‘Spent part of my childhood listening to Ramayana and Mahabharata’: Barack Obama

‘Spent part of my childhood listening to Ramayana and Mahabharata’: Barack Obama

Even though he had ne’er been to Asian nation before his presidential visit in 2010, former United States of America president Barack Obama’s fascination of the country harked back to his childhood years, once he would hear the Hindu epics — Sanskrit literature and therefore the sacred writing. Asian nation conjointly command a special place for Obama thanks to nationalist leader, whose “successful non-violent campaign against the British rule became a beacon for different roofless, marginalised groups”.

Obama has aforesaid this in his memoir — ‘A secure Land’, whose 1st volume hits the bookstores on Tues.

“Maybe it had been its (India’s) sheer size, with common fraction of the world’s population, associate calculable 2 thousand distinct ethnic teams, and quite seven hundred languages spoken,” Obama says.

Also scan | Obama in his memoir: ‘(Dr Singh) looked frail…I questioned what would happen once he left office’

In the book, which provides associate account of his journey from the 2008 election campaign to the top of his 1st term with the raid that killed terrorist organization chief Osama bin Laden in Asian nation, Obama aforesaid Asian nation has “always command a special place in my imagination”.

“Maybe it had been as a result of I’d spent a district of my childhood in country being attentive to the epic Hindu tales of the Sanskrit literature and therefore the sacred writing, or thanks to my interest in jap religions, or thanks to a bunch of Pakistani and Indian school friends who’d tutored ME to cook dahl and keema and turned ME on to Bollywood movies,” Obama writes.

On Gandhi, Obama writes that the Asian nation freedom fighter’s non-violent campaign for independence from {britain|United Kingdom|UK|Great Britain|GB|Britain|United Kingdom of Great Britain associated Northern Ireland|kingdom} hadn’t simply helped overcome an empire and liberate a lot of of the landmass, however conjointly set out an ethical charge that periodical round the globe.

“More than something, though, my fascination with Asian nation had to try to to with nationalist leader. beside (Abraham) Lincoln, (Martin Luther) King, and (Nelson) solon, Gandhi had deeply influenced my thinking,” he writes.

In his memoir, Obama conjointly mentioned that then prime minister Manmohan Singh had resisted calls to retaliate against Asian nation once the 26/11 attacks, “but his restraint had price him politically”.

“He feared that rising anti-Muslim sentiment had reinforced the influence of India’s main opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In unsure times, Mr. President,” the prime minister aforesaid, “the decision of spiritual and ethnic commonness may be intoxicating. And it’s not thus onerous for politicians to take advantage of that, in Asian nation or anyplace else,” Obama wrote regarding the speech.

Obama aforesaid he found Singh to be “wise, thoughtful, and religiously honest”. “In fact, he owed his position to Sonia Gandhi…more than one political observer believed that she’d chosen Singh exactly as a result of as associate old Sikh with no national political base, he display no threat to her forty-year-old son, Rahul, whom she was grooming to require over the Congress Party,” he writes.

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