By Aarti Tikoo Singh
New Delhi, Dec 21 (IANS): A US Congressman in the House of Representatives commended India for ending gender, caste and religious discrimination in Jammu and Kashmir by nullifying the special status of the state and also applauded the multiparty support that the Narendra Modi government received in Indian Parliament over Kashmir.
In his year-end speech at the House, Joe Wilson, former co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans and Republican Congressman from Sourh Carolina, said on Friday: "The Indian Parliament, with multiparty support, voided the constitutional autonomy of Kashmir, supporting the Prime Minister's efforts to boost economic development, fight corruption, and end gender, caste, and religious discrimination."
Americans, he said, are grateful, as the world's oldest democracy, to see India succeed as the world's largest democracy.
The Independence Day address by Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi, Wilson said, was inspiring and it was "extraordinary" to attend the 'Howdy Modi' event in Houston where he was welcomed by President Donald Trump.
"With 52,000 persons attending, it was the largest welcome event in American history for a head of state," he said.
Recalling his family's 75-year-long association with India, Wilson told the House that he visited Mumbai this August to pay homage to all the people who lost their lives in "the Islamic extremist attacks of November 26, 2018, the Indian equivalent of the 9/11 mass murder".
Praising American troops, he said: "We will never forget September the 11 in the global war on terrorism with the leadership of President Donald Trump."