"In many respects, modern India is considered a success story," says Barack Obama.
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"In many respects, modern India is told as a success story, having survived repeated changes of government, bitter disputes within political parties, various armed separatist movements, and all manner of corruption scandals," Obama writes in his book "A Promised Land".
Former US President Barack Obama has said that modern India can be counted as a success story in many respects, despite bitter disputes within political parties, various armed separatist movements and corruption scandals.
The 44th US President, in his latest book, says that the transition to a more market-based economy in the 1990s unleashed the extraordinary entrepreneurial talent of Indians, leading to skyrocketing growth rates. , a thriving tech sector and an ever-expanding middle class.
In his book "A Promised Land," Obama writes about his journey from the 2008 election campaign to the end of his first term with the audacious raid on Abbottabad, Pakistan, which killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. "A Promised Land" is the first of two planned volumes. The first part hit bookstores around the world on Tuesday.
"In many respects, modern India is told as a success story, having survived repeated changes of government, bitter disputes within political parties, various armed separatist movements and all manner of corruption scandals," Obama writes.
As the chief architect of India's economic transformation, (former) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seemed a fitting emblem of this progress: a member of the small, often persecuted Sikh religious minority who had risen to the highest office in the country, and a self - taking on a technocrat who had earned the people's trust not by appealing to their passions, but by achieving higher living standards and maintaining a well-earned reputation for not being corrupt, says Obama, who had visited India twice. as president in 2010 and 2015.
Referring to his visit to India in November 2010, Obama says that he and Manmohan Singh had developed a warm and productive relationship. “While he could be cautious on foreign policy, unwilling to get too far ahead of an Indian bureaucracy that was historically suspicious of America's intentions, our time together confirmed my initial impression of him as a man of rare wisdom and decency; and during my visit to the capital city of New Delhi, we reached agreements to strengthen US cooperation in counterterrorism, global health, nuclear security and trade, ”Obama writes.
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"What I couldn't say was whether Singh's rise to power represented the future of India's democracy or just an aberration," he said.
Obama writes that Singh at the time was concerned about India's economy, cross-border terrorism, and rising anti-Muslim sentiments.
During a conversation without aides or note takers, Singh told him: “In times of uncertainty, Mr. President, the call for religious and ethnic solidarity can be intoxicating. And it's not that difficult for politicians to exploit that, in India or anywhere else. "" I nodded, remembering the conversation I had had with Václav Havel (former President of Czechoslovakia) during my visit to Prague and his warning about the rising tide of anti-liberalism in Europe If globalization and a historic economic crisis fueled these trends in relatively wealthy nations, if you were seeing it even in the United States with the Tea Party, how could India be immune, he said.
Across the country, millions continued to live in squalor, trapped in sun-drenched towns or labyrinthine slums, even as the titans of Indian industry enjoyed lifestyles that the Rajas and tycoons of yesteryear would have envied, Obama writes. “Expressing hostility towards Pakistan was still the quickest route to national unity, and many Indians took pride in knowing that their country had developed a nuclear weapons program on par with Pakistan's, without worrying about the fact that a single mistake calculation of either party could put annihilation at risk, ”he says.
Obama writes that Manmohan Singh's elevation as prime minister, sometimes heralded as a hallmark of the country's progress to overcome sectarian divisions, was somewhat misleading.
He had not originally become prime minister as a result of his own popularity. In fact, she owed her position to Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and leader of the Congress Party, who had refused to accept the position herself after leading her party's coalition to victory and in his place had Singh anointed. More than one political observer believed that she had chosen Singh precisely because, as an elderly Sikh without a national political base, she posed no threat to her forty-year-old son, Rahul, whom she was grooming to take over the Congress Party. " he said.
In his book, Obama, referring to his meeting with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi at the dinner table, said that the Speaker of Congress listened more than she spoke, careful to give in to Singh when political issues arose and often , directed the conversation towards his son. .
“However, it was clear to me that her power was attributable to cunning and forceful intelligence. As for Rahul, he seemed smart and serious, his good looks resembling his mother's. He offered his thoughts on the future of progressive politics, stopping occasionally to poll me on the details of my 2008 campaign, "he wrote.
"But there was a nervous and reportless quality about him, as if he were a student who had done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher, but deep down lacked the aptitude or passion to master the subject," Obama said .
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