In the last week of May, then-Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson Nupur Sharma insulted the prophet Muhammad on Times Now, one of India’s most popular television channels. Sharma was permitted to attack the prophet and his marriage by the station and its anchors, both renowned for their pro-government views. Naveen Kumar Jindal, the party’s Delhi media chief, tweeted a second disrespectful remark against Muhammad, the Muslim faith’s most venerated figure.
A few hours later, Muslims and friends throughout India were outraged by the comments and demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP take disciplinary action.
Indian Muslims were not the only ones to speak out this time. There have been harsh condemnation remarks released by the governments of the Gulf states of Qatar, Kuwait and Oman; Iran; Saudi Arabia; Jordan; Libya; Turkey; Maldives; Iraq; the United Arab Emirates; Bahrain; Pakistan; and Malaysia. The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Gulf Cooperation Council issued similar declarations. The world is finally reacting to India’s rise in intolerance and communalism.
M. Venkaiah Naidu, the Indian vice president, was in Qatar for three days when the reaction began. Qatar summoned India’s ambassador only hours after Naidu met with the country’s prime minister, citing Naidu’s heated remarks. An official statement from Qatar’s foreign minister warned that “insulting statements may lead to the promotion of religious hate and upset more than 2 billion Muslims throughout the globe.” Even in Qatar, a “Boycott India” movement became a social media trending topic.
Several Muslim regimes quickly followed suit. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will shortly make his first formal visit to Delhi to discuss geopolitical concerns with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj, Iran’s ambassador to Tehran. In response to the remarks, Kuwait and Qatar sought a public apology.
The BJP suspended Sharma and expelled Jindal after Sharma said on Twitter that she was retracting her remarks. They sought to soothe the Middle East by labelling those who made these statements “fringe” and claiming that the criticism was motivated by “vested” interests seeking to disrupt India’s ties with Qatar. However, both Sharma and Jindal have been elevated to a public platform by the BJP due to their importance to the party’s success.
Blinken’s announcement of India’s inclusion in the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report prompted the censure from at least 15 majority-Muslim nations, many of whom had been longtime partners or supporters of India. For example, assaults against individuals and places of religion have risen in India, the world’s biggest democracy and home to a wide variety of faiths.
Certain Indian authorities are “ignoring or even condoning assaults on persons or houses of worship,” said Rashad Hussain, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for worldwide religious freedom.
When India’s democracy plunged into hatred and was humiliated by worldwide outrage, the social media savvy Modi, known to preach virtues of pluralism abroad, kept mute during all this.
When it comes to labelling the “fringe” ideas, BJP likes to label them as “out there,” they are commonplace among the country’s top news networks. Outrageously insulting Muhammad was crossed by members of the prime minister’s party. On top of this, the BJP’s response came only days after the two officials were publicly rebuked by countries crucial to India’s strategic and economic well-being.
For a long time, the world has looked to India as a melting pot of cultures, faiths, and traditions, as well as a leader in the struggle against oppression and tyranny and in promoting pluralistic and secular ideals. Modi’s India, on the other hand, is coming perceived as an uncaring and vengeful country that takes joy in humiliating those who are oppressed or less fortunate than itself.
One of the world’s most illustrious countries is being degraded to a hate-filled caricature.
