NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump will raise the issue of religious freedom with PM Narendra Modi during his visit to India next week, the White House said on Friday.
“President Trump will talk about our shared tradition of democracy and religious freedom both in his public remarks and then certainly in private. He will raise these issues, particularly the religious freedom issue, which is extremely important to this administration,” a senior White House official said in response to a question on whether Trump will raise the issue of the Citizenship Amendment Act or the National Register of Citizens during his meeting with Modi.
Recalling how Modi spoke of inclusiveness after last year’s poll victory, the official said the world looks to India to maintain religious liberty and equal treatment of all. In the recent past, two city councils in the US — Seattle and Cambridge — had passed resolutions against the CAA saying it was discriminatory in nature.
Ahead of Trump’s visit, The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan US federal entity, published a ‘factsheet’ claiming the CAA “represents a significant downturn in religious freedom”.
India’s position is the CAA is an internal matter and the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.
In 2015, the then US President Barack Obama at a speech in Siri Fort auditorium in Delhi had said India would succeed only if it is not splintered on religious lines.