Remember, the Prime Minister of India was going to the United States as the head of a self-assured democracy poised to emerge as an economic superpower. Unfortunately, he behaved like a sub-Saharan leader washing dirty linen in public in order to win an argument few are interested in. As a result, we gifted the General a chance to reply tit-for-tat (he asked with some asperity how we had the temerity to talk of persecution of minorities in his country when we were busy murdering Christians, Muslims and Sikhs in our own) and pose as if he was the aggrieved party.