Regional/International Affairs
By N. P. Upadhyaya (Aryal)
Kathmandu: The most unfortunate tragedy for Nepal is that it borders India and its international borders are “deliberately” kept open by Nepal Delhi hawks.
India is a country born in 1947 which discriminates against its own minorities e.g. the Dalits, and the Muslims on religious lines.
India’s born Muslims and the Dalits appear that they have no place in their own country and the fanatic Hindus trained by the Hindutva gang under the control of Prime Minister Modi more often than not hint to the Muslims to either bear with the Hindu fanaticism or else make their final settlement in Pakistan, the Islamic Republic after the grand partition in 1947.
However, the genuine Indian Muslims claim that why should they take refuge in Pakistan as India is their country as much as the Indian Hindus?
Just appreciate the bold utterances being at times made by Muslim Bollywood veteran actor Nasiruddin Shah who alone in the film industry is braving the occasional stabbing and pinching onslaughts on the Islamic religion.
The three Khans notably Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan have surprisingly acquired a mode of silence and, as the rumors have it, are planning to quit India for good and settle in some nearby Arab countries.
Does this mean that these Khans have been easily gulping the hatred against their Prophet as against their commercial interests? They are better taken as “commercial Khans” in Mumbai.
Perhaps yes.
However, Nasiruddin Shah among the millions and millions of “subjugated” Muslims in India is the real Muslim of all the timid Muslims.
The story begins:
We wish to begin with the “accurate and the factual” statement made by one of India’s Harvard scholars Professor Subramanian Swamy (a devout Hindu whose daughter Suhasini Haider is married to a Muslim gentleman). Swamy sums up Modi’s stint as Prime Minister of India. (sic), “During Modi government’s eight years, Bharat Mata had to hang her head in shame because we crawled before the Chinese on Ladakh, knelt before the Russians, meowed before the American in QUAD. But we did Sastangam Dandvat (parallel to the ground submission) before tiny Qatar. That was the depravity of our foreign policy”.
Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal, the two Bharatiya Janata party officials have negatively stolen the show in India and their fresh notoriety has jolted the entire Muslims across the world more so the nearby Muslims in the Arab Countries plus OIC conglomerate.
These countries have taken Indian BJP’s hatred more so of Nupur Sharma and that of Naveen Kumar Jindal against the Muslims and their Prophet as an unpardonable affront to their Islamic religion and in a grand departure from the previous lenient posture on the Indian regime; a few Arab nations have diplomatically threatened India to boycott Indian goods.
However, such threats have no meaning for the Rhino-skinned Indian establishment.
And among the Arab countries who have taken serious note of the Modi’s disciples’ structured pouring in of venom against the Muslims and their Prophet is Qatar.
To add insult to injury, the accused Nupur Sharma says “PM Modi has said to her that he and his entire BJP government is at her back so nothing to panic”.
This does tell that whatever is happening in India against the Muslims is Modi’s creation and is being brought to this level only under his personal investment.
Qatar and the rest of the Muslim countries, who have to awaken from deep slumber perhaps shall halt to “decorate PM Modi with their country’s highest awards and civilian medals” henceforth.
Nepali observers would suggest the Muslim nations terminate the immigrant Indian nationals from their jobs which will only send “needed signals” to India or else trade and commerce shall hush-hush the entire hullaballoo.
A rough estimate claims that India drains some 87 billion dollars as remittance from across the globe and half of it comes from 5 Islamic States: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.
The Hindu right-wing in India takes away basic jobs from Muslims.
Some 8 to 10 billion $ are from Nepal as well.
Questions Ashok Swain in his June 7 Tweet: “Have they thought if Islamic countries stop taking Hindu workers?
However, the termination of jobs should apply only to the BJP–RSS disciples who follow the Hindutva ideology to malign the Muslims and their Islamic region.
Enters Qatari State:
Reports say that Qatar was the first Muslim country to have reacted to India’s misconduct and utterances made on the Prophet.
Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the State, summoned the Indian envoy and handed over the note to the Ambassador of the Republic of India.
“The State of Qatar is expecting a public apology and immediate condemnation of these remarks from the Government of India, pointing out that allowing such Islamophobic remarks to continue without punishment, constitutes a grave danger to the protection of Human Rights and may lead to further prejudice and marginalization, which will create a cycle of violence and hate”.
Taking a jibe at the now awaken Muslim countries, the Swedish Professor of Indian origin, Ashok Swain in his 7 June Tweet says, “why did it take a full 8 years for Islamic countries to wake up? Does only the Prophet matter to them, not the Muslims? Muslims were lynched, and Muslims were losing citizenship. Mosques were demolished, and Muslim houses were bulldozed, but Islamic countries’ rulers massaged Modi’s ego”.
Yes. The professor is right. Commercial interests prevailed over religious- interests.
Muslim countries surely are a divided lot and what is also for certain is that if these countries, the 57 countries block the OIC, perhaps the Muslim countries can certainly make a difference to the global order even provided they unite.
India was insulted obliquely by the tiny Qatari State when it summoned the Indian Ambassador while the Indian Vice President was on a trip to Qatar.
What was more than insulting and humiliating for the South Asian hegemon India was that when its Vice President was on a short trip to Qatar, the host country abruptly cancelled a “dinner” that was to be hosted for the visiting Indian dignitary. Elephantine India got unnerved by the tiny ant-Qatar. This has meaning, as we understand. Let’s call it “the art of Qatari diplomacy”.
Qatar killed two birds with a single stone. The regional elephant is a coward lot as it can’t annoy the Muslim countries simply because Indian nationals working in these Gulf/Arab countries are draining the Oli-rich nations annually.
German dignitary in Pakistan:
India’s bête noir and rival nation, Pakistan, got an excellent political opportunity around the time when two notorious Indian nationals close to PM Modi derided the Prophet most bizarrely some two weeks ago.
The visiting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to a query in Islamabad, June 7,said she supported the resolution of the Kashmir issue following the U.N. resolutions.
She said that a constructive approach and confidence-building measures between Pakistan and India were key to the improvement of their bilateral ties and solution of the issue, implied Kashmir.
The Kashmir issue thus is getting more and more internationalized/pronounced as against the Indian stances.
A World News TV on June 10 reports, “The Diaspora (UK) braces up to intensify Kashmir campaign across Europe”. The UK also has a pro-Khalistan group.
This news has come at a time when German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock too has spoken on the Kashmir issue while being in Pakistan just last week.
However, the foreign minister said the international community must immediately take notice of the increasing incidents of alleged persecution of minorities and a rising tide of Islamophobia in India.
Citing the recent “provocative and sacrilegious statements” by the BJP leaders, Mr. Bilawal said that such “outrageous and highly condemnable statements had hurt the sentiments of the Muslims all over the world,” state-run APP news agency reported, reports the PTI Hindu Daily on June 8.
The way entire India is boiling over the derogatory remarks made by Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar on the Prophet, its spillover effect is also seen in Nepal when a considerable size of the Muslim population residing in Birganj, a Nepali town bordering India in the South, came against the BJP’s functionary thereby hinting that India’s BJP sponsored religious-fanaticism may destabilize even Nepal.
The demonstrations were held in front of the Indian Consulate which has been opened in Birganj to eye on Nepal and eases the influx of the Indian immigrants to Nepal.
It is these down-trodden Indian nationals who later will ask, as is being experienced, for the ministerial status in India-controlled Nepal, a de facto protectorate. This way India is invading Nepal each day and round the clock. The Sikkimi fate of Nepal is waiting for sure.
The BJP-controlled affiliates in Nepal have already come in favor of Ms. Nupur Sharma’s somewhat erratic statements.
Most strikingly, during the span of a mere two months, the US has scolded India twice for failing to observe “religious tolerance”.
Rhino-skinned India remains undeterred.
While US Secretary Antony Blinken made some harsh comments on India in front of the Indian foreign minister in Washington last April, then very freshly Blinken on June 2, said that “in India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we have seen rising attacks on people and places of worship”. He was speaking at an event organized for releasing the state department’s annual report on international religious freedom (IRF).
Blinken said, reports Manila Times, June 4, that “some Indian officials have supported attacks against religious minorities, in a rare if indirect criticism of the record of its emerging ally”.
The US by aligning with thug India on “strategic grounds” is damaging its democratic credentials.
“In India, some officials are ignoring or even supporting rising attacks on people and places of worship,” Rashad Hussain, the US ambassador at large for international religious freedom, added. This is unfortunate.
Nupur Sharma’s insulting remarks on the Prophet have also drawn the attention of some leaders in India, for example, Mamta Banerjee.
She Tweets, June 9: “I condemn the recent heinous and atrocious hate speech remarks by a few disastrous BJP leaders, resulting in not only spread of violence but also a division of the fabric of the country, leading to disturbance of peace and amity”.
I am reminded of once again veteran writer Khuswant Singh who says in his book “The End of India” that “these are dark times for India…Carnage in Gujrat…India is far from becoming Mahan (great), India is going to the dogs, and unless a miracle saves us, the country will break up: it will not be Pakistan or any other foreign power that will destroy us; we will commit hara-kiri”…but the rise of religious fundamentalism among the Hindus threatens our democracy and everything…The country will break us. It will not be Pakistan or any other foreign powers that will destroy us; we will commit hara-kiri”.
Looking at the way, India is boiling at the moment after the Nupur and Naveen Jindal’s hatred of Islam and the Prophet, one is forced to ask oneself “has the end of India approached already as per Khuswant Singh?
Draw your own conclusions. I think India should be socially boycotted across the globe.
Enters Ashok Swain again: Being born as a Muslim in India has become the worst crime under the Hindu right-wing regime! Muslim fakirs are being beaten up, abused, and forcibly chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in UP, India. (Tweet June 8).
Now if and when India ends, Yeti Narsinghanand’s and his ilk’s inflammatory hate speeches will be one of the main causes of India’s end.
In April at the Press Club of India Swamy made highly rabble rousing remarks against the Prophet Mohammed and Islam which created an uproar on social media, however, no penal actions were taken against the Swamy.
He continues to spew venom against Islam, Prophet and Muslim”.
Zee News, June 9, reports that the “lone crusader” seasoned Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah recently spoke about the ongoing controversy related to Prophet Mohammad amid BJP leaders’ derogatory remarks leading to a diplomatic blowback India received from Gulf nations. The veteran actor hopes that good sense will prevail and the ‘hate wave’ against Muslims will dissipate soon”. Hoping against hope.
Veteran actor Shah says, “I would appeal to him (PM) to knock some good sense into these people. If he believes what was said at the ‘Dharam Sansad’ in Rishikesh, then he should say so. If he does not, then he should say so,”
Actor Shah perhaps forgets the fact that whatever is happening in India against Muslims and the Prophet, all sad incidents have tacit encouragement from the Hindu Prime Minister Modi.
Shah is asking the absurd.
Yet the General Secretary of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on June 6, 2022, has targeted India for its recent venomous attack on the Prophet by stating that “these cases of defamation are part of a growing spate of hatred and defamation of Islam in India.
Slamming India on the issue of the Gyanvapi Mosque row where Muslims were allegedly forced out of the Mosque and were not allowed to pray, the 57 member states OIC grouping called on the Indian authorities to ensure the safety, security and well-being of Muslims in India and protect their rights as well as religious and cultural identity, dignity and places of worship”.
Now if perchance and unfortunately, India ends, the end impact shall be heavily felt in Nepal for a variety of political reasons more so due to the forcibly kept open border phenomenon.
Let’s leave India to chart its own future. That’s all.
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