The self-goal could have been avoided, but the ruling party saw the emerging warning signals with eyes wide shut. Some party sections clearly felt they were clever enough to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, and that religious polarisation in domestic politics could work to electoral advantage even as the PM and his diplomats wooed the Muslim nations of the Gulf. Perhaps, they don’t recognise that we live in an interconnected world, where words and videos travel across borders.
There is little doubt that the odious comments of the now-suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma and now-sacked Delhi BJP media cell head Naveen Kumar Jindal about Prophet Mohammed represent a serious setback to the effort that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have so assiduously invested in advancing India’s ties with the Gulf countries. I witnessed the transformation first hand during my own stint as India’s ambassador to the UAE from 2016-19 and it pains to see it go this way.
In the space of barely 24 hours, the Indian ambassadors to Qatar, Kuwait and Iran were summoned to the foreign office and handed strong protest notes on June 5 that go beyond a routine condemnation of the offensive statements. Both Qatar and Kuwait sought a public apology from the culprits and added that “allowing such Islamophobic remarks to continue without punishment constitutes a grave danger to the protection of human rights” and might lead to further prejudice.
Even Saudi Arabia, which has stood by India in recent years and resisted Pakistan’s efforts to mobilise support following the abrogation of Article 370, felt constrained to issue a statement. The Pakistanis and the OIC also spoke, but that’s par for the course and need not be given too much credence.
Both Qatar and Kuwait sought a public apology from the culprits and added that “allowing such Islamophobic remarks to continue without punishment constitutes a grave danger to the protection of human rights” and might lead to further prejudice.
But take the case of Oman, a country with which India signed an agreement during the PM’s visit in 2018 to secure facilities for the Indian Navy in the Duqm port and where the PM visited the old Shiv Mandir. The Grand Mufti of Oman was among the first to issue a statement to his 350,000 followers on Twitter on June 4, calling Sharma’s comments “a war on all Muslims”. #boycottIndianproducts soon became a top trending topic on Twitter in the Arab world. Some reports indicate that a few superstores in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain may have acted on this, while others spoke of the PM’s photos being defaced and posted on garbage bins.
In an effort to preserve the bilateral relationship, the foreign office reactions from Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia did take note of the steps taken by the BJP to address the issue and acknowledged the statement issued by the party reiterating that “India’s Constitution gives the right to every citizen to practise any religion of his or her choice and to honour and respect every religion.” Our diplomats in the region now have the unenviable task of explaining that the offensive comments came from ‘fringe’ elements, even as they try to highlight our civilisational heritage.
Since the storm had brewed on social media before making its way to the foreign ministries, it is worth taking a quick look at some reactions:
i) The Arabic language tweets issued by the Kuwait and Qatar foreign offices putting out their statements drew widespread support from their citizens. Quite a few of the responses in Arabic also reflected an implicit or explicit denunciation of India;
ii) A number of Indian expatriates in these countries welcomed the stance of the host governments, either out of deference to the hosts or because they worry about the impact of such developments on their own well-being;
iii) Right-wing trolls from India were out in strength, attacking the Gulf nations for their own lack of democracy, dependence on oil and a lot more. The Twitter timeline of Lolwah Al Khater, Qatar’s Assistant Foreign Minister, also became a target once she retweeted her government’s statement. The repeated references to Qatar giving citizenship to artist MF Husain in 2010 after his forced exile from India seemed part of a coordinated campaign.
iv) The BJP itself faced a backlash from its ‘fringe’, with many leading voices accusing the government of showing weakness and for ‘surrendering to Islamists’.
Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya’s deplorable utterances on the sexuality of Muslim women in 2015 and his more recent Islamophobic comments during an exchange visit to Australia are a case in point, and just one of the several appalling examples.
The scale of the diplomatic fiasco should not be underestimated. It happened while Vice-President Naidu was in Qatar on an official visit and it comes a few days before the first visit of the Iran foreign minister. It comes at a time when India’s quest for energy security is sharper than ever, when we are trying to attract billions into our infrastructure sector from the sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf, when eight million Indians depend on the Gulf countries for their livelihoods, when we are negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The self-goal could have been avoided, but the ruling party saw the emerging warning signals with eyes wide shut. Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya’s deplorable utterances on the sexuality of Muslim women in 2015 and his more recent Islamophobic comments during an exchange visit to Australia are a case in point, and just one of the several appalling examples.
But some sections of the party clearly felt that they were clever enough to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds at the same time, and that religious polarisation in domestic politics could work to electoral advantage even as the Prime Minister and his diplomats wooed the Muslim nations of the Gulf.
Perhaps, they don’t recognise that we live in an interconnected world, where words and videos travel across borders, where the ISI and others will make sure that each revolting statement by a Yati or Tejasvi or Nupur will be fully amplified. Nor do our bellowing, chest-thumping television warriors see the way they undermine the national interest and give fodder to our adversaries.
The BJP leadership has done well to act quickly and firmly in this particular incident, but I suspect that might be a case of too little too late. If it took a decade in the US for the Tea Party fringe to morph into Trump’s base, our own ‘fringe’ isn’t far behind. Maybe, it can still be checked if the party finally sees the events of the last few days as a wake-up call. Maybe, it should pay as much heed to the saner voices within the country as it has done to our Arab friends. Maybe, the head of the party’s IT cell can still try to reign in his troops. Or, maybe, that horse has also bolted and we are now destined to reap the whirlwind.
This commentary originally appeared in The Tribune.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
PREV
