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Opinion | Gulf states push back against Islamophobia ‘imported’ from the India of Modi and the RSS
- The ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP has long sought to push its agenda on the Indian diaspora – a process some in the Gulf have called ‘exporting hate’
- This in turn has prompted social media battles and appeals to Pan-Islamic solidarity with India’s Muslims in a bid to contain the ideology’s spread
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Social media users across the Gulf states, a region that is home to millions of Indian expatriates, have hit back at what they see as Islamophobia being imported from India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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The campaign – exemplified by the likes of Gulf News Editor-in-Chief Abdul Hamid Ahmad, whose editorial posted to Twitter on May 7 calling for Indian media to stop “exporting hate to the Gulf” was liked more than 13,000 times – has sparked vicious retaliation from supporters of Modi’s party and the closely affiliated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
These exchanges are significant, given that the Gulf states rarely criticise India. They have also resulted in equally rare criticisms of Modi from his own supporters on political and economic grounds, as well as for appeasing Gulf leaders.
The online anti-BJP campaign was launched in response to an uptick in reports of Islamophobia involving Indian citizens residing in the Gulf. Some of the social media accounts involved are thought to be run by Pakistanis posing as individuals from the region, but those belonging to Arabs are seen as encouraging the idea of Pan-Islamic solidarity with India’s Muslims.
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Such appeals for solidarity have long been used by Gulf states in opposition to anything that the ruling regimes perceive as ideological threats to their power.
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