End of honeymoon?
It seems the ‘honeymoon’ that was in evidence between the Gulf states and India in recent years may have run its course. There is a marked change of mood and tone in the UAE and Saudi Arabia towards India on account of anti-Muslim sentiment and worse that has accompanied the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) stint in power. The bonhomie that may well be a thing of the past was premised on the promised bonanza of opportunities that the huge Indian economy and market represented. Anti-Muslim vigilante violence in India and the (pre-coronavirus) months-long lockdown in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) had been a major cause of concern in Pakistan for some time. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic gripping the world, its fallout in India against its Muslim population has brought out the worst aspects of communal-religious profiling and hatred. Comments by expatriate Indians in the Gulf and elsewhere and in India itself have irritated both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, although the displeasure has not yet found official expression but been left to prominent figures in the ruling families and officials to voice. In March 2020, right-wing Hindu nationalists, including some ruling party politicians, blamed the Tableeghi Jamaat for spreading the coronavirus pandemic because of their congregations. Reports speak of Muslim patients of the coronavirus being segregated from Hindus and in some cases denied treatment in hospitals, leading to some deaths. Growing incidents of violence against Muslims accused of being the source of COVID-19 have added to the tally of attacks against Muslims on the spurious counts of cow slaughter, supporting the opposition parties (e.g. the Aam Aadmi Party’s election win in Delhi not long ago), opposing the Modi government’s Citizens Registration Act, etc. All this was added all over India to the continuing repression and lockdown imposed on IHK last year.
Not only prominent figures in Saudi Arabia and the UAE have condemned the anti-Muslim ‘othering’ and violence against innocent Muslims, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) too has adopted a condemnatory resolution, something unthinkable without Saudi prompting and support, given Riyadh’s dominant influence in the OIC. Pakistan has been attempting quietly to convey its concerns over the lockdown in Kashmir and the violence against and repression of Muslims in India for some time. In August 2019, Pakistan discreetly protested to the UAE the conferring of that country’s highest civil award to Modi, but the UAE chose to completely ignore the message. Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman visited India after Pakistan and called Modi his elder brother, but it is not known if Islamabad cautioned Riyadh against flirting with a hardline leader and proponent of Hindutva who happens to be in power in New Delhi. Nevertheless, a reading of the tea leaves suggests the Gulf states may well be leaving their ‘love fest’ with India behind in the light of the anti-Muslim trends on view in that country. Pakistan needs the goodwill and material support of the Gulf states and has a huge stake in the Pakistani labour employed there. It must therefore play its cards deftly but discreetly without publicly embarrassing our Gulf allies by showing them their embarrassed and sheepish faces in the mirror for their past laudatory praise of Modi and his extremist saffron brigade government. Inside India, the best and most principled voices are being raised against the damage being inflicted on the body and image of an India hitherto widely admired for its secular and democratic system. The founding fathers of a modern, independent India may well be turning in their graves at what is being wrought even while fresh graves await the Muslims of India for no other crime than their faith.
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