Our Correspondent /New Delhi
Former US President Barack Obama on Friday said that India should cherish and nurture its Muslim population that what he said ‘is integrated and considers itself Indian’. It is an idea that needs to be reinforced, he said addressing a HT media event here.
Responding to an India-specific question, Mr. Obama referred to India’s “enormous Muslim population,” which is successful, integrated and thinks of itself as Indian.
That is unfortunately not always the case in some other countries, Mr. Obama added.
Referring to India, he said, “And that is something that needs to be cherished and nurtured, cultivated. It’s important to continue reinforcing it.”
Mr Obama said he had emphasised the need for religious tolerance and the right to practice one’s own faith during closed-door talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his last trip to India in 2015, eight months after the Modi government had assumed office in May 2014.
Stating that the US and India could not by themselves solve the problems of the world, the former US president urged countries to make sure people did not feel isolated or marginalized and to do away with distinctions. “There is something in us humans—we like making distinctions,” Obama said, adding that sometimes these were based on race, sometimes on religion and sometimes on class.
In his speech and later in a discussion, Obama subtly criticized some of the decisions and actions of his successor Donald Trump—from jettisoning the 2015 Paris climate accord to using Twitter as a medium for announcing policy decisions.
Obama praised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the part he played in reaching the Paris accord but was critical of Trump—whom he did not name—for dismissing the perils of global warming as a “hoax” at least once in a Twitter post in January. In June, Trump announced that the US was pulling out of the Paris accord, much to the chagrin of European and other leaders.