Washington DC: Indian Christians settled in the US seem disappointed that President Donald Trump missed an opportunity to raise the burning issue of Hindu radicalism in India with visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The President “who emphasized the need to eradicate Islamic radicalism in public, missed a historic opportunity to speak out openly against the devastating impact Hindu radicalism has on Christians in India,” said John Prabhudoss, president of the Federation of Indian American Christians (FIACONA).
However, he noted with happiness that the American president raised concerns about anti-Christian policies and the Hindu radical vigilantism against innocent people across India during his private meetings with the Indian prime minister on June 26 at the White House.
“History would judge President Trump harshly for this omission to speak out openly in support of a 2000-year-old church that is bleeding in the hands of the man he hosted yesterday at the White House,” Prabhudoss said in a press note on June 27.
The Indian prime minister visited the US on June 25-26.
“American people fully understand the urgency in fighting radical Islamic fundamentalism, however, if that is done at the expense of fighting Hindu radicalism which is posing an imminent danger to the well-being of Christians, it may not bode well for our nation nor will it be consistent with our long-time commitment to the values we so cherish,” the FIACONA press note warns.
“Christendom which expected President Trump to be on the right side of the history is seen as abandoning the lives of over 300 million Christians and other non-Hindus for short term gains,” it adds.
Vulnerable Indian Christian population that has been bleeding under the radical Hindu extremism feels let down by President Trump.
“In Modi’s India today, bigotry is masquerading as nationalism, creative freedom being proscribed, freedom of speech and expression being brutally crushed by the state and the Institutions of democracy slowly being undermined by Modi whom our President called a True Friend,” the FIACONA note says.
The federation says it is time the US administration realized “that the so-called bond based on shared ideals is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. The man who is presiding over this historic wrong in India cannot be a friend of anyone, let alone our president.”