87R21036 TBO-D
By: Reynolds H.R. No. 1330
R E S O L U T I O N
WHEREAS, The State of Texas supports the protection of human
rights, democratic principles, and equal justice for all people,
and opposes all discrimination, including discrimination based on
religion and ethno-nationalism; and
WHEREAS, The nation of India was founded as a secular
republic in which members of all regional cultures, castes,
linguistic groups, and religious faiths are welcome, and India and
the United States share common values of democracy, the rule of law,
and the protection of human rights and liberty; however, the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of India's prime minister,
Narendra Modi, has promoted the suppression of free press, the
silencing of political dissent, governance through increasingly
divisive policies, and overt discrimination and violence against
religious minorities; and
WHEREAS, In 2002, Narendra Modi was chief minister of the
Indian state of Gujarat, and he failed to quell the monthslong
lynching of more than 1,000 Muslims, mass rapes of Muslim women, and
the destruction of 20,000 Muslim-owned homes and businesses as well
as 360 Muslim places of worship; his complicity and involvement in
the 2002 Gujarat pogrom prompted the U.S. State Department to deny
him entry into the United States from 2005 until his election as
India's prime minister in 2014; and
WHEREAS, On August 5, 2019, the BJP-led government revoked
Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted special
semiautonomous status to the former Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir, which was the only Muslim-majority state in the nation; in
revoking the article, the government implemented mass detentions
and imposed wide-ranging restrictions on communications and press
freedoms; and
WHEREAS, On December 11, 2019, the Indian government passed
the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA); under the guise of helping
refugees fleeing religious persecution from neighboring countries,
the act blatantly discriminates against Muslim Indians by favoring
Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian immigrants, while
specifically excluding Muslim people; the CAA is the first instance
of religion being used as a criterion for Indian citizenship in the
history of the nation; and
WHEREAS, BJP president Amit Shah has expressed support for
the nationwide expansion of the National Register of Citizens
(NRC); however, many Indians lack documentation to prove
citizenship, such as birth certificates, and the NRC expansion
could strip hundreds of millions of people of their citizenship
with no option to be re-naturalized; this would disproportionately
affect Muslims, oppressed castes, women, and indigenous
communities; in addition, when combined with an expansion of the
NRC, the CAA will allow for the disenfranchisement of India's
largest religious minority community and create a situation where
individuals could be deprived of citizenship if they are a Muslim
without documents; in 2019, India's government began building vast
detention camps to house individuals who are unable to provide
documentation of citizenship and who are unable to apply for
refugee status or asylum under CAA; and
WHEREAS, From 2019 through 2021, public protests in India
against CAA, NRC, and anti-farmer legislation have been met by
consistent and indiscriminate governmental repression, including
the firing of live ammunition at demonstrators, mass arrests, and
the imposition of restrictions on telecommunications and free
press; in 2021, several Indian states ruled by the BJP passed laws
to regulate religious conversions, making interreligious marriages
between Muslim men and Hindu women punishable by imprisonment if
the government determines that the marriage involved a fraudulent
conversion; and
WHEREAS, In September 2019, a "Howdy, Modi!" rally was held
in Houston, featuring Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, in what
the Washington Post ominously reported was "the largest-ever
gathering with a foreign political leader in the United States,"
demonstrating the growing threat of the BJP's influence around the
world; and
WHEREAS, In its 2020 report, the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom recommended that India be
designated as a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC), stating that
the country is "engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and
egregious religious freedom violations"; in September 2020,
Amnesty International halted all work in India due to the
"heavy-handed tactics that Indian civil society has become
increasingly familiar with--part of the government's drive to
silence critical voices and stoke a climate of fear"; in its 2020
Democracy Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit decreased India's
global ranking, citing "democratic backsliding" by authorities and
"crackdowns" on civil liberties as well as stating that the
Narendra Modi-led government had "introduced a religious element to
the conceptualization of Indian citizenship, a step that many
critics see as undermining the secular basis of the Indian state";
and
WHEREAS, In its 2021 World Report, Human Rights Watch stated
that "the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government increasingly
harassed, arrested, and prosecuted rights defenders, activists,
journalists, students, academics, and others critical of the
government or its policies . . . [a]ttacks continued against
minorities, especially Muslims, even as authorities failed to take
action against BJP leaders who vilified Muslims and BJP supporters
who engaged in violence"; in its 2021 Freedom in the World Report,
Freedom House downgraded India from "Free" to a "Partly Free"
country, finding that "harassment of journalists and other
government critics has increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi
and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as have
religiously motivated attacks against non-Hindus"; and
WHEREAS, All people deserve to live without fear or
intimidation in practice of their faith, and it is important to join
in the outcry against the anti-Muslim actions of the BJP-led
government in India; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 87th Texas
Legislature hereby condemn rising ethno-nationalism and the
suppression of democratic principles in India; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas House of Representatives express
solidarity with the Indian-American community regardless of
religious, linguistic, and cultural identification, and affirm
support for the protection of human rights, democratic principles,
and equal justice for all people in Texas and beyond.