A member of the UAE’s royal family Princess Hend Al Qassimi, warned the Indian national in UAE against his controversial anti-Islamic tweets. “Anyone that is openly racist and discriminatory in UAE will be fined and made to leave”, the Princess tweeted.As we all know, the Indian diaspora makes up a good population of the working class in the GCC countries, who earns double the income for same type of job in India.
The outbreak of corona virus (COVID-19) has created a global health crisis that made a deep impact on the way we perceive the world and everyday lives. The whole world is talking about uniting for humanity on one side; while on the other side a certain group of people are busy spreading fake news and communal hatred. Office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday tweeted for unity and fraternity in fighting against the threat caused by the corona virus. His tweet read: “COVID-19 doesn’t see race, religion, colour, caste, creed, language or borders before striking. Our response and conduct thereafter should attach primacy to unity and brotherhood. We are in this together.”
But this doesn’t stop the right-wing extremists from spreading communal hatred and fake news through social media. One reason for the early cautioning by the Prime Minister could be the series of tweets emanated from the Middle East over the last few days. A member of the UAE’s royal family Princess Hend Al Qassimi, warned the Indian national in UAE against his controversial anti-Islamic tweets. “Anyone that is openly racist and discriminatory in UAE will be fined and made to leave”, the Princess tweeted.As we all know, the Indian diaspora makes up a good population of the working class in the GCC countries, who earns double the income for same type of job in India. The UAE is one of India’s major source of remittances, where about 3 million Indian expats are based. While India shares healthy and sound relation with the Gulf countries, it is so unfortunate that the right-wing extremists are into such shameful acts.
The Arab countries which follow Monarchical system of governance and clearly Muslim dominated, treat its minority population without any discrimination. Let’s take the example of Kerala. The effects of Gulf migration made positive changes in the Economy and society of Kerala. The remittances from Middle East are a key source of income for Kerala’s economy. India was the top recipient of remittances worldwide in 2018. The remittances were boosted in parts by migrants from Kerala sending, which indirectly shows how important Gulf countries are for Indian economy. Keeping nothing of this in mind, some Hindutva preachers are ridiculing and scorning their religion and culture, after earning bread and butter from their land. To add with this, the BJP MP from Bangalore South came with the most disgraceful comment which humiliated the Arab womenfolk. Noora Al Ghurair, whose family runs the Al-Ghurair conglomerate, responded to Tejasvi Surya’s offensive and sexist comment by advising him not to visit the Arab land ever.Amid the growing resentment in the Arab world, the Indian ambassador to the country Mr. Pavan Kapoor tweeted, “India and UAE share values of non-discrimination on any grounds.”The biggest question here is that, Indians (mostly Hindus) are treated well in these countries. In return, how are Muslims being treated in India?
Ever since the Tablighi Jamaat conducted a meeting at their headquarters in Nizamuddin West, Delhi, late March, and some of them tested positive for COVID-19, certain media outlets were into overdrive blaming them- and, by implication, Muslims- for the spread of COVID-19 in India. Fake videos and social media posts gave Corona virus the nomenclature of “jihadi virus”, thereby widening the rift between Hindus and Muslims. The Islamophobic hashtags which are being circulated in social media is a clear indication of intentional discrimination towards the Muslim community, which is also the prime motive of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies. People are now talking about ‘Corona Jihad’, which is just the latest in a series of different forms of jihad that the media has talked about, and that have been elatedly accepted by the people.
This hate virus is highly contagious. This is not just a new phenomenon. But this has been a trend in India ever since the right-wing BJP government came into power. After BJP government got successfully re-elected for the second time, the minorities in India entered into a phase of grave danger. A series of events starting from the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), the brutal police attack towards the students of Jamia Milia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University, the violence unleashed through police and right wing activists in JNU, arresting of student leaders like Sharjeel Imam, filing false cases against Muslim students, imposing UAPA on student leaders like Umar Khalid, Meeran Haider, and Safoora Zargar and putting them behind bars, to the most recent communalisation of Pandemic!
All these activities are having only a single motive; that is, to wash away the Muslim population from the country and to implement the Hindutva Policy over the Indian Constitution. For last seven decades, India has been holding it’s constitution along with, which promises equality to all. But Narendra Modi’s BJP is remaking the nation into one where some people count as more Indian than others. The danger posed by the BJP is that it is guiding India into an instability from which it may never recover.Today, when they use this Pandemic as a weapon to attack the Muslim population of the country, it poses a big question to us; ‘COVID-19 can be cured, but who will cure the communal virus? ‘
