Thread by @USIRCOnline

@USIRCOnline rebukes the recent hit job made against #India in the New York Times @nytimes from a coalition of groups, which includes the @IAMCouncil & @Hindus4HR.

We want to rebut each one of their points (1/9):

1. There is no systematic discrimination against minorities in states led by @BJP4India. In fact, the BJP leads governments in states with large Christian populations like #Goa & #Manipur. India's top corporate titans are minorities from the Jain & Parsi communities (2/9)

2. The Citizenship Amendment Act (#CAA) is a humanitarian gesture that gives citizenship to refugees from nations that neighbor India. Those refugees are non-Muslim precisely because they are fleeing Muslim-majority countries with a record of persecution against them (3/9)

3. The Indian government has not seized any property illegally or arbitrarily. The confiscations are of untitled land from people who are engaged in criminal or unruly conduct (4/9)

4. Indian Dalits & tribals are not persecuted. They are rising to the top tiers of Indian polity. India's current President is a tribal & its previous President was Dalit. India's Prime Minister, @narendramodi @PMOIndia, is also from the other backward caste community (5/9)

5. Indian institutions like the judiciary & police are not dominated by conservative partisans. The Supreme Court has shown its independence by staying PM Modi's farm reforms in 2021 and hearing petitions against the CAA. The Court even loosened abortion rights last week (6/9)

6. The New York Times advertisement suggests that the BJP/RSS condone rape. This is untrue. Rape is abhorrent and adharmic (immoral). The accused in the Bilkis Bano case served nearly 2 decades of prison time and after a judicial review were given a remittance of sentences (7/9)

7. Moreover, India's rape epidemic crosses party lines with no one party having a monopoly on virtue. For example, in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, eight men gang-raped an underage girl. Similar episodes have transpired in New Delhi, which is not controlled by the BJP (8/9)

For these reasons, USIRC completely rejects the New York Times advertisement. The lack of any parcel of truth in any of those assertions confirms the anti-#India animus of groups like the @IAMCouncil & @Hindus4HR (9/9)