08:18
Tieng Anh Vui
IT WAS almost a Valentine’s day date. On February 13th America’s ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, visited Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, at his home in Gandhinagar. He gave her roses. It got political classes gossiping. No more will diplomats isolate the divisive leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). America had been most outspoken in pinning on Mr Modi responsibility for sectarian riots in 2002 that killed over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. In 2005 it rescinded his visa to travel to the United States. Western ambassadors long cold-shouldered the Hindu nationalist.
Officially, what has changed is that a court in December cleared Mr Modi of possibly the last legal challenge over the riots. America is now ready to engage him with talks on doing business in Gujarat. But what matters is national politics. The ruling Congress is a busted flush. A general election is due in May, and everything points to the BJP doing best. It makes sense to adjust to Mr Modi now, as the BJP's candidate to be prime minister. Envoys from Britain and the rest of Europe ended their unofficial boycott of him over a year ago.
Other long-term critics of Mr Modi have also been making accommodations. In the past few months a few prominent critics, such as the former editor of the Hindu newspaper and a columnist with a news magazine, were eased from their jobs. Journalists in some television newsrooms say that the wider corporate interests of their owners preclude strong attacks on the man who may soon be prime minister.
It is not clear whether similar logic explains why Penguin India, after four years of defending itself in civil and criminal cases, this week reportedly decided to pulp all copies of a controversial book about Hindu culture. “The Hindus”, by Wendy Doniger, an academic at Chicago University, had provoked Hindu nationalists in India and an increasingly angry and outspoken diaspora in America. They claimed her psychoanalytical approach was flawed and voyeuristic, and had somehow hurt the feelings of hundreds of millions.
Yet the book had earned decent reviews. The author herself blames Indian law for making religious offence a criminal rather than a civil matter. She also warns that the incident bodes ill for free speech in a “worsening” political climate. Too few politicians defend liberal values consistently, preferring to court the votes of supposedly offended members of a particular caste or religious or regional group. Those who campaigned against “The Hindus” now say they want other books by Ms Doniger withdrawn, and school textbooks rethought.
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