WASHINGTON DC (TIP):  The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA) thanks Vice President Harris for telling Prime Minister Modi, “I know from personal experience and from my family, of the commitment of the Indian people to democracy and to freedom, and to the work that may be done and can be done, to imagine and then actually achieve our vision for democratic principles and institutions”.

While we greatly applaud the Vice President’s powerful testimony and her heartfelt remarks, we also feel that Mr. Modi may not have understood the gravity of what she was trying to convey to him.

It is not the first time that Mr. Modi and his team have completely missed the point of suggestions coming from American leaders, including the then Vice-President Biden and President Obama on past occasions.

Hence, we ask that President Biden and Vice President Harris be more direct and explicit in expressing that India should not and could not afford to go down the path of religious nationalism at the expense of pluralist democratic principles that  valuesChristian and other religious segments of the population.

Should Modi and his party choose to continue down this path of religious nationalism despite warnings from leaders of the free world, there is no reason to assume that India would end up any better than Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Myanmar in that region, thus jeopardizing the stability and commerce in the Indo-Pacific region.