“...IF thy speech be sooth/ I care not if thou dost for me as much./ I pull in resolution and begin/ To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend/ That lies like truth.” Macbeth’s lines when he discovers the perfidy of the witches’ prophecy may well apply to India’s minorities who were eavesdropping on the dialogue about them between President Obama and Prime Minister Modi.

Mr Obama chided Mr Modi, not frontally but diplomatically, for harassment inflicted on India’s minorities by Hindutva’s worldview. What happened in Gujarat under Modi’s watch as chief minister had not abated under his vigil as prime minister, Mr Obama seemed to tell his newfound friend of many bear hugs.

Then the people of Delhi gave Mr Modi the same message, more loudly and very undiplomatically. Soon enough, the prime minister was heading to the first opportunity he could find to send out a contrite message. The speech from a Christian platform was ambiguously aligned with his corrosive worldview though it appeared to offer secular fair play.

“Everyone has the undeniable right to retain or adopt the religion of his or her choice without coercion or undue influence,” Mr Modi told his stunned audience. “My government will not allow any religious group, belonging to the majority or minority to incite hatred against others overtly or covertly,” he added to good effect.

Communalism can be present in the training grounds of army and police personnel.

There is not a line in the statement, however, that contradicts the anti-conversion laws passed by BJP governments in various states, including Gujarat during his tenure. The Congress too followed suit in a state it ruled.

The Indian constitution in Article 25, on the other hand, specifically grants to citizens of all religious persuasions “freedom to profess, practise and propagate their faith”. The only caveat is that professing and propagating should “not disrupt public order and not affect public health and morality adversely”.

Mr Modi’s message of assurance, therefore, fell subtly short of the basic constitutional guarantee to all Indians to profess and propagate their faith, a covenant that Mr Obama pointedly referred to in Delhi. Let us accept as small mercy the prime minister’s warning to fanatics of all religious stripes in his speech. They must not stray from the path of religious harmony, he cautioned.

Communalism, of course, is not just about communities being at each other’s throats. It can be present more insidiously in the training grounds of army and police personnel. A very high incidence of fake encounter killings, an overwhelming number in Gujarat during Mr Modi’s watch, were not different in the mindset from what was witnessed during the communal killing spree in the streets, mohallas and villages of Gujarat.

Even before anyone could get down to decode the prime minister’s apparently conciliatory speech, 36 policemen accused in fake encounter murders had been freed on bail. It seemed like a trade-off. P.P. Pandey, as head of law and order, will now supervise the investigation into a fake encounter case that involves him. Abhay Chudasama, G.L. Singhal, Rajkumar Pandian, Vipul Agarwal, all senior police officers accused of handling stage-managed encounters, are now out on bail and reinstated.

Mr Pandey’s suspension was revoked last week after a CBI court granted him bail in the Ishrat Jehan fake encounter case. The cake, however, goes to top cop D.G. Vanzara. He got bail and proclaimed. “Gujarat police ke achche din aa gae hain.” (Happy days have come for Gujarat police.)

Vanzara like others was not given bail because the prosecution case was weak. In fact, the bail orders suggest that the courts have found merit in the CBI’s charges. If the CBI, Mr Modi’s investigating arm, is not interested in opposing the bail with any degree of earnestness the courts can do precious little.

In how many other ways can you reveal your narrow-mindedness while appearing to be saying sorry?

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen resigned last week as head of the internationally mandated Nalanda University. He has been a trenchant critic of Mr Modi. In his letter to the president of India, he accused the government of sitting over the decision of an internationally composed board of governors who nominated him unanimously for a second term. His criticism of Modi should not have been a factor in opposing his candidature, Sen said.

Other outrageous incidents come to mind here as prime examples of Hindutva churlishness. The tendency will not go away no matter how many secular promises Mr Modi might make.

Mistreatment of NGOs that have a view on environmental and human rights at variance with the prime minister’s seems a given. Priya Pillai of Greenpeace India would have little reason to agree with Mr Modi’s development model. She was offloaded from her plane at Delhi airport. She has been described as an anti-national who was going to poison the ears of the world against India’s development story. Or so they accused her.

In the case of Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand, the Gujarat police are bent on arresting them regardless of the couple’s massive popularity and known integrity. Police allege they embezzled money collected to construct a memorial to the victims of the Gujarat pogrom, a charge which no one except Hindutva supporters believe.

The actual reason for hounding the activist couple in this and other cases is that they more than others are a thorn in the flesh of the Gujarat killing machinery. It was their tenacious legal support that saw at least some driblets of justice coming to the victims. No one except Mr Modi and his courtiers believes the police case. So far the Supreme Court has protected the duo from a vindictive stint in a Gujarat jail.

The merit of a Shakespearean allegory is that the denouement can head off in any direction. If Birnam Wood does come to Dunsinane Hill, it is anybody’s guess who would be feeling uneasy.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2015

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