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.