Opinion | Hindu Nationalism Threatens India’s Rise as a Nation

The controversy started in a tv debate late final month, when

Nupur Sharma,

a BJP spokeswoman, castigated the prophet Muhammad for marrying his spouse Ayesha when she was nonetheless a toddler. On

Twitter,

one other BJP official,

Naveen Kumar Jindal,

then prompt that the wedding made Muhammad responsible of rape. The feedback rapidly introduced protesting Indian Muslims to the streets. Within the northern metropolis of Kanpur, Hindus and Muslims hurled stones and crude bombs at one another after Muslims tried to shutter a market in protest. The police have detained greater than 50 individuals.

The problem took on a world dimension. On Sunday the governments of Qatar, Kuwait and Iran summoned the Indian ambassadors for an evidence. The hashtags #BoycottIndiaProducts and #StopInsulting_ProphetMuhammad began trending on Twitter in Gulf international locations. Supermarkets in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia started to take away Indian merchandise from their cabinets. The grand mufti of Oman declared that “the insolent and obscene rudeness” of the BJP officers amounted to “a warfare in opposition to each Muslim within the east and west of the Earth.”

The BJP has suspended Ms. Sharma from the social gathering and expelled Mr. Jindal, however this hasn’t quelled the Muslim world’s anger towards India. A minimum of 15 Muslim-majority nations have condemned the BJP leaders’ remarks. Ms. Sharma has apologized. She and Mr. Jindal have each been booked beneath the Indian Penal Code for his or her remarks and will face jail time.

As India’s ruling social gathering faces criticism overseas, it’s been lambasted by supporters at dwelling for chopping Ms. Sharma and Mr. Jindal free. Critics level out that Ms. Sharma’s taunts concerning the prophet’s marriage to Ayesha had been factual, backed by authoritative Islamic scripture. Furthermore, such international locations as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are in no place to lecture India on respecting all faiths. And their outrage has been joined by violent Islamists. In an announcement, al Qaeda within the Indian Subcontinent warned of suicide bombings in opposition to “those that dare to dishonour our Prophet.” Caving in amid dying threats permits Islamists to set the boundaries for speech in India.

However none of that makes BJP representatives publicly ridiculing Islam an clever geopolitical technique.

For starters, Ms. Sharma and Mr. Jindal are hardly champions of Enlightenment values. BJP state governments routinely arrest individuals for insulting Hindu sentiments, and lots of social gathering supporters cheer these arrests. Final week, whereas releasing a report on worldwide spiritual freedom, Secretary of State

Antony Blinken

known as out India for “rising assaults on individuals and locations of worship.”

However even when the BJP had been steward of free speech—relatively than selectively illiberal—India would nonetheless face the stark actuality that it will probably’t afford to antagonize the Muslim world. For starters, about two-thirds of Indian residents overseas—8.9 million of 13.6 million individuals—stay within the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. In accordance with the Migration Coverage Institute, a Washington suppose tank, in recent times GCC international locations have accounted for greater than half of India’s roughly $87 billion in remittances.

The Gulf can also be amongst India’s largest buying and selling companions. Final 12 months, two-way commerce with the six GCC international locations was $87.4 billion, which is greater than India’s bilateral commerce with the European Union or Southeast Asian international locations. The Center East provides greater than half of India’s oil and gasoline imports.

New Delhi additionally has shut strategic relationships with a few of these international locations. As India has grown nearer to the U.S. in recent times, it has additionally stepped up cooperation with such American allies as Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. The Saudi authorities has extradited terrorism suspects to India. In 2019 the U.A.E. bestowed its highest civilian award on Prime Minister

Narendra Modi.

4 years in the past, Oman, with which India has shut strategic ties courting again to British rule, granted the Indian navy entry to certainly one of its ports. This offers India a foothold in a area the place China has made inroads with its Belt and Highway Initiative.

All because of this even when it weren’t hypocritical for BJP supporters to lambast penalizing Ms. Sharma and Mr. Jindal, it might be silly for ruling social gathering officers to insult revered Islamic spiritual figures. Arduous-line Hindu nationalists could hate the thought of India’s kowtowing to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, however Mr. Modi is aware of higher than to select a combat that he can’t win.