EDITORIAL: After President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have strongly condemned the blasphemous remarks about the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) made by India’s ruling party spokesperson, Nupur Sharma, and media head of its Delhi unit, Naveen Jindal, the Indian government dismissed their concern as “unwarranted and narrow-minded”.
The gravity of the situation dawned on the ruling party when Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait as well as Iran expressed their anger over the remarks and called Indian ambassadors to register their protest. Reports also speak of growing public resentment in the Gulf countries with many calling for a boycott of Indian products. Some stores in Qatar and Kuwait have already removed Indian products from their shelves. Much more is at risk.
Hundreds of thousands of Indians are employed in the Gulf region; they send billions of dollars in remittances back home. And, as a media report points out, India’s trade with Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE stood at a whopping $ 87 billion in 2021. It has a free trade agreement with the UAE, and is looking for a wider deal with other countries of the region. And, of course, along with Iran they are a major source of its energy supplies.
That has prompted the BJP government to try and pacify their anger. Indian ambassador to Qatar, in desperate attempt to defend the indefensible told his hosts that the remarks from some “fringe elements” did not represent the view of the Indian government. The two party spokespersons surely were no fringe elements. Meanwhile, the BJP government issued a statement saying Nupur has been suspended and Jindal expelled from the party, and that “the BJP strongly denounces insult of any religious personality of any religion.” The party, went on the statement, “is also strongly against any ideology which insults or demeans any sect or religion.
The BJP does not promote such people or philosophy.” All of this is in blatant contradiction to reality. Since Narendra Modi-led BJP came to power in Delhi in 2014 there has been an exponential increase in hate speech and physical attacks against Muslims. His government has enacted discriminatory laws and promoted militant Hindu nationalism as part of a plan to make India a Hindu-first country.
At a conference of right wing Hindu nationalists last December, leader of a right wing extremist group, Pooja Shakun Panday, went so far as to call for Muslim genocide. “We are ready to kill them” she thundered, “if 100 of us are ready to kill two million of them, then we will win and make India a Hindu nation.” The government’s response to her and similar incendiary speeches by other participants of the conferences was silence rather than serious legal consequence.
Without a doubt, the inflammatory comments made by the two BJP government representatives are an outcome of the BJP’s undisguised agenda to push the country’s Muslim population to the wall. Moreover, a network of right-wing artists has been composing songs that are played during hate campaigns against Muslims.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has also denounced provocative remarks of BJP government representatives. Important as they are, denunciatory statements though are not enough. There is need to pay attention to the root cause of the issue: the ruling BJP-RSS combine’s anti-Muslim agenda. In that the Gulf states can play a more effective role. They must use their clout to stop Modi government’s rampant hate campaign against his country’s Muslim community.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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