Explained: US Representative Ilhan Omar’s resolution on India

Newsletter | Click to get the day’s best explainers in your inbox

She was previously criticised by the Indian government for visiting Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in April this year. Ministry of External Affairs Official Spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said in April 2022: “If such a politician wishes to practice a narrow-minded politics at home, that’s her business, but violating our territorial integrity and sovereignty in its pursuit makes this ours and we think the visit is condemnable.”

Who is Ilhan Omar?

Omar is a US Congress representative from the Democratic party. She was born in Somalia and came to the US as a refugee at the age of 13 years, fleeing the Somali Civil War. In November 2016, Omar contested elections and became the first Somali-American legislator in the United States, and is the first hijab-wearing woman to be a part of the US Congress.

She has also been a part of ‘The Squad’, an informal grouping of six lawmakers in the US Congress who are ideologically to the left of their party. All members of the squad are from racial minorities, and five of the six members are women, while three members are Muslim. The squad also includes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a socialist who became the youngest person to be elected to the US Congress at 29 years of age in 2018.

Former President Donald Trump had indirectly said of The Squad members in 2019, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?” Trump had also attacked Omar for her criticism of Israel’s role in Palestine.

What has she said about India?

A press release by Omar’s office on her resolution said: “The Indian government must be held responsible for human right violations against religious and cultural minorities.” She added: “In recent years, the Indian government has been escalating repressive policies against Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Dalits. The United States should stand for religious freedom in India and the fair treatment of all religious minorities.”

Comments of US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, were also mentioned in the resolution. He said in 2021: “In India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places of worship.”

Over the years, Omar has also spoken against the treatment of Uighur Muslims in China, the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, and other international issues. During her four-day visit to Pakistan, she had met Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, former PM Imran Khan, and also visited PoK.

What is the USCIRF?

The USCIRF is an independent body, setup by the American government to “monitor the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad — not in the United States — using international standards to do so and makes policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress”. Its recommendations are non-binding.

In the last few years, it has criticised the Indian government’s treatment of minority religion groups, the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the lynching of Tabrez Ansari in June 2019, calling on the Indian government to “take concrete actions that will prevent this kind of violence”.

MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava had said in 2020: “We reject the observations on India in the USCIRF Annual Report. Its biased and tendentious comments against India are not new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels…We regard it as an organization of particular concern and will treat it accordingly.”