Barack Obama praises Manmohan Singh in his book, unleashes Western stereotype of violence, caste in India

The former United States President Barack Obama in his new book "A Promised Land", has praised former Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. The former US President also unleashed the west's stereotypical perspective about violence, caste, and religion in India.

“A gentle, soft-spoken economist in his seventies, with a white beard and a turban that were the marks of his Sikh faith but to the Western eye lent him the air of a holy man, he had been India’s finance minister in the 1990s, managing to lift millions of people from poverty. For the duration of his tenure as Prime Minister, I would find Singh to be wise, thoughtful, and scrupulously honest,” writes Obama praising the former Indian PM.

Talking about economic disparity in India, Obama wrote: "Across the country, millions continued to live in squalor, trapped in sunbaked villages or labyrinthine slums, even as the titans of Indian industry enjoyed lifestyles that the rajas and moguls of old would have envied."

"Violence, both public and private, remained an all-too-pervasive part of Indian life," he added.

Interestingly, Barack Obama has described former Congress President Rahul Gandhi as “Nervous, uninformed quality” in his book. Referring to his intercation with Rahul Gandhi during his 2010 visit to India, Obama described the Congress leader as "smart and earnest, his good looks resembling his mother's".

However, Obama recalls how Rahul Gandhi probed him on the details of his 2008 presidential campaign during the dinner hosted by Sonia Gandhi and comes to the conclusion that the Congress leader lacked the aptitude and the passion to master a subject.

"But there was a nervous, unformed quality about him as if he were a student who'd done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject," Obama wrote. 

The Congress leaders have reacted sherply to Obama's comments on Rahul. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha, termed Obama's remarks as "churlish" and asked the former US President to shed off the 'frog in the well' mentality. 

"Think twice before evaluating our leader otherwise you would have been landed up in the universe of ignorance, do not get confused by the artificial dazzling light and shed off the 'frog in the well' mentality," Chowdhury tweeted.

“A Promised Land” is an upcoming memoir of Barack Obama that is going to be published on November 17, 2020. The memoir ends in 2011 so, there is no mention of PM Narendra Modi’s name.