A “few aberrations” do not alter the “long history of cultural tolerance” in the country, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday in a response to US President Barack Obama’s criticism of treatment of minorities in India.
Obama’s comments, during his India visit last month, on the state of religious harmony and tolerance in India have clearly ruffled feathers in the Indian establishment. They also provided ammunition to the critics of the BJP government. AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal demanded that the US President’s “good friend Narendra Modi should respond” to his disparaging comments. In his latest statement, on Thursday, Obama said acts of intolerance in India would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi. “Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in the past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by people of other faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs… Acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that Nation,” Obama said.
The statement follows the US President’s comments on January 27, when on a visit to Delhi, he said India will prosper only if it was “not splintered along religious lines”.
Jaitley said, “Any society must be a tolerant society. Each one of us has to accept that. India has had a long history of cultural, religious tolerance. Any aberration to that does not alter that history.”