President Barack Obama’s remarks on the importance of religious tolerance before leaving New Delhi last week were just a reiteration of “core democratic values and principles”, and not any “parting shot” aimed at the ruling BJP as projected in sections of the media, the White House has clarified. Obama’s comment that India will succeed “so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith” has been “misconstrued”, senior White House official Phil Reiner told reporters on Tuesday, stressing, “I don’t believe this was a parting shot by any means. This was simply the President speaking to what makes us great democratic nations.”
Reiner, who is Senior Director for South Asia at the National Security Council, said President Obama’s Siri Fort Auditorium speech, when seen in its entirety, was all about “how both the United States and India have these core democratic values and principles that allow us to continue to provide for all of our people”. He went on to say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the same values and core principles the previous night, adding, “If you look at the Delhi declaration, it’s the first statement of the fundamental freedoms as a core principle between the two of us that we agree upon.”
The White House official was clearly gung ho on the outcome of the visit, terming it a “game-changing” trip that is now set to push the bilateral ties forward in a host of key areas, including defence, civil nuclear, counter-terrorism, trade, education and health. Admitting that relations had gone “a bit adrift” the previous year, Reiner suggested it was all in the past now. President Obama quickly reached out to PM Modi immediately after his victory last May “and we were off to the races”. Now with two summit meetings in less than four months, the partnership is onto “a certain amount of momentum that really cannot be reversed”. On the civil nuclear deal, where Obama spoke of a “breakthrough understanding”, Reiner said that there are no more impediments at a policy level. Some steps, however, are needed towards early operationalisation of the deal. “There will be a conference in the relative near term on how to build the insurance pool elements that will go into actually making this a reality,” he said.
On the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), the official spoke of the agreement to pursue co-production and co-development of four high-tech pathfinder projects ranging from aircraft carrier technology to jet engine technology, noting this move “creates the opportunity for enhanced interoperability between our acquisitions processes”.
Reiner conceded some “tough issues” remain from the American standpoint on trade and economic relations, making pointed references to the need for further progress on intellectual property rights, local content requirements. He, however, said Modi’s remarks on the underlying issues at the India-US Business Summit was “incredibly encouraging”.
In the course of his media briefing at the Foreign Press Centre here, the White House official also dismissed reports that the US-India partnership was being promoted in a clear bid to contain China. Referring to the Obama-Modi deliberations and the joint vision statement on Asia and the Pacific, Reiner denied the “counterweight” theory, saying: “I don’t think either the US or India has an interest in any kind of confrontation or much less any sort of intent to contain China.”
He sought to make light of a New York Times account that the first 45 minutes of the Obama-Modi one-on-one meeting was taken up by China. There was many things that they spoke about, Reiner said, adding: “Coming in the door, I think the primary thing that was talked about was the fact that we had just reached agreement on these two seminal documents - on the Delhi declaration and on the joint strategic vision.”