Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has re­spond­ed to con­cerns raised by Mus­lim groups about In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di’s vis­it to T&T, by say­ing that it is com­mit­ted to the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty and re­spect while ful­fill­ing its diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ments.

On Tues­day, the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) ex­pressed reser­va­tions, which it said are root­ed in ex­ten­sive and cred­i­ble in­ter­na­tion­al con­cerns over the Mo­di ad­min­is­tra­tion’s treat­ment of Mus­lims in In­dia.

On Wednes­day, the Is­lam­ic Da’wah Move­ment and the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild called on Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to raise the is­sue of Mus­lim dis­crim­i­na­tion in In­dia when she meets with Mo­di. Asked for a re­sponse to these con­cerns yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers said, “The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains un­wa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty, re­spect, and in­clu­sion for all in­di­vid­u­als, re­gard­less of race, eth­nic ori­gin, colour, creed, or so­cial class.”

Sobers added, “We deeply val­ue the rich di­ver­si­ty that de­fines our na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and up­hold the free­dom of every cit­i­zen to ex­press their con­cerns in our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety.”

The min­is­ter said this coun­try con­tin­ues to main­tain on­go­ing di­a­logue with all com­mu­ni­ties to en­sure their voic­es are heard and re­spect­ed.

But with re­spect to this coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy and bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ships, Sobers said, “Con­cur­rent­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to fos­ter con­struc­tive re­la­tion­ships with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing through high-lev­el vis­its. This ap­proach is fun­da­men­tal to our com­mit­ment to diplo­ma­cy, mu­tu­al re­spect, and the ad­vance­ment of shared val­ues re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked for a com­ment, how­ev­er, she did not re­spond to ques­tions sent to her mo­bile phone.

Mo­di’s crit­ics have ar­gued that the ac­tions, rhetoric and poli­cies of his Bharatiya Jana­ta Par­ty (BJP) lead to the be­lief that he holds an­ti-Mus­lim sen­ti­ments.

They of­ten point to the 2002 Gu­jarat Ri­ots dur­ing which 1,044 peo­ple were killed, in­clud­ing al­most 800 Mus­lims. Mo­di, who was the Chief Min­is­ter of Gu­jarat at the time, faced strong crit­i­cism for his ad­min­is­tra­tion, al­leged­ly fail­ing to pre­vent and con­trol the vi­o­lence.

PM Mo­di and his gov­ern­ment have con­sis­tent­ly de­nied ac­cu­sa­tions of be­ing an­ti-Mus­lim.

They al­so of­ten claim that the an­ti-Mus­lim crit­i­cisms are po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed by the op­po­si­tion par­ties.