Ahead of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s planned visit to the United States, the Christian supremacist US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a federal body tasked with monitoring religious freedom worldwide, has called for sanctions against the organisation, alleging that it has been “perpetuating attacks on religious minorities”, as reported in India Today.
The USCIRF is headed by Pakistani bigot Asif Mahmood, who has repeatedly accused India of “persecuting religious minorities” under his leadership. Mahmood has also had close relations with Pakistani politicians across party lines and has lobbied for Kashmir.
In a post on X, the USCIRF released a statement by Commissioner Gene Mills, who said RSS leaders, even when affiliated with the Indian government, should not be accorded high-level meetings or diplomatic courtesies in the US.
“Instead, the USG (US Government) should focus on imposing sanctions on RSS members found responsible for FoRB (freedom of religious belief) violations,” the statement said.
The commission also released a statement by its chairperson, Asif Mahmood, who directly linked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the RSS and alleged that organisations associated with it had targeted religious minorities.
“India’s PM Modi is a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an Indian umbrella organisation whose subgroups have perpetrated attacks on religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims. Now the RSS leader, Mohan Bhagwat, plans to visit the US.”
On paper, USCIRF is an independent body tasked with monitoring religious-freedom violations worldwide. Its commissioners are appointed by the US President and the leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties, a structure intended to ensure the commission’s bipartisan and impartial character.
However, the commission’s latest intervention comes under the leadership of Pakistan-born Mahmood, who has maintained cordial ties with political parties across Pakistan’s political spectrum and has lobbied for Kashmir.
Under Mahmood, USCIRF has continued to push for India to be designated a “Country of Particular Concern”, citing what it describes as religious-freedom violations in the country.
Asif Mahmood’s Past Statements
On 2 April 2026, the then-Commissioner on USCIRF Dr Asif Mahmood wrote on his X handle, “Church burning, meat ban, forced marriages with young non Hindu girls and in many cases mob lynching is extremely worrisome.
India needs to be designated as CPC by State Department.”
This was in response to a USCIRF post on X which quoted Mahmood as saying, “13 Indian states now have anti-conversion laws. ‘Hurting religious sentiment’ charges disproportionately harm minorities, including Christians & Muslims. The USG should designate India as a CPC & should link bilateral trade to improving FoRB conditions.”
On the surface, his biography reads like a standard American immigrant success story. But a closer examination of his public statements, social media posts, and institutional decisions as USCIRF Vice Chair reveals a pattern of sustained, one-sided, and increasingly hostile targeting of India – its government, intelligence agencies, cultural organisations, laws, and even religious practices.
He is the first Muslim and first person of Asian origin to hold the Vice Chair position at USCIRF. He has leveraged that platform aggressively and almost exclusively to push punitive U.S. policy measures against India.
here is what he wrote and felt about India. In 2017, he wrote on X (then Twitter), “Pakistan was founded and carved off India on the basis of Islam. It should rightly remain so and ruled by a Muslim leaders. Give no breath to Sikhs and Hindus. It’s a land of Islam. Inshallah.”
This is itself quite revealing of his mindset.
May 2024: The Khalistani Conspiracy Push
On 8 May 2024, Mahmood posted on X after a meeting with U.S. Senator Cory Booker: “We had a thorough discussion about victimization and assassination by implanted agents from #India of #Sikhs in the United States, Canada and Pakistan and means to counter these…”
He made these allegations with zero evidence. He framed India as a state assassinating Sikh activists on foreign soil, a serious diplomatic allegation, without providing a single verifiable source or legal proceeding to back the claim. This was not an isolated outburst. He was taking the allegation into the halls of the U.S. Senate.
Around the same period, he posted: “Why #India is so obsessed with #Canada. While #HarderpSinghNajjar murder case is still matter of huge contention between the two countries and now another even bigger allegation about Indian involvement in Canadian elections. India owes a truthful and transparent explanation to the Democratic World.”
2024: Madrassa Ban – Misrepresenting a Court Order as Political Persecution
When the Uttar Pradesh government shut down thousands of unrecognised madrassas, Mahmood posted: “Religious freedom is a basic human right.”
– framing the action as the BJP government banning 25,000 Islamic schools for electoral gain.
What Mahmood chose not to mention: The action followed a landmark ruling by the Allahabad High Court, which declared the UP Board of Madrasa Education Act 2004 unconstitutional. The closure was court-mandated, not politically engineered. By omitting this central fact, Mahmood converted a judicial ruling into communal propaganda.
March 2024: Weaponising CAA Against India
When India notified the rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act in March 2024, Mahmood posted: “Citizenship Amendment Act #CAA2019 being implemented in #India intentionally coincided with the #Ramadan2024 to send a clear message to the #Muslims of India that you are no longer equal citizens. Religious Freedom at its lowest and Religious Discrimination at its highest expose India and #Modi of its shallow Secular Claims.”
The CAA is a humanitarian law that fast-tracks citizenship for persecuted religious minorities such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who fled persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. It explicitly does not strip any Indian Muslim of citizenship or rights. Mahmood’s characterisation of it as a message to Muslims that they are “no longer equal citizens” is factually false and he knew it.
January 2024: Ram Temple = “End of Secular India”
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, one of the most significant events in modern Indian religious and cultural life, Mahmood posted: “Is the #RamTemple inauguration by Prime Minister #Modi and circumstances around it the beginning of the end of Secular #India? ReligousFreedom is at its the lowest point in India today and civilized world needs to pay attention.”
The Ram Mandir was built on land awarded by the Supreme Court of India after a three-decade legal process. Its consecration was a matter of national religious celebration. Mahmood framed it as evidence of India’s democratic decay — while remaining conspicuously silent about the state of religious minorities, temples, and non-Muslims in his country of origin, Pakistan.
In April 2024, he was seen fearmongering about Indian democracy and religious minorities. He claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi pursues a Hindu nationalist agenda to scapegoat Muslims, urging: “We all need to stand up to save the future and lives of a quarter billion Muslims and other minorities in India.”
2023: Pushing Pakistan’s Kashmir Narrative
In 2023, Mahmood posted on X: “Another sad and dark day for #Democracy #Justice and #SelfDeterminationRight for #Kashmiris in a long struggle for them and their children future. #US and rest of the Democratic world should pay attention on encroachment of #India in #Kashmir.”
Calling India’s constitutional governance of its own territory an “encroachment” is not a human rights position. It is Pakistan’s official foreign policy position, regurgitated verbatim by a sitting U.S. government commissioner.
In 2023, he wrote, “It’s important to bring up the brutalities against #Muslims, #Sikhs, #Christians and other minorities in #India while #PMModi is in #WashingtonDC. #HumanRights protection and respect should be the foundation of any relationship #US has anywhere. Inclusive India is good for all”.
The Pattern: What He Always Does
Across every single statement, tweet, and institutional action, Mahmood follows the same playbook:
- Select an incident or policy in India involving Muslims or Christians
- Strip out all legal, judicial, or factual context that complicates the narrative
- Frame it as evidence of Hindu-nationalist persecution of minorities
- Call for formal U.S. government action: sanctions, CPC designation, trade linkage, arms embargo
He never applies this template to Pakistan, where Hindus, Christians, and Ahmadis face documented, severe, state-endorsed persecution. He has never called for Pakistan to be designated a CPC. He has never recommended sanctions on Pakistan’s ISI. He has never condemned the forced conversion of Hindu girls in Sindh, a documented crisis, despite claiming that forced marriages in India are “extremely worrisome.”
That selective silence is not a coincidence. It is the defining feature of his operation.
Who Backs Him?
Mahmood’s positions are celebrated by:
- Pakistani state media (Geo TV ran a sympathetic profile defending him from “Indian trolls”)
- IAMC (Indian American Muslim Council) – a U.S.-based Islamist lobbying group
- The Wire, Scroll, Maktoob, Muslim Mirror – Indian left-liberal outlets
- Congress party leaders, who amplified the USCIRF 2026 report’s RSS sanctions recommendation on X
This coalition that is Pakistani media, U.S.-based Islamist lobbies, and India’s domestic opposition is the audience Mahmood plays to. His USCIRF platform gives their shared narrative the veneer of official U.S. government authority.
What Is USCIRF?
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is a bipartisan federal government commission established by the Clinton administration in 1998. It “monitors” religious freedom globally and makes annual recommendations to the U.S. State Department, Congress, and the White House. It can recommend that countries be designated as “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) – a label that can trigger U.S. sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and trade restrictions.
Several of its commissioners have been linked to hardline Christian-supremacist groups, while others maintain associations with Islamic organizations accused of supporting extremist agendas. The Commission has even positioned itself as a defender of Khalistani separatists, issuing statements that effectively endorse the rhetoric of individuals tied to terror networks. In its reaction to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, USCIRF went so far as to accuse India of “transnational repression,” echoing separatist propaganda rather than presenting evidence-based analysis. These ideological entanglements expose USCIRF as a politically motivated body wielding the language of “religious freedom” to target India while shielding extremist elements it finds ideologically convenient.
USCIRF’s recommendations are advisory and non-binding – the State Department is not obligated to follow them. However, repeated CPC recommendations build a political and diplomatic narrative that can damage a country’s international image and bilateral relationships. This is precisely what Mahmood has used the platform for.
The USCIRF has repeatedly placed India (of all places) in the Countries of Particular Concern list and has even called for sanctions against RSS and R&AW.
USCIRF 2026 Annual Report: Sanctions On RAW And RSS
In March 2026, USCIRF under Mahmood’s vice-chairmanship released its annual report on India. It was, by any measure, the most aggressive anti-India position the Commission has ever taken. Among its key recommendations:
- Designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) for the 7th consecutive year for allegedly engaging in “systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations.”
- Impose targeted sanctions on R&AW, India’s Research and Analysis Wing, its premier external intelligence agency over allegations of “transnational repression.”
- Impose targeted sanctions on RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, marking the first time in USCIRF history that sanctions were recommended against a major Indian civil society organisation.
- Link bilateral U.S.-India trade to improvements in religious freedom conditions in India.
- Enforce Section 6 of the Arms Export Control Act to halt arms sales to India.
- Pass a Transnational Repression Reporting Act requiring annual reporting specifically on alleged Indian government targeting of minorities in the United States.
India rejected the report outright as “biased and distorted.” Former J&K DGP S.P. Vaid publicly called it Pakistan-driven propaganda. Indian commentators across the political spectrum questioned the credibility of a body whose Vice Chair is a Pakistani-origin activist with a documented record of anti-India posts.
The recommendation to sanction R&AW, India’s CIA equivalent, was not just hostile, but absurd: imagine an Indian government body recommending sanctions on the CIA for human rights violations. That is the level of entitlement embedded in Mahmood’s USCIRF report.
USCIRF’s “Religious Freedom” Campaign Is A Farce
The timing of USCIRF’s latest attack is telling. Just as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat prepares to visit the United States, the commission has called for sanctions against the organisation, once again placing India under its scanner. But this is not merely another USCIRF recommendation. It comes under Asif Mahmood, whose public record includes repeated attacks on India, support for Pakistan’s Kashmir narrative, and demands for punitive action against New Delhi. The body may call itself independent and bipartisan. But when its leadership has such a documented record, its latest targeting of the RSS must be called out
Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.
