- Saturday, July 06, 2024
The minister defended prime minister Narendra Modi from questions that he faced over treatment of Muslims in India and his response on the subject at a joint press conference at the White House.
By: Shubham Ghosh
DAYS after former US president Barack Obama remarked on Muslim minorities’ rights in India during a TV interview and feared the country could “pull apart” if their rights are not protected, Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday (25) lashed out at the former saying Washington had “bombed six Muslim-majority nations” during his presidency (2009-17).
Slamming the Democratic leader over the interview that he gave to CNN, Sitharaman said she was shocked. She said when Modi was speaking about India in the US, a former American president was speaking about Indian Muslims.
“And I am saying this with restraint because it involves another country. We want friendship with the US but there too we get remarks about religious freedom in India. A former president – under whose rule six Muslim-majority countries were bombed with more than 26,000 bombs – how will people trust his allegations?” Sitharaman asked, the NDTV report added.
India risks ‘pulling apart’ if Muslim minority not respected, says Barack Obama as Modi visits US
In his interview, Obama said, “If the president meets with prime minister Modi, then the protection of the Muslim minority in a majority Hindu India – that’s something worth mentioning. 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.”
He added that it would be contradictory to India’s interests.
Sitharaman, who was in Paris last week for the New Global Financing Pact, defended prime minister Narendra Modi from questions that he faced over treatment of Muslims in India and his response on the subject during a joint press conference with US president Joe Biden at the White House last week.
Modi, who was on a state visit to the US, told a US journalist that there was no space for religious or other discrimination in the Indian democracy after the latter asked what steps his government is willing to take to improve the minority rights in India and to uphold free speech.
“The honourable prime minister himself, in the press conference in the US, has said how his government works on the ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (inclusive development) principle and doesn’t discriminate against any community. But the fact remains that when people join in this debate and highlight issues which are non-issues in a way,” Sitharaman said in a news conference in New Delhi, taking a dig at the opposition at home, NDTV reported.
“Out of the 13 awards that he has been given as prime minister of the country, six have been given by countries where Muslims are in the majority,” she said.
“There are issues to be raised which are being raised at the state level about law and order. There are people taking care of it. To just allege without basic data in hand just tells us that these are organised campaigns,” she added.
Sitharaman slammed the opposition saying they run such campaigns because they cannot counter the BJP or Modi electorally — notwithstanding the results in the southern state of Karnataka in May where the saffron party lost power to the Indian National Congress.
Before Sitharaman, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the BJP chief minister of the north-eastern state of Assam, targeted Obama indirectly over his remarks after an Indian journalist asked sarcastically whether the police of Sarma’s state would arrest Obama in Washington, apparently referring to reports being lodged in Assam against opposition leaders over their remarks made in different parts of the country.
“Has an FIR been filed in Guwahati yet against Obama for hurting sentiment? Is Assam police on it’s way to Washington to get Obama offloaded from some flight and arrest him?” the journalist tweeted.
Sarma responded to the tweet saying there were many “Hussain Obamas” in India and the state police will act according to its priorities.
Hussein is the middle name of Barack Obama.
