A lot of discussions have been happening around the Modi government’s response after Middle Eastern and other Islamic nations in India’s neighbourhood raised concerns over some remarks made by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma in a TV debate. The remarks were about Prophet Mohammed’s life, taken out of context and presented in an ugly manner by Alt News’ Mohammad Zubair who successfully raised a stink, and managed to get Nupur Sharma branded as a ‘blasphemer’.
The barrage of statements from Islamic nations started with Qatar, a major oil exporter, created a stir in a nation that already has a hundred issues it faces every day on account of religious conflicts, political clashes and ‘freedom of speech’. Faultlines of Hindu-Muslim conflict that have already inflicted deep wounds on the nation’s soul, and geography, are throbbing again.
The Indian government explained to the Islamic fundamentalist regime that the ruling party has taken adequate punishment measures against the said spokesperson and the government does not endorse, nor is complicit in her statements in any way, which is what hurt the Indians more, more than the coordinated campaign from Islamists living in India and their patrons abroad. More so because Nupur Sharma’s specific comments on the Islamic Prophet are generally perceived as facts, validated by Islamic texts, even though they were seen as negative because the context was an argument on religious beliefs that are mocked.
It is just that the Islamic hardliners want to assert that any rational discussion about Prophet Mohammad, any comments on his life and choices, except for total religious veneration, is an act of ‘blasphemy’ and should be punishable by death.
Islamic radicalism and its street power is a reality Indians are quite well acquainted with, they have lived with it. And several supporters were in no mood to accept any negotiation with the Islamists.
It would have been good if our ambassadors would have told the Arab governments that the comment was made in response to a highly objectionable hinduphobic comment insulting Hindu faith by a leading Muslim public intellectual of India. For the sake of setting the record straight.
— Divya Kumar Soti (@DivyaSoti) June 6, 2022
Some truths are hurtful. It is human nature to ignore them and pretend they do not exist. In India’s case, despite being a progressive nation that is rapidly becoming an economic superpower, there are geopolitical, demographical, social and historical realities that keep holding us back, making those faultlines mentioned above hurt and fester from time to time.
Why can’t India be like France?
As the debate progressed, one of the most discussed names was that of the Frech President Emmanuel Macron. In 2020, faced with the brutal murder of teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamic terrorist over the same ‘any comment on Prophet Mohammed is blasphemy’ idea, Macron had stood firm behind the French commitment to freedom of speech. He had defended Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish cartoons on Prophet Mohammad and had even projected them on government buildings. Macron sent a stern, bold message to the Islamic world, the same oil regimes that are displeased with India today, that France won’t be bowing down to Islamic radical beliefs and compromise against its progressive democratic ideas.
India cannot be like France, PM Modi cannot be Macron when it comes to displaying solidarity with critics of Islam and that is a reality. It is not that India, or rather the Indian government is unaware of the dangers of Islamic radicalism. They are more aware than any other country in the world because India has suffered, through centuries of invasion, a partition and hundreds of terrorist attacks, but because PM Modi’s reality is different than Macron’s reality.
Some of those realities were shared by a Twitter handle War Doge in response to Anand Ranganathan’s tweet.
1) France is permanent member of the USNC, it can veto anything against it.
— War Doge (@JamesBondMI6GB) June 6, 2022
2) It has a per capita greater than $50,000 and has far fewer citizens working in Arab nations.
3) It can easily relocate its citizens from the ME to high paying jobs in France, can India do that? https://t.co/F2WHRdPfwi
France is a superior military power, it is a permanent member of the UNSC and also a member of the European Council, a powerful body that is capable of imposing crippling trade embargoes. It is not as dependent on Middle Eastern oil as India, France does not have tens of millions of citizens working under oil regimes.
India gets more than 70% of its oil from OPEC countries, most of them Islamic. Russia is far away. Even though we are buying more Russian oil, we cannot survive without Gulf oil. Face it. India has a large Muslim population spread all over the country, unlike France where most of the 5 to 8% of Muslims live in major cities. So, practically speaking, France can handle law and order better in the event of large scale protests.
In India, it is common for protests to turn violent and the government to succumb to demands by violent groups if they are persistent enough, the caste quota issues and farmer protests have proven that.
Appeasement has been imbibed into the DNA of the Indian State. The political leaders, both ruling and in the opposition are simply not designed, willing, or for that matter capable to handle violent protests. And through protests against false claims of abolishing the SC/ST Act, anti-CAA protests, and the most recent farmer protests, the disruptive forces have already tested blood.
If the central government had not taken a cautionary stand on the Prophet Mohammad comments issue, disruptive protests were coming, they knew that. That yellow flag on the Red Fort on 26 January 2021 where the Tricolour should have been, tells us all that needs to be told about the Indian State and its relation to street veto.
Macron clamped down on radical clerics, madrasas and Islamic preachers with an iron hand, India is far away from doing that. Sparing a Himanta Biswa Sarma in the east or a Yogi Adityanath in the North, appeasement of radical elements goes full-fledged for all of us to see and that is another reality whether we like it or not. So no, India cannot be like France. Not now, not in the near future.
India cannot be like Israel, we are too different
India cannot be like Israel either. Israel is less than half of Uttarakhand in size, has a far more homogeneous population and is self assertively a Jewish state. Giving a homeland to the persecuted, brutalised Jewish people is Israel’s story. It exists and is kept there in a hostile neighbourhood by Western powers, by spending huge amounts of money and effort. India is not that.
India’s story, whether we like it or not, is that of a secular democracy. There is a significant portion of Indians on both sides of the political spectrum that would like to see it changed, but it is not changing. Indians are fine with being a secular democracy and Indians have to come to terms with their own demographic realities, at whatever cost. Demography is our reality and our geopolitical destiny. No nation can sustain itself by antagonising 20% (some say 30%) of its population and that is a reality we must live with. India has to find ways to deal with the radicalisation and disruptive forces, external and internal. How firm or how effective those ways are going to be, will be decided again by the political realities of ruling forces.
India cannot be China
No, we are not China. We are a soft power. There is no precedent for India to assertively take over a neighbouring region to fulfil its expansionist ambitions like China took over Tibet or claims the whole of the South China Sea. We are not a communist dictatorship that decides how many children its citizen can have, and how they dress, speak, eat or live. The Indian government doesn’t control media and the internet like China does. The Indian government does not act against separatist elements stoking secessionist sentiments as China has acted in the Xinjiang region. China controls how much freedom of speech and how much freedom of religion its citizens are allowed to possess, and it is not very generous in that regard. India has not done that. Compare how India has handled Jammu and Kashmir to how China has handled Xinjiang and the picture is pretty clear.
China has always been expansionist, assertive and authoritative. Through wars, poverty, socio-political transitions and more, China has held its populace and internal politics in a firm grip. India and China, though both civilisation powers, are very different in their modern realities.
So the bottom line is that Modi is not going to be Macron, Jinping or Bennet. India’s realities are very different from these countries and no matter how much we wish for things to be different, they are not going to be. India has to feed and sustain 1.4 billion people while navigating diplomacy, trade, and geopolitical pressures in a very hostile neighbourhood. The Nupur Sharma episode, though fresh and sudden, is neither the first nor will be the last. The world is going through a major transition and this episode is one of many more challenges that are yet to come, internally and externally. All we can do is hope that the government that rules this huge and diverse country, manages to find a sustainable balance, without tipping the scales too far.
