India Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing a high stakes game of tit-for-tat. And Christians and other religious minorities are ultimately the victims.
His government has denied visas to members of the U.S. Commission on International Freedom who want to visit India to investigate cases of religious persecution. Their goal is to discover if the Modi government is abiding by terms of international agreements to protect religious freedom in the Hindu nation.
Before he became prime minister, Modi was chief minister of Gujarat and was denied a visa for entrance to the United States because of his role in the 2002 communal riots that claimed 2,000 (mostly Muslim) lives in that state.
It appears that so far, since Modi and his Bharattiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in May 2014, religious minorities have not fared too well in India.
The Evangelical Fellowship of Christians reported that during 2015, at least 177 cases of religious persecution were reported against India's Christian minority.
One of the most recent examples was the sacking of a church and assault of Christians attending services March 6 in Raipur.
Apparently Modi's modus operandi is to ignore the facts and only protect the Hindu majority.
If India is abiding by human rights agreements and is committed to protecting religious freedom, then it has nothing to hide. Why not allow the USCIRF in to investigate?
The people of the world's largest democracy deserve better; a solid commitment to international human rights norms and accountability from their leaders.