India Counters Obama's Religious Intolerance

India counters Obama's religious intolerance jibe with facts and figures

At the just concluded four-day White House Summit to counter violent extremism of about 60 countries, the western world, including the US and several European countries listened to the Indian experience carefully and showed an inclination to learn from India's minority management and inclusive culture that has successfully kept threats like ISIS under check despite having sizeable minority population. India reeled off facts and figures relating to minority welfare schemes and measures undertaken by the government, to underline that the social, educational and economic empowerment of the smaller communities was taken due care of. Below are few important points highlighted by Indian Delegation?
 

1. Notions of minorities not valid in India. Despite having a large number of minority populations the liberal, plural, secular democracy has ensured the integration of various communities. “The recently held elections in Jammu & Kashmir, a Muslim majority state, in which over 65 per cent electorate peacefully cast their votes is a testimony of its success story.
 

2. Higher population growth of smaller communities in India over the last six decades- this credibly indicated their "ease and sense of stake in a happy co-existence with the rest".
 

((The Indian Express reported on January 24 that Hindus comprised 78.35 per cent of the total population of 121.05 crore, compared with 80.45 per cent of the total population in 2001. In absolute terms, Muslim population increased 24.4 per cent to 17.18 crore from 13.8 crore during 2001-11. Muslims were 13.4 per cent of the total population in 2001.)).
 

3. To address the development deficits in minority concentration areas of the country, programme like multi-sectoral development programme was launched in 2008-09 under which 1147 new school buildings, 21006 additional classrooms, 698 hostels, 137 it is, 46 polytechnics, 3760 primary health centres and 3,36,136 houses have been constructed.
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4. Placement linked skill development programme for minorities that was launched in 2013-14 that ensure employment of 75% trained minority youth. So far the scheme has trained over 36,000 minority youth and placed them in organized by spending US $ 10.5 million.
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5. India took pride in the fact that despite a population of 180 million Muslims, there had been hardly any case of recruitment of Indian Mulsims to any of the violent Pan Islamist groups. “India’s response to violent extremism is calibrated in a way that prevents disproportionate use of force by the state.” India highlighted how it had never used "air power" or "area weapon" to combat violent extremism.