His visit came at a time when the rumblings from the loony fringe of the saffron establishment were relentlessly in the news with the kind of talk on "ghar wapsi" and "ramzaade-haramzade" that made the urban Indian deeply uncomfortable. From economic development and cleaning India, the national discourse appeared to have been overtaken by strange men asking women to have four children, or churches being 'vandalized'.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence provided fodder to the critics who felt that "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" was a ruse which was discarded after the elections and it was going to be 'back-to-basics' now.
In the midst of this dissonance, Obama's speech resonated. "Nowhere is it going to be more necessary to uphold (religious faith) than in India. India will succeed so long as it is not splintered on religious lines."
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It was his reminder of the fundamental rights that was felt to be more damning. "Your Article 25 (of the Constitution) says that all people are 'equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion'," President Obama said, adding, "In both our countries, in all countries, upholding this fundamental freedom is the responsibility of the government, but it's also the responsibility of every person."
"Every person has the right to practise his religion and beliefs and not practise it if they choose so without any persecution.
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No society is immune from the darkest impulses of men and too often, religion has been used to tap into those instead of the light of God," Obama said. Back in Washington, Obama continued in the same vein, saying Gandhi would be "shocked" at the state of the country he had helped liberate.
Obama's criticism did put the spotlight on the utterances by Hindutva hawks which distracted attention from the Modi government's development agenda and put off an influential section of the youth and educated women who participated in Modi's thumping victory in 2014, where the dominant theme was something they signed on to - a better economy, development, and an opportunity for a better deal for themselves and their children. Having four children was not part of the plan.
So they spoke, Loudly.
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