Wholly profit

It was my first year in America. I was still going through what is called cultural shock. One day, I was having a verbal confrontation with an American man. He was using all kinds of curse words and in return I used all the curse words I could translate from Pashto to English. Whatever I uttered did not make the man feel offended, which is what I wanted in that fit of rage. None of it was even getting registered with him. While that was happening, I was also on a phone call with a friend of mine. He had lived in America for many years and knew many things, including the offensive curse words, the kinds I desperately needed at that moment. He uttered something in my ear and advised that I repeat that to the man I was fighting with. As soon as I uttered those words, the man completely lost his cool and started getting agitated. And as you can guess; I started to calm down.

Moral of the story is: different people and different cultures have different standards and types of insults, comedy, entertainment, and so forth. India’s ruling party BJP’s spokeswoman Nupur Sharma made headlines with her blasphemous comments about Muslim’s beloved Holy Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him).

India annexed Kashmir in 2019. There was some noise in Pakistan as well some from inside India. The world went pretty much quiet accepting whatever rationale, if there was any, that India provided. Then came the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which openly discriminates against Muslims by granting citizenship based on faith. Truth be told, nobody bought the Indian rationale. Not buying rationale doesn’t hurt the Indian economy, not buying Indian products does.

Let us also look at the US law called Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The United States does not allow Turkey to purchase the S-400 missile defense system because the US says that this purchase would put Turkey in violation of CAATSA. However, India has aggressively pursued the purchase of the same S-400 from Russia without causing the US to frown. In fact, former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis had urged the US Congress to give India a national security waiver arguing that hitting India with sanctions under CAATSA would hurt the United States. The truth of the matter is that the US corporation Lockheed Martin wants to sell the stealth fighter F-35 planes to Turkey, which are incompatible with the Russian S-400. That shield system is designed to attack these very stealth planes. India is not frowned upon because it is a major arm buyer. Besides, India is not interested in buying the F-35. Financial motives drive the policy.

While Muslims find blasphemy as the most offensive crime hurting their sentiments, there are those who have other standards for feeling the pain. Just like the man I was having a verbal confrontation with did not feel offended with the words I knew to be offensive, the aggression loving power systems are not going to feel the pain with Muslims painting Jesus or Raam for that matter in a blasphemous manner. They bleed green, if you will. Their pain comes from financial hurt. Not buying their rationale won’t cause a change in their thinking, but not buying their products would absolutely change their entire calculus.

And that is what we saw with many of the Middle Eastern countries boycotting the Indian products. India has done a lot more than this blasphemous act from last week. However, it has never apologised or laid off an important party member as a result of the critique it has faced. I remember back in 2005 when blasphemous cartoons were published in the Danish newspaper. A certain cell phone service provider had newly come to Pakistan at the time. It started offering the cheapest possible prices only after people boycotted anything Danish. We love our prophet, they love their profit. Learn the jargon of fighting.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2022.

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