Delhi defends religious diversity

Barack's barb: Two BJP leaders cite instances to refute Obama

Two senior ministers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Friday came out in defence of the country’s religious diversity and history of tolerance after US President Barack Obama remarked that “acts of intolerance” in India would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley told journalists here that aberrations would not alter the history of religious tolerance in India, which is home to different communities.

Home minister Rajnath Singh also said at Srinagar Garhwal in Uttarakhand that religious tolerance was embedded in the traditions of the country.

Both Jaitley and Singh were reacting to Obama’s statement at a national prayer breakfast with Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, in Washington on Thursday.

“That any society must be a tolerant society is a fact that each of us has to accept. It’s good to be tolerant. India has a huge cultural history of tolerance. Any aberration doesn't alter the history,” said the finance minister.

Jaitley pointed out that Obama’s remark came in the presence of the Dalai Lama, who had been living in exile since 1959. 

“It is a part of India’s tolerance that even he (Dalai Lama) found it comfortable (to live in exile in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh) and India found it comfortable to absorb him in society,” said Jaitley.

Obama on Thursday referred to his visit to New Delhi as chief guest at the Republic Day parade last month.

“Michelle and I returned from India – an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity - but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by people of other faiths, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs – acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation,” he said in his remarks at the national prayer breakfast in Washington.  

Rajnath said India was the only country in the world, where all the communities, including various sects of Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews lived. “The biggest speciality of Indian culture has been that there has never been discrimination on the basis of caste, community, religion or sect,” a PTI report quoted Singh as saying.

Obama was commenting for the second time on India’s religious freedom and tolerance in a span of just 10 days.

“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,” the US President had said shortly before leaving for Saudi Arabia at the end of a three-day visit to New Delhi on January 27 last.

The US President’s address on “religious freedom” to an audience of 2000 people at the Siri Fort auditorium in New Delhi, apparently targeted the controversial “Ghar Wapsi” or reconversion campaign launched by some Sangh Parivar offshoots and endorsed by some parliamentarians of the ruling BJP.