Rights advocates in Washington demanded that President Joe Biden publicly call out what they described as India's deteriorating human rights record, saying the U.S. approach of raising the issue in private with Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a failure.
In a press briefing on Wednesday, activists and academics also called for hearings in the U.S. Congress about human rights in India under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by PM Modi, who is on a four day visit to the United States.
"We can't ignore the facts on the ground ... We can't look away, and neither can the U.S. government," said Nadine Maenza, a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center and president of the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Secretariat.
