Long years ago, when I was studying at a reputed American university, I discovered that the  “nationalist” instinct can be an all-pervasive one. Often when even among friendly conclaves I made reference to some fault line or infirmity in the annals of American history or the American way of life, most of my American friends would tend to return the compliment by immediately underscoring some Indian embarrassment—of which of course there were plenty.  Rarely did it happen that a more universalist agreement could be found that reached across the instinct to  “nationalist” pride, indeed, unanalysed defensiveness. Always with honourable exceptions.

No surprise, therefore, that there has been  criticism within India of Obama’s  references to  religious intolerance here during the “past some years.” Even as some among the  resentful Hindutva rightwing have acceptably pointed out that his reference included other countries and religions as well, it continues to rankle that he should at all have chosen to make such a reference on Indian soil as an honoured guest, and made particular mention of Article 25 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate religion without discrimination or persecution.

In an earlier article  (Obama: He Came, He Saw, He Gave Advice, Znet, Jan, 29, 2015) this writer had noted how that Obama speech had included reference to his own experience of discrimination in America, as he had sought to suggest  that religious and racial divides weaken nation-states and retard their holistic growth.  Just when one thought things had quietened on this front, Mr.Obama has  chosen to return to the them on home soil in an address to a spiritual congregation.  Noting how “Michelle and I”  enjoyed the trip to India—a country of great diversity and beauty—“the growth of religious intolerance there would have shocked Gandhi who helped liberate that country.”  Expanding on the theme, Obama went on to underscore what devastation and brutality religious intolerance had  caused during “the Crusades and the Inquisition” when unthinkable crimes were perpetrated “in the name of Christ.”

Now, any broad-minded student of world history would agree with those observations, both where they concerned India and the world of the Christian West.  As one would with Obama’s  observations regarding the “world of Islam” (if there be such an exclusive and discrete world), wherein he is always  careful to record that not only is Islam a religion of peace  but that the violence one sees in some regions which are Muslim dominated is less religious than political,  and where,  brutalities dictated by profane sectarian interests are sought to be legitimized  in the name of religion, exactly as they were in the days of the “Crusades and the Inquisition.”  Not to forget his recent observations on the killings by state forces within some American cities of unarmed,innocent young people, chiefly because of their racial profile.

But no, even some of the more upright minds here in India and elsewhere  have thought it fit to  sidestep and underplay the humanist/universalist burden of the anxiety Obama has been expressing, and indeed, in a predictable political spin, to  say that an American President who has been responsible for thousands of deaths of innocent Muslims has no business to speak of religious intolerance.  The inference here being that the violence  inflicted by the  American militarists has not been on any political  adversaries, called “terrorists,” but  at bottom on those who are Muslims.

Let it be noted that there is no question that the intolerance of  “Liberal Democracies” like America has tended to be as fundamentalist and barbaric as that of organized religious groups, and as hypocritically selective in its choice  of targets  (note that Saudi Arabia never seems to qualify for “democratic” chastisement, and yet who would imagine a more repressive, anti-humanist  regime; and just as the Zionist state of Israel never needs to fear American  punishment  for the atrocities it routinely perpetrates on the dispossessed Palestinians). And, Obama, the intellectual, must need answer why he never makes reference to  these realities, or never expresses discomfort with having to emulate the barbarities of his  fundamentalist and intolerant opponents.

The question, nonetheless, remains whether as a student of ideas Obama is wrong to point to religious intolerance as a fact of contemporary world history, regardless of where such intolerance exists. Clearly not.

It is only an unevolved “nationalist” instinct, be the nation here a country or a culture, that prevents us from acknowledging the stark reality of such intolerance and of the ravages it is visiting upon the world.  Indeed, where most political Heads shy away from pointing a finger at religion, it is refreshing to hear one speak of the matter without being finicky or partisan, without failing to mention the “Crusades and the Inquisition,” that is.

Nor must the fact go unnoticed that those tsars of culture in India who have taken offence at Obama’s reference to intolerance here nevertheless never fail to seek even closer “strategic partnership” with the America of which Obama is President.

The  hard question that an Obama must, in turn, ponder is whether the imperialist objectives and machinations of Western Liberal Democracies may not somewhere be as deeply culpable in the emergence of political religion and consequent intolerance as sects and groups within religions who have sought to fry their fish in the resultant mayhem.  A question, one dares suggest, that the preponderant majority of secular and syncretic Hindus  here at home need to ponder as well without fearing any loss of nationalist self-esteem.