New Delhi: Drawing on his own experience as a minority in the United States, President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked India to fulfill its constitution’s pledge to uphold the “dignity of the individual,” as he closed out a three-day visit to New Delhi.
Obama said that while he has had extraordinary opportunities, “there were moments in my life where I’ve been treated differently because of the colour of my skin.” As he touted the importance of religious tolerance, he noted the persistent false rumours that he is a Muslim, not a Christian.
“There have been times where my faith has at times been questioned by people who don’t know me, or they’ve said that I adhere to a different religion, as if that were somehow a bad thing,” Obama said.
Obama said no society is immune from man’s darkest impulses, as he raised the 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin that killed six people. “In that moment of shared grief, our two countries reaffirmed a basic truth, as we must again today, that every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination,” Obama said.
