NEW DELHI: Ahead of President Donald Trump ’s visit, a bipartisan US federal government entity which has often clashed with the Indian government in the past issued a ‘factsheet’ on why the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) represents a significant downturn in religious freedom in India.The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said Muslims alone would suffer from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) as non-Muslims would be ensured protection by the CAA. While it linked CAA and NRC, as of now, the Indian government has said that NRC was not under discussion.In December last year, the USCIRF, established by the US Congress to monitor threats to religious freedom abroad, had said the law was “a dangerous turn in the wrong direction; it runs counter to India’s rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law regardless of faith”. It had sought sanctions against home minister Amit Shah and other “principal leadership’’ of the law, which was then before Parliament as a bill.The ’factsheet’ concluded that the NRC process in Assam and challenges plaguing it demonstrated that Indian citizens could be stripped of their citizenship in a nationwide NRC. “With protections for non-Muslims in place under the CAA, however, any future NRC process would largely impact Muslims alone,’’ it said.According to the USCIRF, the law essentially granted individuals of selected non-Muslim communities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan refugee status within India and reserved the category of “illegal migrant” for Muslims alone.Indian officials here said the CAA should be appreciated by those genuinely interested in religious freedom as it addressed the human rights of persecuted religious minorities who were not in a position to return to their homes.While referring to Shah’s remark in Parliament that the CAA was only meant to protect those who had suffered from religious persecution in neighbouring states, the USCIRF said the Act did not require members of the listed non-Muslim religious groups to provide any proof of persecution and omitted Muslim minority communities such as Shias and Ahmadiyas who faced severe persecution in Afghanistan and Pakistan due to their faith.While it recalled PM Narendra Modi ’s statement that there had been no discussion in the government on NRC, the USCIRF mentioned Shah’s contradictory statements and also BJP’s 2019 manifesto which called for NRC in other parts of the country in a phased manner.The ‘factsheet’ further said there were serious concerns that the CAA served as a protective measure for non-Muslims in case of exclusion from a nationwide NRC — a proposed list of all Indian citizens — and that was evident from the rhetoric of BJP politicians.“The CAA and NRC must also be understood in the context of the growing prominence of BJP’s Hindutva ideology. This ideological frame views India as a Hindu state (with its definition of Hinduism inclusive of Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs) and Islam as a foreign and invading religion,” it said.