South Asia: Minority Faith Communities

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for securing this debate on such an important subject. I also acknowledge my noble friend’s background and experience as a long-serving Minister, most recently as a Minister of State at the FCDO.

International religious freedom continues to be a serious concern in a global landscape in which authoritarianism is increasing and polarisation and extremism are proliferating. I pay tribute also to the work of the Religious Freedom Institute, based in Washington DC, which has led the way in supporting legislators across the globe in their work on raising awareness of the importance of freedom of religion and belief. It is challenging to know where to focus attention during a debate on safeguarding religious freedom in south Asia. There is a litany of concerns and abuses in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India, but I will focus on India, where Mahendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP has presided over a severe decline in the nation’s record on human rights and religious freedom.

Anti-conversion laws are a major blight in the south Asian context. By their very nature, they undermine the essence of religious freedom. Half of the anti-conversion laws in India were enacted under the Modi regime, prohibiting religious conversion by force, allurement or fraudulent means. Some states require either prior permission or an advance declaration to be obtained before conversion. The broad prohibitions also cover proselytism, though the sharing of one’s faith is an integral aspect of religious practice in Islam and Christianity, among other religions. Furthermore, five states have enacted anti-conversion laws that include provisions prohibiting conversion for the purpose of marriage. The ambiguity found in these laws enables their misuse against people from minority faith communities.

Police data shows that, within nine months of Uttar Pradesh’s ordinance criminalising unlawful religious conversion in November 2020, hundreds of people had been arrested in connection with conversion cases. In addition to the structural violations of religious freedom, India has witnessed extraordinary societal persecution, exacerbated by woefully insufficient responses from the Government. The situation in the Indian state of Manipur is distinctive and devastating in its scale and levels of violence, and the ongoing injustice suffered by the Kuki-Zo people. In May 2023, the violence instigated by Hindu nationalist factions from the Meitei tribe, fuelled by hateful propaganda and misinformation, resulted in hundreds of people being murdered, hundreds of places of worship being destroyed and tens of thousands of people losing their homes and livelihoods. There were reports of lynchings, beheadings, people being burned alive, torture, mutilations, abductions and the rest. Although multiple factors underpinned the violence, including long-standing ethnic and tribal tensions, without doubt Christians have been targeted. There is also evidence of violence against Christians within the Meitei tribal community itself, with a number of churches being destroyed.

The Indian Government have failed to provide the levels of support needed and to respond appropriately to these tribal tensions. The number of internally displaced people who are residing in around 320 relief camps is horrendous. There is a lack of medical support and people are sick and dying. With these troubling issues and incidents in view, the UK Government must use the full range of diplomatic tools at their disposal to challenge the serious shortcomings of the Indian authorities and encourage timely, comprehensive support for all those who have suffered persecution.

My noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, while Foreign Secretary, stressed the need for a focused international response. However, to engage with confidence and efficacy on these and other issues around the world that fall into the same category, the Labour Government must develop a deep knowledge and understanding of religious freedom, going beyond unsophisticated assumptions. They need to recognise and respond to the gravity of the problem and its implications. This will mean restoring freedom of religion or belief as a foreign policy priority, sufficiently resourcing the FCDO’s engagement, and establishing a special envoy on a statutory footing.

It is very disappointing that the latter has not been done. I was extremely disappointed, personally, to receive that reply to my Question on that issue from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, last week. As has been mentioned, just this month, the German Government hosted the annual International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief without a British Minister being present.

The British Government, using their pre-eminent reputation for soft power, are at their best on the world stage, speaking up for the world’s disenfranchised, vulnerable, oppressed and persecuted, working with skill and determination to resolve injustices and improve conditions for human dignity and flourishing. For the Christians of Manipur, the Ahmadis of Pakistan, or the adherents of so many other faiths who suffer because of their beliefs and religious identities in south Asia, and throughout the world, this UK Government need to be more committed and more resolute to act.