India in the soup over insulting remarks

Pressure mounts on Delhi to apologise over blasphemous remarks by BJP spokesperson

NEW DELHI/ KUWAIT CITY:

India was in desperate attempts on Monday to placate the growing Muslim outrage, both at home and abroad, after two officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

Anger in the Muslim countries, particularly in the Middle East, spread over the blasphemous comments, with summoning of New Delhi’s envoys for lodging strong protests, while some supermarket removing Indian products off the shelf.

At home, Indian authorities arrested 38 people for rioting in northern city of Kanpur in an effort to quell religious tensions, yet the protests spread to other parts of the country with a demonstration in Mumbai, the country’s financial hub.

Some of India’s top officials were engaged in managing the diplomatic fallout as nations including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan lodged strong protest demanded an apology from the Indian government.

Over the weekend, Indian diplomats stationed in the Gulf and neighbouring Islamic nations were summoned by officials in those countries to protest against the comments by BJP officials, an Indian foreign ministry official said.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in a statement, said: “These insults come in the context of the increasing intensity in hatred of and insults to Islam in India and the systematic harassment of Muslims.”

The influential 57-member bloc cited the latest decision to ban the hijab at educational institutions in several Indian states and the destruction of Muslim property to highlight what it said was the Indian government’s bias.

Read Pakistan issues demarche to India over blasphemous remarks by BJP officials

The Al-Azhar University in Cairo said the comments were “the real terrorism” and “could plunge the entire world into deadly crisis and wars”. The Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL) also condemned the remarks, which it said, could “incite hatred”.

In further criticism of the Indian officials, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an umbrella group for the six Gulf countries, “condemned, rejected and denounced” the comments. Saudi Presidency of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque called them a “heinous act”.

In Kuwait, supermarket workers piled Indian tea and other products into trolleys in a protest against “Islamophobic”comments. At the Al-Ardiya Co-Operative Society shelves were covered with plastic sheets. “We have removed Indian products”, signs in Arabic read.

“We, as a Kuwaiti Muslim people, do not accept insulting the Prophet [PBUH],” Nasser Al-Mutairi, CEO of the store, told AFP. An official at the chain said a company-wide boycott was being considered.

Comments by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma during a televised debate last week were blamed for clashes in an Indian state and prompted demands for her arrest. Anger later spread overseas to the Muslim countries about the remarks.

India’s foreign ministry said in a statement the offensive tweets and comments did not, in any way, reflect the views of the government. “Strong action has already been taken against these individuals by relevant bodies...,” said Arindam Bagchi, a government spokesperson

The BJP suspended a spokesperson and expelled another official on Sunday for hurting religious sentiments of a minority community. Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s two holiest sites, and Bahrain welcomed the action taken by the BJP to suspend the spokeswoman.

However, a senior official at the Qatar Embassy in New Delhi said that the Modi’s government must publicly distance itself from the comments, adding that they were checking reports about boycott of Indian goods by some supermarket owners in Qatar.

Qatar on Sunday had demanded that India apologised for the “Islamophobic” comments, as India’s Vice President Venkaiah Naidu visited the gas-rich Gulf state in a bid to bolster trade. Iran followed Qatar and Kuwait by summoning the Indian ambassador to lodge protest.

Modi’s party, which has frequently been accused of acting against the country’s Muslim minority, suspended Sharma on Sunday for expressing “views contrary to the party’s position” and said it “respects all religions”.

Sharma, a BJP spokesperson, said on Twitter that if her comments “have caused discomfort or hurt religious feelings of anyone whatsoever, I hereby unconditionally withdraw my statement.”