Don’t think US should lecture India or any other country on democracy, human rights: White House official

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The US National Security Council’s coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs, Kurt Campbell, on Thursday said that Washington cannot or should not “lecture” India or any other country on matters of democracy and human rights.

Campbell, who holds a prominent position in the Bidenadministration, addressed the challenges faced by both India and the United States and said, “each of our counties is imperfect.

“I think what President Biden sought to do was to suggest that for India to meet its full potential, it would need to become more of an example on a number of fronts. And I think that message was delivered with respect and I think it was heard in that vein,” Campbell said during an interview to news agency ANI.

“I have been involved in India-US relations for almost 30 years and I can tell you in the period leading up to the arrival of PM Modi here in Washington, DC the level of trust and confidence between the US and Indian interlocutors was notably different,” he added.

Campbell also heaped praises on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and stated that he is “one of the most effective, successful, popular, democratically elected leaders on the planet”.

“Every society, including the United States and India, has challenges and have its problems. I can tell you that Prime Minister Modi and President Biden had discrete, important conversations about some of our differences,” he said.

PM Modi, during his recent visit to US, pushed back strongly at attributed criticism over his government’s purported restrictions on free speech and treatment of minorities, asserting that India lives and breathes democracy and there is no question of any official discrimination over religion, caste, creed, or gender in the country.

“India and US both have democracy in their DNA. It is in our blood veins. Our founders put it in our Constitution. If you accept we are a democracy, then there is no question of discrimination,” PM Modi told Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui, one of only two reporters called on to ask questions at a White House presser. (TOI)