January 09, 2025 12:13 pm (IST)
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Aberrations don't alter India's history of tolerance: Jaitley on Obama remark
New Delhi, Feb 6 (IBNS): Reacting to US President Barack Obama's comment of religious intolerance in India, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that aberrations don't alter India's history of tolerance.
"India has a huge cultural history of tolerance. Any aberrations don't alter that history," Jaitley told a news conference here on being asked about Obama's critical remarks about religious intolerance in the country.
The statement comes after Obama has said that if Gandhi were alive, the acts of religious intolerance in India would have shocked him while he also reminded Americans of the acts of the terrible deeds committed by Christians too in history.
In the National Prayer Breakfast address on Thursday, Obama said "India was full of magnificent diversity – but 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 such acts would have "shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation."
Obama, who is an admirer of Gandhiji, is just back from his India visit where he bonded well with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi but in a speech before leaving had expressed his concern over the religious intolerance in India and had said for the country to succeed it should not splinter along religious lines.
Obama spoke of how “professions of faith [is] used both as an instrument of great good but twisted in the name of evil.”
"From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith – their faith – profess to stand up for Islam but in fact are betraying it,” he said.
He called ISIS a “brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism.”
He also warned the Christians saying "and lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place – remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."
"No god condones terror," Obama said adding that "we are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends.
Tibetan leader in exile and Nobel laureate Dalai Lama was present at the venue whom Obama addressed as a person who "inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings."
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