Barack Obama wades into religion debate; BJP plays it down

Anand Sharma, who met Obama on Monday, identified the two big takeaways of the speech as the US support for India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council, and the President’s stress on religious tolerance.

“His strong reaffirmation (of UNSC membership for India) reflects consistency and clarity… that Washington believes India can play a big role on the global stage,” Sharma said. “The second message is more relevant and important in the contemporary context. It is about how it is absolutely necessary that people of different hues, ethnicity, religions and from different regions should co-exist…”

Sharma’s colleague Manish Tewari was more direct in describing the “relevance” of Obama’s message. “I do hope that Prime Minister Modi was listening to the speech carefully,” he said.

Digvijaya Singh said, “Would Modi take his friend Barack’s advice and ask his friends in VHP to shut up and request (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat to stop justifying ‘ghar wapsi’?”

Union Minister Piyush Goyal dodged a specific question on Obama’s comments. BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said Obama’s views were the same as Modi’s. Another spokesperson, Sudhanshu Trivedi, said the visit had “proved that India was being treated on an equal footing on both economic and strategic aspects”.

VHP joint general secretary Surendrakumar Jain said Obama was “right”, but only to an extent. “The issue becomes complicated when freedom (to practise religion) disrupts public order. Everything in its limit is fine. I have freedom to build a temple, but not inside the Jama Masjid. If Christians want to build a church in Tirupati or if they distribute the Bible there, it becomes an issue. What he said is applicable to every religion. Our principle is to live and let live,” Jain said.

The CPI’s D Raja had a different take. “US has a set of policies which we are opposed to… It is the US which has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons… He spoke about clean energy. It is nothing but seeking business for American companies,” he said. The Left boycotted the visit.

JD(U)’s K C Tyagi accused Obama of dragging India into conflicts that were not of immediate concern to it. The US, Tyagi said, had its commitments towards Saudi Arabia and Israel, but India had a traditionally warm relationship with Iran.

“At the same time,” he said, “there is no need for India to take any position on the ISIS.” Tyagi also decried Obama’s criticism of Russia, “our time-tested friend, from our soil”.