WASHINGTON: From remembering “the childhood years spent in Indonesia listening to the epic Hindu stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata” to reflecting on Mahatma Gandhi and his broad philosophy and vision, to express respect for the former prime minister Manmohan singh, The American president Barack ObamaThe memoirs of A Promised Land, the first of two volumes to be published this week, expresses unbridled affection and concern for India.
“I had never been to India before. But the country had always had a special place in my imagination … Maybe it was because I had spent part of my childhood in Indonesia listening to the epic Hindu stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or because of my interest in Eastern religions, or by a group of friends from the University of Pakistan, Pakistan and India who taught me to cook dahl (sic) and keema and got me excited about Bollywood movies, “Obama says in an introductory passage that describes his 2010 visit to India.
But more than anything else, he writes, his fascination with India had to do with Mahatma Gandhi, who along with Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, had profoundly influenced his thinking. “When I was young I studied his writings and found him giving voice to some of my deepest instincts, his notion of Satyagraha, or devotion to truth, and the power of non-violent resistance to stir conscience, his insistence on our common humanity. “. he says, regretting that India has not realized the Mahatma’s vision of nation and society.
Obama also expresses admiration and respect for the former prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, describing him as the “chief architect of India’s economic transformation” and “a modest technocrat who had earned the trust of the people, not by appealing to passions, but by achieving higher standards of living and maintaining a well-earned reputation for not be corrupt. ”
While reflecting on Gandhi and his commitment to Dr. Singh, the former US president wonders not only about the future of India, but also of the United States, at a time when the liberal order around the world is under the rule of thumb. siege of illiberal hypernationalism.
“In times of uncertainty, Mr. President, the call for religious and ethnic solidarity can be intoxicating. And it is not difficult for politicians to exploit that in India or elsewhere,” he quotes Singh, as he wonders whether globalization and Historic economics Crises were fueling these trends in rich countries, even giving rise to the Tea Party in the United States. How could India be immune? Since then, Obama has suggested in interviews promoting the book that Tea Party anti-liberalism led to the subsequent rise Donald trump.
Sad concern for India’s future runs through this segment, as Obama worries about communal and sectarian division and violence despite the country’s economic progress made during Singh’s time as prime minister. After his visit to India, he says he wondered if “those impulses of violence, greed, corruption, nationalism, racism and religious intolerance, the all-too-human desire to push back our own uncertainty and mortality, and the sense of insignificance by subordinating others, it was too strong for any democracy to hold them permanently. For they seem to carry weight everywhere and ready to reemerge when growth rates stagnate or demographics change or a charismatic leader chooses to ride the waves of fear and resentment. ” .
There is no reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the book and little about Donald Trump as the book ends with the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. A second supplemental volume is expected to follow.
On video: Barack Obama talks about his book
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