Pakistan, Aug. 26 -- India's first review in nearly two decades by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has produced findings that New Delhi cannot easily dismiss as routine or unfounded criticism from abroad. CERD has expressed "grave concern" over reports of abuses by law-enforcement officials against Scheduled Tribes, Dalits, ethnic and ethno-religious groups and non-citizens, including excessive force, arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and extrajudicial killings. It has also called for urgent action over discrimination and hate crimes against Bengali-speaking Muslims and the treatment of Rohingya, migrants and asylum-seekers.

India's response, as has become its tried-and-tested routine, was to poin...