NEW DELHI: U.S. President Barack Obama said the “acts of intolerance” experienced by religious faiths of all types in India in the past few years would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi – the hero of Indias independence struggle.
The comments by Obama came a day after the White House refuted suggestions that the US President’s public speech in New Delhi in which he touched upon religious tolerance was a “parting shot” aimed at the ruling BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Some critics say his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is trying to advance a religious agenda and erode secularism in India, where over 80% of the population is Hindu and around 13% is Muslim.
The White House tried to tamp down suggestions that Mr. Obamas final public comments in India were a parting shot to Mr. Modi after a visit.
Phil Reiner, National Security Council Senior Director for South Asian Affairs, said after the visit that Mr. Obamas remarks in India needed to be seen in context of the entire speech.
In a 25-minute address Obama invoked India’s example to make a plea for religious freedom and how faith leads people to do good and what’s right but that faith also can be twisted to be used as a weapon.
Obama who last month visited India with First Lady Michelle called it “an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity”.
But it was also “a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs”, he said.
These, Obama said, were “acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation,” he said.
In an U.S.-style Town Hall address in New Delhi on January 27, the last day of his India trip, Obama weighed in on one of India’s most sensitive topics, making a plea for freedom of religion to be upheld in a country with a history of strife between Hindus and minorities.
“India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith, as long as it is not splintered along any lines, and it is unified as one nation,” he had said.
Every person has the right to practice his faith without any persecution, fear or discrimination. India will succeed so long as it is not splintered on religious lines.
Your Article 25 says all people are equally entitled to the freedom of conscience and have the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. In both our countries, in all countries, upholding freedom of religion is the utmost responsibility of the government, but also the responsibility of every person.
In attendance at the National Prayer Breakfast was the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. As he began his talk, Obama referred to the Dalai Lama a “good friend” and “a powerful example of what it means to practice compassion and who inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings”.
The two did not meet directly, as he arrived Obama nodded and smiled at the Dalai Lama, waving after clasping his hands together in a bow-like gesture toward Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader. Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was seated with the Dalai Lama at a table in the front row across from the president.
The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after Chinese troops crushed an attempted uprising in Tibet and now lives in the quiet Himalayan town of Dharamshala.
China views the Nobel Peace Prize-laureate activities as splittist, though he has moved away from advocating independence for Tibet and has embraced a “middle way” seeking autonomy. –
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