Why the Muslim World Is Turning on India – The Diplomat

Early this week, New Delhi was busy placing out severe diplomatic fires throughout the Muslim world.

Following derogatory feedback on Islam and its revered Prophet Muhammad by leaders of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) final week, Arab social media was ablaze with indignation. Then, over a dozen nations and counting — starting from Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Maldives and Indonesia — lodged unprecedented official protests with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities.

The timing of the diplomatic protests is as placing because the protests themselves. The feedback made final week by the BJP’s spokespersons have been removed from probably the most odious developments in India’s political discourse in latest occasions.

During the last couple of years, BJP leaders have participated in conferences which have publicly known as for the genocide of Muslims. In 2019, following protests in opposition to the controversial Citizenship Modification Act (CAA), Modi himself informed a political rally that the protestors could be recognized “by their garments” — ostensibly referring to the normal apparel worn by Muslims. One minister even known as for them to be shot down on the road, calling them “traitors.” He continues to serve in Modi’s cupboard.

Why did the Arab world ignore all these purple flags and immediately resolve to attract the road at blasphemous feedback on the Prophet?

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A part of the crucial is geopolitical. For a lot of the previous couple of weeks, Israeli forces have been at odds with Palestinians over a bunch of points. In April this yr, Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, disrupting prayers and injuring scores of individuals. Final month, Israeli forces killed a outstanding Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh, in an allegedly focused assault. A number of weeks previous to that, Israel’s excessive court docket dominated that about 1,000 Palestinians could be evicted from part of the West Financial institution — an unprecedented resolution that many imagine has paved the best way for extra such expulsions.

Ordinarily, such escalation in battle would have provoked a robust diplomatic response from the Arab world. But, as many nations within the Gulf adapt to troubles with Iran and financial blowback from the struggle in Ukraine, issues have been markedly totally different. Within the rapid aftermath of Abu Akleh’s killing, Bahrain refused responsible Israel whereas Saudi Arabia and the UAE kept away from issuing an announcement altogether.

Shortly thereafter, the UAE signed a historic commerce cope with Israel, protecting as a lot as 96 p.c of their bilateral commerce and constructing on the momentum of the Abraham Accords signed a few years in the past. “We now have written a brand new chapter within the historical past of the Center East,” the UAE’s commerce minister declared in its wake.

Given the long-running animosity between Israel and its Arab neighbors, this ongoing historic embrace remains to be largely unpopular among the many normal Arab public. When the Arab Barometer survey requested respondents in seven Arab nations what they considered the Abraham Accords, it discovered favorable opinions from a minimum of 10 p.c of the individuals in solely two nations: Lebanon and Iraq. Escalations in Palestine are unlikely to make the Gulf’s coverage shifts any extra palatable.

With out a lot strategic house to behave in opposition to Israel, many Arab governments may flip keener as an alternative to provide voice to rising public anger in opposition to Hindu nationalism in India, given New Delhi’s comparatively weaker footprint within the Center East.

Already, some governments are involved that Hindu nationalist sentiments may unfold to the Indian diaspora and spark discontent and dysfunction of their nations. In 2020, a handful of Indians working within the UAE and elsewhere have been sacked for sharing Islamophobic posts on social media — in separate incidents. That very same yr, a Saudi spiritual scholar tweeted that “militant Hindus” must be expelled from the Gulf, as he promoted the hashtag “ship Hindutva again dwelling.”

For India, all of those developments are indisputably disastrous. The Gulf is dwelling to the biggest chunk of India’s diaspora overseas and an important supply of remittances. The UAE alone hosts virtually 3.5 million Indians — the biggest Indian expatriate inhabitants in any nation, accounting for 20 p.c of India’s whole remittance influx. India additionally imports near 40 p.c of its gas from Iran and the Gulf. Simply as considerably, New Delhi has additionally lengthy hoped that Iran would act as a gateway into resource-rich Central Asia, bypassing the necessity to undergo Pakistan.

It doesn’t assist New Delhi’s trigger that criticism of Hindu nationalism has unfold far past simply the Muslim world. Simply final week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken drew consideration to “rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship” in India — for the second time in two months.

Because it ramps up Hindu nationalist rhetoric at dwelling, the Modi authorities will discover diplomacy progressively tough abroad.