Martin Luther would have been shocked too! Some questions for Obama

Dear Mr President,

You say that acts of intolerance in India “would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.”

This is the second time (first at New Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium) in as many weeks that you have shown your concern for the events in India. We are indeed touched!

Yes, you are right Gandhi would have been shocked. For, he lived fighting prejudice and obscurantism of all kinds. In fact, he died for a united India.

He lived a life which inspired so many others. None more so than that prince among men Dr Martin Luther King – your own hero and a man who considered the Mahatma one of his idols.

We are sure that he would have been shocked by events in India too. But maybe he would not have stopped there.

We wonder if Dr King would have been ‘shocked” by events in your country and the events on the soil of some of your staunchest strategic allies.

We thought we will find out, first hand, from you Mr President. So here goes.

Question 1: Mr President, you said, and rightly so, that India can grow only if we are “not splintered”  on sectarian lives and that Gandhiji would have been “shocked” by recent events . Would you care to repeat that same message to Saudi Arabia which you visited recently? We are sure that the kingdom would allow you a ready platform, the Riyadh equivalent of Siri Fort, to ‘profess and propagate’ your sermon.

Question 2: Would you also care to remind your other great ‘strategic partner’ — Pakistan — about the other issue you took up at Siri Fort, namely the need for gender equality? Can you tell us the efficacy of the fine-tuned methods adopted in Pakistan for the benefit of the girl child, such as Malala. And, also about the veneration of the Shias and the Ahmediyas. We then hope to adopt them lock, stock and barrel, as best practices.

Question 3: You said that India is critical to combating climate change and you have also been so generous to provide a fund of 2 billion dollars for clean-energy technology. Did you know India’s per capita emission of CO2 emissions is 1.45 mt, while in your own country, that number stands at a staggering 17.62 mt?

Question 4: Would you bat an eyelid if Indian prime minister Narendra Modi came to Washington and gave you ‘friendly’ advice on how to treat your ‘minorities’? We assure you he will not allude to the still-raw Ferguson incident (that will indeed be below the belt), but only hark back to the long history of civil strife in America.

Question 5: Mr President, can you assure us that your advocacy of the “right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion” has nothing to do with pleasing the “Christian Right” in America , as alleged by some analysts?

Question 6:  Dear Mr President, can you shed some light on China’s love for the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the Tibetans?  A standard, we assure you, we will hold the ‘right wing’ and ‘aggressively Hindu’ government in India to.

Would Dr King have been shocked?

Once again, thank you, Mr President, for your time.  We leave you now to “practice and propagate” your sermons.