US President Obama returning to the theme of religious intolerance in India — the second time in just about 10 days — at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Friday, and the laboured defence of the Indian side by finance minister Arun Jaitley is a concern to us all.
Mr Obama has picked up a point that has been discussed in this country not only since the Modi government took charge, but during the months-long Lok Sabha election campaign when prominent BJP leaders made observations that were highly derogatory to the religious minorities in India. India, like America, is a leading soft power.
What gives the land of Gandhi immense traction is the marked characteristic of its very diverse people — in terms of religion, language, and race — who live in harmony and maintain a democratic political order. If this feature of India has always been favourably commented upon, why should it cause surprise if the world also takes note when things look to be going bad on account of the social fabric coming under strain, thanks to the unrelenting push of extremists of the majority community?
It is hardly a democratic virtue to suggest that foreigners do not have a right to make unflattering remarks about us. Mr Jaitley has said anything but that. However, that’s not true of the VHP, an element of the RSS-spawned Hindutva group along with the BJP, which has lashed out at President Obama for his views concerning intolerance in India.
The Modi government would have had a watertight case if its most prominent leaders, especially Prime Minister Modi, had spoken out against the communal trouble-makers. But the PM has sealed lips in the face of the gravest provocations. This has hardly gone unnoticed internationally. A recent New York Times editorial said, “Mr Modi’s silence before such troubling intolerance increasingly gives the impression that he either cannot or does not wish to control the Hindu nationalist right.”
Since many prominent members of the BJP, including national and state legislators and a Modi government minister, have indulged in minorities-bashing, it is legitimate to wonder who exactly the fringe are in BJP. In his Friday remarks, Mr Obama did refer to the divisive race issue in his own country. To this he might have added the Christian Right-wing. Indeed, we can if he didn’t. But this doesn’t change our own discourse. In taking issue with the Americans, Mr Jaitley said on Friday that “aberrations” don’t alter “India’s history of tolerance”. The trouble, however, is not with India’s history, but the efforts by many in his party to change it.
