USCIRF -- The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has absolutely no authority in India or any other sovereign nation-state. Therefore, it is almost laughable that USCIRF was ready to arrive in India on June 12, but were stopped because The Indian Government did not issue visas in time for their planned visit.
Why was the Indian government cowardly and fumbling on this issue? Why did the GOI not issue a press statement that USCIRF's visit was not acceptable at this or any other time? This is not a visa issue, it is an issue of sovereign state rights. Is India a client state of the US? Does it take orders from Washington?
The Government of India should have been proactive and directly informed the US govt. that USCIRF (ostensibly authorized by the US Congress to MONITOR religious rights worldwide), cannot visit India to monitor our religious rights. No entity of the US govt. or ANY govt. of ANY nation-state has authority to monitor the religious rights or any other civil society rights /conditions/ situations prevailing in ANY other sovereign nation-state.
Second, it is up to US President Obama to ask Congress to disband the USCIRF. The USCIRF was established by Republicans who are no longer in power. It's over, you guys. Your opinion, especially when it interferes with the political and civil society conditions prevailing in sovereign nation-states, no longer counts and never did count. You have no authority over other states even though you may exercise such authority and power over occupied states (Iraq), weak client states (Pakistan) and satellite states (example Israel) the latter in the process of developing (illegal)sovereign authority over contested legally unsupportable settlements/ borders.
You in the US congress or the White House have no mandate outside of your own finite borders. Stop playing Global SuperCop and mind your own business, which as we all know is in total disarray and is continuing to cause economic upheavals in other sovereign nation-states. The US govt. has enough on its plate for the next eight years without blatantly and illegally interfering in the ongoing development of responsible nation-states. Has the USCIRF recently monitored religious rights in Saudi Arabia or is SA exempt because of its petrodollar connections? Will USCIRF reeceive visas from Iran? Did the US CAUSE religious and ethnic frictions in Iraq which they invaded and still occupy? WHO WILL MONITOR THE US? Certainly the UN has shown itself incapable of doing so, because it is a client of the US, where it is headquartered.
Last, the Indian government does not need to rely on the counsel of private religious leaders like Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati who has expressed opposition to the USCIRF visit. He is a private citizen and he has the right to express his views on USCIRF or anything else. But the Government of India has responsibility as elected leaders of a SECULAR democracy, to steer its own course as a SECULAR sovereign nation-state. Religious leaders do not dictate the policy, foreign or domestic, of sovereign nation-states, who are avowedly secular and democratic. As India is.
