

(4) arrests of Muslim men for marrying Hindu 

women in the name of the false theory of ‘‘Love Jihad’’; 

Whereas India’s federal government and various state governments have failed to prosecute the culprits and bring justice to the victims, which has been noted in the 2021 Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights 

Practices and the 2021 Department of State Report on 

International Religious Freedom; 

Whereas in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) 

recommended that the Department of State designate 

India as a country of particular concern for ‘‘engaging in 

and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations, as defined by the International 

Religious Freedom Act (IRFA)’’; 

Whereas India has failed to act against partisan leaders from 

the Hindu religious community for repeatedly calling for 

a genocide of India’s Muslims, such as Pooja Shakun 

Pandey, a leader of Hindu Mahasabha, who stated, in 

December 2021, in the holy Hindu city of Haridwar in 

Uttar Pradesh, ‘‘If 100 of us are ready to kill 2,000,000 

[Muslims], then we will win and make India a Hindu nation’’; 

Whereas the Indian state of Karnataka has, without cause, 

banned Muslim female students from wearing the hijab 

in schools and colleges, which violates their fundamental 


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rights guaranteed under article 14 of the Constitution of 

India; 

Whereas in August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir, the only Indian state with a majority Muslim population— 

(1) was deprived of its special autonomy without ensuring consultation or any participation of the people living in Jammu and Kashmir; and 

(2) was split into 2 federally governed union territories; 

Whereas in December 2019, the Indian Parliament passed 

the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (referred to in 

this resolution as the ‘‘CAA’’), which allows expedited 

citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, 

and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, but excludes Muslims, which imposes a religious 

basis to the bestowal of citizenship for the first time; 

Whereas Indian police have wrongfully arrested hundreds of 

people throughout India, most of them Muslims, merely 

for protesting against the enactment of the CAA over 

concerns that this law would be used in conjunction with 

a nationwide head count to deny citizenship to Muslims, 

a concern that has been repeatedly expressed by the 

USCIRF; 

Whereas the Indian police arrested prominent Muslim activists on charges of carrying out violence against Muslims 

in Delhi coinciding with a visit by then President Donald 

Trump to the Indian capital, but failed to act against violent mobs that actually carried out the anti-Muslim violence as documented by the Delhi Minorities Commission 

of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi 

and Amnesty International India; 


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•SRES 424 IS 

Whereas, during the widespread protests against the CAA 

and the National Register for Citizens (referred to in this 

resolution as the ‘‘NRC’’) the police, instead of stopping 

the violence against the protesters, sometimes joined 

crowds shouting Hindu nationalist slogans and fired indiscriminately on peaceful protestors, which killed many 

of them; 

Whereas USCIRF has recommended that the ‘‘United States 

Government should consider sanctions against Minister of 

Home Affairs Amit Shah and other principal leadership’’ 

for the passage of the CAA; 

Whereas a headcount for the NRC held in Assam state in 

2019 determined that 1,900,000 of the state’s 

31,000,000 residents do not have sufficient documents 

proving that they or their parents lived in Assam from 

before 1971, and they are now likely to be stripped of 

their citizenship by quasi-judicial bodies known as Foreigners Tribunals; 

Whereas approximately 500,000 of these 1,900,000 undocumented people are Muslims and thousands of them have 

been uprooted from their homes, where they have lived 

for generations, and sent to detention centers; 

Whereas, according to Human Rights Watch, government 

operatives in states ruled by the Prime Minister 

Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party have resorted 

to summary punishments by demolishing Muslim homes 

and businesses without legal authorization; 

Whereas, according to Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations, India’s 40,000,000 Christians are increasingly targeted by police and vigilante mobs throughout India, leading to a steep rise in incidents of violence 


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against Christians, with 1,198 incidents recorded in 

2022, which represents a staggering increase from the 

761 such incidents reported in 2021; 

Whereas International Christian Concern, a United Statesbased nongovernmental organization, has reported that 

anti-blasphemy and anti-forced conversion laws, which effectively criminalize minority religious beliefs and freedom of conscience, are becoming increasingly common 

throughout India and have led to numerous cases of violence against religious minorities; 

Whereas a culture of impunity for radical Hindu nationalists 

has led to an unprecedented level of violence against 

Christian, Muslims, and other vulnerable religious minorities: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) recognizes the security challenges faced by 

3 the Government of India and the continuing threat 

4 of state-supported cross-border terrorism; 

5 (2) encourages the Government of India to 

6 amend the discriminatory laws and executive orders 

7 based on the love, jihad conspiracy theory, including 

8 the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, by treating 

9 Muslims the same as other religious groups, and the 

10 Foreign Contribution Regulation Act; 

11 (3) urges the Government of India— 

12 (A) to end the discriminatory and undemo13 cratic NRC and return citizenship to the estiVerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Oct 25, 2023 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR424.IS SR424

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•SRES 424 IS 

1 mated 1,900,000 people who declared nonciti2 zens in a wholly dubious manner; 

3 (B) to immediately release individuals un4 necessarily detained in detention centers, pro5 tect the right to health of such individuals, and 

6 ensure access to healthcare and safe, sanitary 

7 conditions for anyone who remains detained; 

8 (C) to immediately release any unjustly de9 tained human rights defenders, journalists, and 

10 other critics, many of whom have been held in 

11 custody for longer than 1 year without being 

12 charge with a crime; 

13 (D) to establish accountability for the bru14 tal police violence against the anti-CAA pro15 testers by prosecuting the policemen and others 

16 in the chain of command who are found to be 

17 complicit in such violence; 

18 (E) to repeal the anti-conversion and anti19 blasphemy laws that are widely misused against 

20 religious minorities, especially Christians; 

21 (F) to repeal the hijab ban in Karnataka 

22 and allow thousands of Muslim girls and women 

23 to attend classes, as students or teachers, while 

24 wearing the hijab; 


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1 (G) to end the demolition of homes, busi2 nesses, and places of worship belonging to Mus3 lims and Christians; and 

4 (H) to allow unrestricted access to Jammu 

5 and Kashmir by independent human rights ob6 servers and international press; and 

7 (4) calls on the Government of India to repeal 

8 the colonial-era sedition law (section 124 of the In9 dian Penal Code) that is used to stifle dissent and 

10 debate and has been used against individuals who 

11 express their opposition to the CAA. 

Æ 


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