New Delhi, Dec. 22: The BJP today reacted sharply to the US state department’s annual report on religious freedom released last week, saying America should not behave as if it is the “boss” of the whole world.

“(The) US is not the boss of the whole world. It should look at its own track record of human rights violations inside the country and by its troops outside,” party spokesperson V.K. Malhotra said at a news conference.

In its recent annual report on international religious freedom, the state department had said the BJP’s institutionalisation of Hindutva through re-writing of history, anti-conversion laws and targeting of minorities have hurt India’s secular image.

“We take strong exception to the report’s description of us as a ‘Hindu Nationalist Party’ and its observation that Hindu militant organisations have been involved in violent acts against Christians and Muslims,” he said.

The report draws attention to the distribution of trishuls (tridents) by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and glorification of Hitler in school textbooks in Gujarat.

“We had to rewrite history in order to remove the distortions introduced by colonial rulers. They portrayed Indian history as having no culture or civilisation of its own before the colonial rulers came,” Malhotra said.

Defending the right to bring an anti-conversion bill, the BJP spokesperson said: “It was Madhya Pradesh headed by a Congress government which first brought about an anti-conversion bill. So has Orissa. Forcible conversion is a violation of human rights.”

The US report focuses on Gujarat and says the BJP government had hounded out Muslim youths after the murder of the state’s home minister, Haren Pandya, in March this year. “The US has no right to air such views on India. They are utterly baseless,” Malhotra said.

The report also focuses on Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. It points out that the work of Christian missionaries have raised the hackles of upper caste Hindus as those at the lowest rung of society have benefited from the social work carried out by missionaries.

In Orissa, Graham Staines, a Christian missionary, was burnt alive with his two sons by Dara Singh, a Bajrang Dal volunteer. The court has sentenced him to death.