India probably does not have a problem with religion, despite what we have all been reading, hearing, or seeing over the past few years. I say this on the basis of a statement issued by the government a couple of weeks ago, in response to many countries raising serious objections about the behaviour of some Indians. They pointed out that members of a certain political party were being deliberately insulting towards people who practised another faith. The complaints were made with the backing of hard evidence, but our government’s statement proved that those facts were, in all probability, not facts after all.

Apparently, members of the political party in question had repeatedly made inflammatory and divisive statements attacking a religious minority. This wasn’t exactly news because, for millions of us familiar with the party in question, making hateful statements has always been entrenched into its very reason for being. It’s often hard to distinguish hate speeches from the party’s manifestos, but I am probably wrong, because the official press release stated that this was not the case at all.