Clinton urges Indian techies to aid communal harmony

Wednesday, 17 September 2003, 19:30 IST
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WASHINGTON: "India's future is threatened mostly by the continuing problem of Kashmir and its problems with Pakistan and now the growth of internal religious violence," he said. "One of the things that we know is that people have less cause to fight -- whether there are religious or other differences -- when they have practical things they do together, when they live in an interdependent environment." Clinton was speaking at a fundraiser for the San Francisco-based American India Foundation. India is all set to play an important role in the future of the world, Clinton said, adding that the Silicon Valley's influential Indian American community should spur a new era of philanthropy in their homeland. Clinton, who was the first U.S. president to visit India in 20 years, said India's rapid advancement in the technological world had outpaced social development in much of the country. He urged the private gathering to leverage their philanthropy toward India through groups such as the American India Foundation. His talk was billed as a speech about preserving the secular fabric of India through the hand-in-hand processes of social development and communal harmony, according to a report in Mercury News. Of late violence has been on the rise in India, culminating in rioting and terrorist attacks, in which both Islamist and Hindu hardliners have been implicated, the paper said. The tensions have triggered a debate in Silicon Valley, where Indian Americans have the clout to help. Clinton's talk represents something of a political turning point for the American India Foundation, which since its inception over two years ago has largely stayed out of the contentious discussion. The organisation had asked Clinton to address the violence in India in his speech at the fundraiser. The foundation also clarified its mission in the hope of sending a stronger message of inclusiveness. "In the past year's worth of communal strife around the world, and particularly in India, we needed to make a statement about communal harmony," said foundation president Lata Krishnan, a former high-tech executive. "In all of our projects, we make sure that all communities are equally empowered." The foundation still sees its mission as apolitical and of benefit to people of all faiths -- a natural evolution of its goals: funding programmes for childhood education, for example, and raising the economic status of women through micro-lending.
Source: IANS
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