US President Barack Obama's statements on rising intolerance in India has angered some in the United States too. Indians have already expressed their outrage at Obama's statement by terming it as an unnecessary intervention in a country's affairs. Some also termed the National Prayer Breakfast speech another potshot at the Narendra Modi-led government.

Taking to a radio programme, influential Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer lambasted Obama for dragging India into a sermon on intolerance with Syria and Iraq. He said that Obama's speech was a combination of the banal and the repulsive.

"What the hell is he doing bringing India into this? I mean, it's the first time I've heard India drawn into this discussion. Here he is essentially insulting, and it's because it's a Hindu country. It's not Muslim. I mean, he'll say in the name of Christ. He won't say in the name of Muhammad and in the name of Allah. He won't use those words. And then he goes after India, which is probably our strongest, most stable, most remarkable, democratic ally on the planet, considering all the languages and religions that it harbours. It has the second-largest Muslim population on Earth. And yet he goes after it as a way of saying hey, everybody here is at fault. They are not at fault," he told radio host Hugh Hewitt.



"This is a combination of the banal and the repulsive. The banal is the adolescent who discovers that well, man is fallen, and many religions have abused their faith and used it as a weapon. This is what you discover when you're 12, or 17, and what you discuss in the Columbia dorm room. He's now bringing it to the world as a kind of a revelation, and he does it two days after the world is still in shock by the video of the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot as a way of saying hey, what about Joan of Arc? I mean, this is so distasteful"

Krauthammer virtually hammered Obama for underplaying the barbarism that "we saw with the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, and to make everybody believe that this is really nothing out of the ordinary," he said. "The Crusades ended 800 years ago. There's not a big inquisition going on today. Joan of Arc was not yesterday. The Jordanian pilot was two days ago."