Why doesn’t US President Donald J Trump wind up the pugnacious and toxic organisation, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), that worked against American interests? President Trump cited ‘inefficient’, ‘wasteful’ expenses or ‘anti-US’ working as reasons good enough to withdraw from 66 international bodies, including 31 UN agencies, beginning January this year.
By the same yardstick, USCIRF is a fit case for immediate closure, try all six commissioners appointed through Presidential decree for ‘anti-US’ activities and recover state expenses that went into its anti-American propaganda.
To begin with, the US Congress, which funds USCIRF for an ‘independent’ opinion on religious freedom in different countries, may have to reconsider and stop bankrolling the redundant outfit. President Trump may then have to proceed against these commissioners, possibly with a hidden agenda.
Now, one would be wondering what crime USCIRF or its commissioners committed to warrant such an extreme measure. USCIRF recommendations in its 2026 report update have the potential to derail American strategic and special relations with major Asian allies, such as India.
It has recommended limiting security relations, linking US assistance and bilateral trade to “improved religious freedom,” and pushing for the enforcement of Section 6 of the Arms Export Control Act to halt the sale of arms to India.
All these recommendations have been made on purported “…continued acts of intimidation and harassment against US citizens and religious minorities (in India)”. Neither of these charges was proven or evidenced to warrant the virtual severing of links between the US and Bharat.
More obnoxious is the recommendation of USCIRF, headed by Pakistan-linked Vice Chair Asif Mahmood, to impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities like India’s external spy agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Hindu-centric civilizational, cultural organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Brazenly enough, USCIRF has sought a freeze on assets and the movement of people associated with these organisations.
Incidentally, Asif Mahmood is a Pakistani American Physician and political activist based in California. Mahmood was head of APPNA (Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America) in Southern California, which was reportedly a lobbying front for Islamabad.
The avowed reason, however, offered by the commission is that these two organisations, RAW and RSS, tolerated severe violations of religious freedom in Bharat. Even a Republican White House led by Donald Trump will have to think a billion times before restricting RAW or RSS, let alone a US government commission.
Does USCIRF have the mandate to get the sovereign national agency of Bharat sanctioned? Larger malfeasance is recommending sanctions against the world’s largest volunteer-driven, service-oriented movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
As a commission funded by the US government, it’s within its rights to undertake critical analysis on issues that may be of importance to American interests. One gets flummoxed as to why the commission picked RAW and RSS in one sweeping recommendation, sans the logic, reasoning, and rationale that are basic to intellectual activity.
RAW is the state-run agency and part of the Indian security establishment, like the American CIA and Israel’s Mossad. USCIRF has had no reference to RAW in its entire report, let alone irrefutable evidence to recommend sanctions against a professionally run agency.
On the other hand, RSS is a movement with millions of selfless volunteers providing education, healthcare, rural development, women’s participation, inclusivity and personality development services through tens of thousands of projects.
As per the latest report of RSS Sarkaryavah Dattatreya Hosabale, presented to the organisation’s general council last week at Samalkha in Haryana, a whopping 152,003 service projects are run to benefit millions of vulnerable individuals, families and communities.
Hindu-centric RSS is open to objective scrutiny by communities, stakeholders, friends and foes. But it cannot be used as a whipping boy by USCIRF to pursue its pre-designed anti-Hindu, anti-Bharat narratives globally. Otherwise, how does one explain the commission equating Hindus, Hindutva and Hinduness to ‘religious bigotry’ without having reported convictions, prosecutions or accountability data?
After its establishment in 1925, RSS evolved into the largest Hindu organisation working among communities. Several RSS-inspired Hindu organisations have been active in countries such as the US, providing humanitarian services during adverse climatic conditions and community-centric projects.
This is not the first time that USCIRF has committed the abomination that seeks to rupture respectful relations between Bharat and the United States. The USCIRF report of 2026 has outraged Bharat’s intellectuals, who came down heavily on its recommendations.
About 131 decorated army officers and 131 former bureaucrats, including 10 ex-ambassadors and 25 retired judges, have openly questioned the findings of the USCIRF report. They cited a lack of intellectual rigour and presented a report that’s ‘disturbing’ and imbalanced regarding religious freedom in Bharat.
While designating Bharat as a ‘country of particular concern’, USCIRF showed its true face by picking on every development and governance in Bharat, especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies (CIHS) pointed out that USCIRF had waded into the resolution of the Babri structure, the decision on Article 370, the Citizenship Amendment Act, anti-conversion laws, and Waqf amendments, all of which were done through the due process of the courts and Bharat’s parliament.
For instance, the Babri structure was resolved through three decades of patient, painful and at times frustrating judicial process and never by force of the Hindu majority. USCIRF resorted to Bharat-bashing without reason or rhythm and points to its hidden agenda. It was gross to primarily denigrate a sovereign nation with an irrefutable record of judicial processes, a stringent Parliamentary democracy and associated institutions of repute.
Let the commission be wound up and not rupture the special and mutually respected ties between Bharat and the US.
