‘India is not xenophobic’

INDIA is not xenophobic, the country’s foreign minister has insisted, after comments by US President Joe Biden suggesting that the South Asian nation and ally Japan were struggling economically because they rejected immigrants.

Biden, who is seeking re-election against Republican rival Donald Trump in November, made the remarks at a campaign fund-raising event in Washington this week.

Foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the media on Friday that Biden’s comments did not match India’s reality.

“Our economy is not faltering,” he said, according to a report of the discussion published by the Economic Times newspaper yesterday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindunationalist government has been accused by critics of discriminating against

Muslims, including through recently enacted reforms to India’s citizenship law.

Biden had clubbed allies India and Japan in with rivals China and Russia in remarks intended as a defence of US immigration policy.

“Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan in trouble? Why is Russia in trouble? And India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,” Biden had said at a fund-raiser.

Tokyo responded yesterday by saying that it was “unfortunate that comments not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policy were made”. |