India’s carefully cultivated Gulf policy has been at risk of unraveling over the past fortnight, with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Kuwaiti government, a UAE royal princess, and the Arab intelligentsia decrying hate speeches by Indian nationals accusing the Tablighi Jamaat of deliberately exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic as well as a crude tweet by a BJP MP on the sexual impulses of Arab women.
Sharjah royal and businesswoman Sheikha Hend Faisal Al Qassimi, who first called out Saurabh Upadhyay, an Indian national working in the UAE, for his disconcertingly racist remarks against Muslims, followed up her several assertive tweets with a front-page opinion piece in the Dubai newspaper Gulf News Sunday, titled: “I pray for an India without Islamophobia.”
The highly unusual front page article drew attention when it was tweeted by the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Abdul Hamid Ahmad. Although the Gulf News is privately owned – and over the decades has employed several Indians, including in senior editorial positions — there is no question that it, like other media organisations in the Gulf, broadly reflects the sensibilities of the region’s all-powerful royal families on sensitive matters like religion.
Also read: MP Tejasvi Surya’s ‘disrespectful’ 2015 tweet on Arab women kicks up new row, deletes post
String of backlash
Saurabh Upadhyay, who described the Tablighi Jamaat members as “radical Islamic terrorists” and asked all Muslims to accept they are the source of the Covid-19 pandemic, has since deleted his tweet. But the reactions from Hend Al Qassimi and others have certainly made Delhi sit up and take note.
“I knew India, the country of Gandhi…but the hate should stop,” the Sheikha said. While Kuwaiti lawyer Khalid Al Suwaifan described violence in India as a “crime against humanity”, Saudi scholar Abidi Zahrani suggested listing all militant Hindus working in the Gulf and “spreading hate against Islam and Muslims or our beloved Prophet”.
We call on international organizations, especially the United Nations, the Security Council, the Organization of islamic cooperation and all human rights organizations, to intervene immediately to stop the violations committed against our Muslim brothers in India #India
— خالد السويفان (@alsuwaifan) April 20, 2020
Then there was the Omani princess, Mona bint Fahd, who also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi in her diatribe. But she turned out to be fake when the real Princess Mona Fahad called her out and a relieved ambassador to Oman Munu Mahawar publicly expressed his gratitude:
“I thank HH @MonaFahd13 for clarification on fake social media posts attributed to her,” he said.
Also read: New wave of anger against Muslims threatens to hurt India’s virus fight
India-UAE ties, and an active EAM
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar was going to leave nothing to chance, and so on Friday he decided to work the phones. There were “few better examples” than India’s relationship with the UAE, Jaishankar said, and thanked the Qatari deputy prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani for “taking care of the Indian community.”
Only eight months ago, Modi was conferred UAE’s highest civilian honour, the Order of Zayed, “presented to kings, presidents and leaders.” It was supposed to be the high point of an incredible, symbiotic relationship between India and the UAE that has stood the test of time. India’s blue-collar workers as well as its middle class have helped build several cities in the region into the powerhouses they are today and been rewarded manifold with both affection and wealth by their employers.
After Sheikha Hend pointed to the UAE’s non-discriminatory laws and India’s ambassador to the UAE Pavan Kapoor sternly warned that “discrimination was against India’s moral fabric” — former ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Suri tweeted last week that the UAE is a strategic partner of India, its third largest trading partner, source of FDI, partner in energy security, and home to 3.4 million Indians who send back $17 billion annually as remittances.
Also read: When Modi has to step in for damage control as our stupidities anger friends in Muslim world
Arab world is now watching
As the Gulf News article by Sheikha Hend shows, the tension remains. Over the weekend, Kuwait’s ambassador to India issued an anodyne statement on ties between the two countries. The statement referred to a Kuwaiti cabinet note issued on 3 March asking the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to put pressure on India to stop the “Islamophobia” against its minorities. And the OIC duly acted upon it.
Interestingly, the most powerful figures in Delhi may be taking note of the consternation in the Arab world. PM Modi followed up his Ramzan greetings with comments on his Mann Ki Baat radio address, exhorting people to “pray more this Ramzan” to get rid of the coronavirus, while RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat came out in indirect condemnation of Islamophobic comments.
As he becomes the most followed leader on Facebook, overtaking US President Donald Trump, Modi knows his reputation as a global leader is at stake. Bill Gates has sent him his compliments on ably dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
So far, anti-Muslim hate speech has been restricted within the borders of India. But as it spills over, Modi knows the world is watching. And that he won’t be able to ignore it the way he has been able to so far at home.
Views are personal.
Beacuse muslim are ISIS
It is not India as a whole. It is some section of saffron brigade who rake up islamophobia. But it is a pity that some of the leaders who rake up this evil venom are in the govt , in positions like legislators, MPs and even ministers. They should be tackled by the Prime Minister before it is too lated.
The Arab states have no idea about the suffering of the Muslims in India. You only need to see the filth and hatred against Muslims not only in social media but in everyday life. Worst of all is the state patronage given to not only the killing of Muslims but active participation of state forces in the act. Even cabinet ministers are openly exhorting their bloody followers to lynch Muslims every day. But you know what’s the worst thing than all this? It’s countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia bestowing their highest civilian honour upon Narendra Modi. Can there ever be a bigger slap on the faces of Indian Muslims than this? Shame on you, Gulf countries! Truly ashamed of you.
@Khan: So WHY aren’t the “dara hua Musalmaan” not moving as refugees to Pakistan, they so lovingly wanted, voted & created??!! WHY does India have Hindus & Christian refugees from the EVIL Islamic shit holes of Pakistan Bangladesh??!!
You are hypocrites!! See within your desert cult which only knows & creates HATE!!
Why we go to Pakistan and Bangladesh from India.
Jitna tmhra hai utna hi hamara hai INDIA.
INDIA kisi k baap ka nahi hai
As if you don’t know let me tell you one thing INDIA is a secular country.
India ko azad krne me jitna tmhra haant hai utna nahi balke usse jyada musalmaan ka haant hai.
You should learn about the about 1947 and how we became independent.
@Sajid Ali: India hamare baap ka hai!! Tumahaara baap to Saudi Arabia mein pathar ki pooja kar raha hai!! Tumhaare baap nein to Pakistan banvaya!!
Muslims VOTED for & created Pakistan!! Then the same Muslims did not go to Pakistan because of the stupidity of the then so called leaders & the Hindustani society!!
India is STUPID to be secular when the EVIL desert cults of Christianity & Islam are NOT!! If they have to be allowed in India, they must become secular first and say all gods are equal and that they are only ex Hindus!!!
If Muslims sacrificed, ONLY they were ONLY traitors who took away EPIC Hindu lands while the farzi chacha & Bapu helped!!
You should learn more about the inhuman history & HATE taught in Islam!! NO HATEFUL Ideology should be allowed in any secular nation, NOT least Islam!!
@Sajid Ali: You & your community not protesting against Islam & Muslims in Pakistan/Bangladesh for killing converting Christians, Hindus shows how your death cult really is!! You evil hypocrites protest against the CAA instead!! JAME ON YOU!! You act & think like dirty wild PIGS!! You can’t be called human beings!!
RKA: Mr Khan expresses valid concerns about the state supported persecution of Muslims in India. And his comment is entirely factual. After all, didn’t former Union Civil Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha not garland your gaurakshak friends who were out on bail following a lynching? Doesn’t the Adityanath government in UP have a particularly aggressive stance towards Muslim? Isn’t Tejaswi Surya, an up and coming BJP MP not the epitome of Islamophobia in India with his outrageous statements and tweets targeting Muslims??
And your pathetic, inhuman response is that to avoid lynching, Muslims should move to Pakistan. And if they haven’t shifted to Pakistan, then Yes, law abiding, patriotic Indian Muslims would have no place in the Republic of India. And ethnic cleansing, orchestrated by the BJP, the RSS and rest of the Sangh Parivar flora of thuggish organisations is again on the cards. Not surprising though – after all the RSS was based on the hate ideology of Germany’s Nazis and Mussolini’s fascists.
Nazism’s “Final Solution” was the industrialised mass murder of Jews and other undesirables with the concentration camp being the first step in that grusome process. Eerily similar to the detention camps being built in Assam for Muslims. And eerily similar to lists such as the NRC and legislative acts such as the CAA, again singling out Muslims.
Is that what you want in India RKA?
Very well said Mr Khan !
It is a myth that the Gulf countries and in particular Saudi Arabia are repositories of Islamic knowledge, wisdom and praxis. Indeed, Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), the putative leader of Saudi Arabia is the very man who personifies the ill-read, born-into-wealth, corrupt and ruthless Saudi prince. By no stretch of the imagination is he a defender of the rights of Muslims. Indeed, he hobnobs with Donald Trump, the man who wanted to ban Muslims from entering the USA. That ban was struck down by the Supreme Court but that is another story.
Likewise, the UAE and the wider Gulf region is a hodge-podge of illiberal dictatorships that generally depend on oil and on foreign labour to keep their filthy lifestyles going. The dictators and sheikhs who rule this region will finance and flatter anybody who can be of use to them – be it Donald Trump, Jared Kushner or Narendra Modi. To assume that Islam or any other ideology with a smidgen of morals dictates their foreign policy is wishful thinking.
In any case, the problems that the BJP creates for Muslims in India needs to be solved by Muslims and other Indians who reject this ideology of hate. The playboy sheikhs of the Middle East are far too busy to be concerned with the plight of brown-skinned Indian Muslims whom they anyway treat as slaves.
Sad, but true Mr Khan.
Truly amazing if they had knoe our problems in india they have not called modi nd apprciated nd given such honour