In an interview, Obama said if India does not protect the rights of ethnic minorities, there is a strong possibility at some point that the country starts pulling apart…reports Asian Lite News
Former president Barack Obama should spend his energy complimenting India more than criticizing it, according to a former commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Johnnie Moore.
“I think the former president (Obama) should spend his energy complimenting India, more than criticizing India. India is the most diverse country in human history. It’s not a perfect country, just like the United States, it’s not a perfect country, but its diversity is its strength, and we should be complimenting the largest democracy in the world every chance that we can, that we have,” Moore, an evangelical leader, said.
Moore’s remarks come in the wake of an interview by Obama to CNN recently in which the former US President was cited as saying that Biden should raise the religious freedom issue with India, as he would have done had he still been the US president.
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Obama said if India does not protect the rights of ethnic minorities, there is a strong possibility at some point that the country starts pulling apart. Obama also told CNN interviewer Christiane Amanpour that if President Joe Biden meets with PM Modi, “the protection of the Muslim minority in a majority Hindu India is something worth mentioning”.
Asked a question relating to India and China, Obama said he has worked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Paris Accords to deal with climate change.
“By the way, if I had a conversation with Prime Minister Modi, who I know well, part of my argument would be that if you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India, then there is a strong possibility that India, at some point, starts pulling apart. And we have seen what happens when you start getting those kinds of large internal conflicts. So that would be contrary to the interests not just of Muslim Indians but also Hindu Indians. I think it is important to be able to talk about these things honestly. Things are not going to be as clean as you like, because the world is complicated,” Obama told CNN.
USCIRF is a US federal government commission which makes policy recommendations to the US government and was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives
The former USCIRF commissioner told ANI that PM Modi’s historic visit to the US was an occasion to be celebrated.
“And so I think, you know, it was the time to celebrate a historic visit, you know, rather than leveling some criticism on it, you know, with your friends, particularly when it comes to democracy. With your friends, it’s sometimes better to privately criticize and to publicly, publicly praised. That’s good geopolitics,” Moore said.
“I disagree with the sentiment of the former president (Barack Obama),” he said, adding, “Even in that critique of the former president Obama couldn’t help but also complement Prime Minister Modi, and I certainly understand why having spent some time with him,” Moore added. (ANI)