MET ONE NATIONALIST YOU'VE MET THEM ALL:

India has been delivered a sharp, well-deserved shock, one which makes the very simple point that the nation cannot claim to be a major force in world affairs while being in thrall domestically to primitive and bigoted Hindu ideologists.

Modi himself may have seen that he cannot ride his Hindu bandwagon while at the same time being seen to be an increasingly important actor. The condemnation which greeted the anti-Muslim remarks of two leading BJP spokespersons came not just from Saudi Arabia and Gulf states known to be particularly prickly, Iran and Afghanistan, but also from Malaysia and Indonesia--the latter usually less sensitive in such matters.

That one of the persons making the offensive remarks was suspended from the BJP and another expelled while elsewhere a youth leader was arrested showed how alarmed Delhi was by the situation and the unanimity of Muslim response. The party suspended Nupur Sharma, one of its national spokespersons, for her anti-Islam remarks in a television debate end of May and expelled Naveen Kumar Jindal, who heads the party's media unit in Delhi for his inflammatory tweets about the Prophet.

In the short term, this response should calm relations but it is now clear that the Muslim neighbors have been alerted to the steady rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in India spurred by the activists of Modi's party and hitherto tolerated by the prime minister himself.

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