Arab netizens fire back as Indians step up anti-Muslim rhetoric on Covid-19
- Discriminatory comments against Muslims, fuelled by the narrative that they are spreading Covid-19, have sparked anger
- Some 8.9 million Indians work in Gulf countries and even a member of the UAE royal family has warned expats to watch their words
After Dubai-based businesswoman Noora AlGhurair pointed out that Surya had been disrespectful to women and warned him against “travelling to Arab lands”, he deleted the tweet.
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This makes it all the more significant that there has been an unprecedented surge in Arabs openly criticising the growing anti-Muslim rhetoric in India. This week, several prominent journalists, lawyers and activists in the Gulf region turned to social media to highlight what they describe as “ill treatment” of Muslims, who make up 14 per cent of the South Asian country’s population.
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Modi recently tweeted that “Covid-19 does not see race or religion”, but this has done little to change the narrative. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has urged the Indian government to take steps to stop growing Islamophobia, but India’s minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Tuesday said the country was “heaven for minorities and Muslims”.
On top of this, the perception that Indians are culturally diverse moderates and liberals is changing in Gulf countries. Khaled Al Maeena, a prominent Saudi Arabia-based political analyst who calls himself a “friend of India”, said its reputation was “down the drain” in the Gulf.
He added that a civil campaign had been started to highlight the “malicious propaganda by BJP and the RSS against Muslims” and “to decrease business relations” with India. “People are really angry here,” he said.
But will this social media outrage actually affect India’s relationship with the Middle East? Some 8.9 million Indians work in Gulf Co-operation Council countries, namely the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
India, whose yearly trade relations with these countries have passed the US$100 billion mark, imports 80 per cent of its oil requirements from the region. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have bestowed their highest civilian awards on Modi for bettering ties with these countries.
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Alam from Maulana Azad National Urdu University sounded a note of caution about ties, however. “If the civil society is expressing its outrage over the othering of Muslims in India, the governments of the Gulf countries may speak up too,” he said.
A BJP parliamentarian who has been closely associated with the party’s overseas affairs said on condition of anonymity that India’s ties with the Arab countries were “very strong,” and no outrage on social media over “allegations” about atrocities against Muslims in India would “affect it”.
John Calabrese, scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said it was unlikely the Gulf leaders would “engage in a war of words or impose a tangible cost on India” because of their existing extensive economic ties.
Indians work in white- as well as blue-collar jobs in the Gulf, while the region contributes more than 50 per cent of remittances to India. “What if Indians in the Gulf lose their jobs and are sent back to India?” asked Alam from Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
Such incidents have already happened. Over the past month, at least six Indian nationals working in the UAE – where Indian expatriates make up 27 per cent of the country’s population – have been sacked by their companies or face charges for allegedly sharing Islamophobic posts on social media.
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The UAE in 2015 enacted an anti-discrimination law, punishing any form of discrimination against people and religion. Pavan Kapoor, India’s ambassador to the UAE, on Monday tweeted that any discrimination would not be tolerated and “Indian national in the UAE should always remember this”.
The hate speech issue comes at a time when Delhi is negotiating with UAE officials who have been pushing for India to repatriate thousands of stranded citizens who have lost their jobs amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom also recently said it was concerned about stigmatisation and blaming of Muslims for the spread of the disease, and cited a report that a hospital in Gujarat was segregating patients by faith in Covid-19 wards.
