WASHINGTON: The US State Department has once again condemned the offensive remarks about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Well, this is something that we’ve condemned. We condemned the offensive comments made by two BJP officials,” the department’s spokesperson Ned Price said on Thursday while responding to a question about the remarks and the ongoing protest in India and elsewhere against this blasphemous act.
“We were glad to see that the party publicly condemned those comments,” Mr Price added.
The State Department had expressed similar sentiments in a statement to Dawn last week.
On June 5, BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma and another party leader Naveen Kumar Jindal made disrespectful remarks about the Holy Prophet and after worldwide condemnation, the BJP distanced itself from their statements, announcing disciplinary action against the duo.
Mr Price said the United States regularly engaged with the Indian government at senior levels on human rights concerns, including on freedom of religion and belief, and “we encourage India to promote respect for human rights”.
Referring to a recent statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Mr Price pointed out that the Indian people and the American people believed in the same values: human dignity, human respect, equality of opportunity, and the freedom of religion or belief.
“These are fundamental tenets, these are fundamental values within any democracy, and we speak up for them around the world,” he added.
Responding to a subsequent question, Mr Price acknowledged that India and some other Asian nations continue to purchase oil from Russia, ignoring the US sanctions that follow Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The United States, he said, had held several discussions with its Indian partners on the matter and “the point that we have made is that every country is going to have a different relationship with Moscow”.
“India’s relationship with Russia is one that developed over the course of decades, and it developed over the course of decades at a time when the United States wasn’t prepared or able to be a partner of choice for the Indian government,” he explained, adding: “That has changed. This change too has become a legacy, going back to the Clinton administration, certainly to the George W. Bush administration, where the United States has sought a partnership with India.”
The United States, he said, “has sought to be a partner of choice for India, including when it comes to the security realm. Now, this is not a partnership that we were able to build in the course of days, weeks, or months.”
Similarly, he pointed out, “India’s relationship with Russia was built up over the course of many decades. As countries reorient their relationship with Moscow, as we have seen many of them do, this will be a gradual process.”
Mr Price said the United States had made it clear to “our Indian partners that we are there for them, we are ready and able and willing to partner with them, and we’ve done just that”.
The United States, he said, recently had a 2+2 dialogue with its Indian partners and a meeting was expected with Prime Minister Narendra Modi again in the context of I2U2 — a term used for a new grouping of four nations, namely the US, India, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
He pointed out that the United States was “incorporating India into many of the partnerships we have, including, of course, the Quad”. The Quad, he said, was a group that the Biden administration has sought to “revitalise and has done so at very high levels, including at the leader level four times”.
Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2022