Govt goes into pantomime mode to assuage foreign critics

Political observers will do their own math to explain what might have led to such an unusual alignment of political correctness

From Washington DC and Cairo to Paris and Abu Dhabi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the season's flavour. However, the recurrent charge that his government is antithetical to India's religious minorities hobbles his stride across the world stage.

On the day he was guest of honour at France's Bastille Day Parade, its premier newspaper, Le Monde, ran an article headlined "Narendra Modi has fostered state-sponsored violence for decades". Describing his career as "punctuated by violent nationalist upsurges, purges and abuses", the article says that Indian Muslims were "under relentless attack from Hindu nationalists with the support of the