Did you expect Dubai to become a target in the current Iran conflict? I certainly did not. And neither, I suspect, did the residents of Dubai themselves.
When I heard about the explosions in the city, my first reaction was that these were caused by the interception of missiles that were overflying Dubai on their way to US bases in the region. Never did it occur to me that Iran would send drones to attack civilian targets in Dubai, specifically selecting those with the greatest chance of hurting foreign tourists and visitors.
I still don’t know why the Iranians did it, unless their aim was to alienate other parts of the Muslim world. Perhaps, with the top leadership blown to kingdom come, the chain of command ruptured, and Iran was striking out madly in all directions. Or it was just looking for soft targets in the region so it could claim some success in airborne campaigns.
But I was less intrigued by the motives of the Iranian strategic planners than by two other factors: the response to the strikes from some Indians and the way in which the Dubai leadership handled the aftermath of the attacks.
Social media gloating
Indians—those who live in India, not the diaspora—have a stronger relationship with Dubai than any other foreign city. For a start, it’s not too far away. And flights are so frequent that many Indians use it as a hub for travel to the West. Dubai is also more welcoming than Western countries: visas are not usually a problem, and immigration officers don’t treat you like a worthless crook trying to sneak in.
It’s easy for Indians to feel at home in Dubai at all income levels. There are plenty of Indians at top hotels such as Atlantis, but there are also hundreds of more modest establishments offering comfortable accommodation at reasonable rates. There is also the familiarity factor for us subcontinentals. If you get into a taxi and speak in Hindi, you will have no difficulty communicating with the driver, who will likely be Indian, Nepali, or Pakistani. Indian food is easy to find. You don’t have to go to the spectacular Tresind Studio—the only Indian restaurant in the world to get three Michelin stars—there is brilliant Indian food at all price levels everywhere.
I call Dubai the overseas capital of Kerala because it is Malayalis who help the city function. But there is a huge difference between the Indian residents of Dubai and those of, say, New Jersey. Much of the diaspora in the US and Europe consists of Indians who have chosen to make their lives in new countries, giving up their Indian passports and trying to get citizenship in their new homes. They know that if they don’t succeed, at least their children will. As far as they are concerned, India is only the place they came from whose movies they love. It’s not home and they won’t go back.
Indians in Dubai are different. They still see themselves as Indians, keep their passports, and know that one day, they will return. They love Dubai and are grateful for the economic opportunities but they don’t dream of being Emiratis. Indians in the UK and the US, on the other hand, see themselves as Brits and Americans.
I make no value judgement about this. Much of my family lives in the US, and I don’t think more or less of them because they have American passports. (On the other hand, despite being proud Gujaratis, they don’t presume to lecture me on Indian politics or aggressively push their views about a country they have no stake in. If only more Gujaratis were like that.)
So you would think that when Dubai came under attack, there would be an empathetic concern among those of us in India. And you would largely be right.
But unfortunately, there was a small but vocal minority that disgraced us. Encouraged by false and exaggerated social media posts and sensationalistic reporting on TV channels (“Burj Al Khalifa has been destroyed” or “The Palm is in flames” were the headlines), they chose the ugliest path possible: they sneered and gloated.
I was shocked by this response. But what was even more surprising was that the gloating was not directed at the Dubai government as much as it was at Indians who lived in Dubai. Apparently, they had escaped India to avoid paying tax. They were people who thought Dubai was safer. ‘Ha! Look at them now,’ was the general tone.
What kind of shameless person responds this way? Which Indian thinks it is fine to laugh at his countrymen at a time of crisis? Who glories in the misfortune of a city that has been so good to Indians?
I have since heard explanations for this kind of behaviour. Perhaps it stemmed from envy. These were people who had been jealous of the opportunities offered to other Indians in Dubai. Many of the gloaters online went on to say that India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a much safer and greater nation, so perhaps there was a political angle. Very few posts I saw came from South Indians (let alone Malayalis), so perhaps there was an element of regional resentment too.
Honestly, I don’t know what it was. But it disgraced India. It made us seem like petty low-lives. And it became hard to explain that the nasty posts came from social media filth and did not reflect the views of the vast majority of Indians.
Also read: Empires inflicted a century of regime change on Iran. Each wanted a compliant, powerless nation
Learn from Dubai
While some Indians were spewing hatred, the government of Dubai got on with the job. Indians who travel a lot by air know that when we have mass cancellations of flights in the country, it is because the greed of an airline has misfired. And when it happens, our ministry of civil aviation pleads helplessness, and the chaos continues far longer than it should. The ministers and civil servants don’t care about stranded passengers. And the people whose greed has stranded thousands of passengers live to fly another day.
Contrast that with Dubai, where the government had to cope with what was effectively an act of war. Despite the threat to the city (the airport was attacked), the authorities acted promptly to give free hotel accommodation to anyone who could not afford it, kept passengers informed of developments, and tried to create a safe corridor through which flights could take off. To reassure residents, the UAE president and Dubai’s crown prince walked through the busy Dubai Mall, and then sat and ate at a restaurant which opened out to the public area.
If this had been India, a) nobody would have bothered to reassure the public, and b) if a VIP had come to the mall, they would have first thrown out everyone on security grounds and then blocked off the roads for two hours.
There is much to learn from Dubai. It faced a situation over which it had no control and where attacks could come at any time. But it coped magnificently because of the quality of its leadership.
Compare this with India, where a change in the duty time limits for pilots shuts down aviation. And where VIP worship during an AI Summit plays havoc with lakhs of ordinary citizens.
If anyone has reason to gloat, it is those in Dubai. And certainly not those Indians who sneered and laughed at the fate of our own people caught up in attacks that they did not expect.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)