Minister feting lynch mob? India recoils in disgust

Light of Truth

Jayant Sinha is a Celtics fan. He graduated from Harvard. He worked for McKinsey. Born and raised in India but minted in the United States, he found wealth and success in the Boston area. His American friends say his politics were moderate, maybe even progressive.

Then he returned to India.

He ditched the suits he had worn as a partner at McKinsey & Company, an elite management consulting firm, in favour of traditional Indian kurtas. He joined the governing Hindu right political party and became a member of Parliament and then a minister, leading Hindu parades and showering worshipers with flower petals from a helicopter.

This month, he also feted and garlanded eight murderers who were part of a Hindu lynch mob that the authorities said beat an unarmed and terrified Muslim man to death. His embrace of the convicted killers has become the political stunt that Indians can’t stop talking about.

Across the country, the images of Mr. Sinha draping wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks have started a conversation about whether the state of Indian politics has become so poisoned by sectarian hatred and extremism that even an ostensibly worldly and successful politician can’t resist its pull.

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