India was one of the first countries, to its shame, to reject Edward Snowden’s request for asylum. Even as some Indians shook their heads at the irony of it all – an American trying to come to India rather than the other way around – and in part empathized with his pain of rejection, The UnReal Times cultural commentator, Bachi Kakaria, pieced together the factors that made the subcontinent a very compelling destination for the former American National Security Agency contractor: