Pakistan has officially rejected Indian media accusing Pakistan of doing propaganda over increasing Islamophobia under Prime Minister Narendra Modi government. Analysts believe that the Indian regime is afraid of the Organization of Islamic Countries’ (OIC) coordinated position on the relentless use of force and violence against Muslims across the country. To divert the attention of the forum, such tactics are being employed by India, they add.
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Indian media reports about the virtual meeting of OIC ambassadors to the United Nations on May 20 are misleading and factually incorrect. Pakistan was falsely accused of doing propaganda over increasing Islamophobia under the Modi government.
The distorted reporting first appeared in a section of Indian media, claiming Maldives had “called out Pakistan’s propaganda against India at the meeting”.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN highlighted the rising wave of Islamophobia and state-sponsored violence against Indian Muslims that has entered into a dangerous phase under the RSS-BJP dispensation during the OIC meeting.
Read More: What can Pakistan do to counter the rise of Islamophobia in India?
“Highlighting the scourge of Islamophobia in India, he updated the OIC group on recent episodes of Islamophobia and targeted violence against Indian Muslims and Kashmiris. Sharing the growing concern over serious implications of Islamophobia in India, a large number of OIC Ambassadors supported the need for a coordinated OIC position on Islamophobia at the UN,” she added.
Representing the collective voice of the Muslim Ummah, the OIC has repeatedly expressed serious concern on Islamophobia and targeted violence against Muslims in India, as manifested in various decisions and Resolutions of Islamic Summits and Council of Foreign Ministers (CFMs), she said.
The OIC and its human rights body — OIC-IPHRC — have issued strong statements on the Indian government’s recent anti-Muslim actions, including CAA, targeted killing of Muslims in Delhi, Babri Masjid verdict, and demonization of Muslims in the context of Covid-19.
Besides OIC, the United Nations human rights machinery, the international human rights organizations, and the international media have taken cognizance of the situation and expressed concerns in this regard, the FO spokesperson maintained.
Pakistan’s FM condemns India
Recently, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that growing state crimes against Muslims in India have become a serious threat to Muslims living in the country. He also questioned as to why is Indian media accusing Pakistan of doing propaganda.
Analysts believe that the rise of the anti-Muslim wave in India has, in reality, the potential to unite the Muslim world. Importantly, the entire Muslim world remained subject to internal strife and regional alliances which did not allow it to become a powerful Muslim block to be able to represent its people like the EU.
FM Shah said that social media has been flooded with anti-Islam content. “Terminologies like Corona-Jihad, Jihad-COVID-19 and Islamic rebellion are being spread through specific trolls, being run by social media cell of the ruling BJP,” he added.
Read More: Muslim killed on New Year’s Day highlights violent Islamophobia in India
The foreign minister said hate campaigns against Muslims are being run at the mass level. “The international and local media houses are showing attacks on Muslims in streets, shops, and mosques,” he stated.
India’s deteriorating relations with the Arab world
As Indian media accusing is Pakistan of doing propaganda, the relations between the Arab world and PM Modi were seen being jolted. Jyoti Malhotra, a prominent Indian Editor, noted that “India’s carefully cultivated Gulf policy has been at risk of unraveling over the past fortnight, with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Kuwaiti government, a UAE royal princess, and the Arab intelligentsia decrying hate speeches by Indian nationals accusing the Tablighi Jamaat of deliberately exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic as well as a crude tweet by a BJP MP on the sexual impulses of Arab women”.
Why Arabs are speaking out against Islamophobia in India | India News | Al Jazeera
Read before reacting, if you have the capability to read and understand. https://t.co/P4FkXFaW4w— shahid siddiqui (@shahid_siddiqui) May 2, 2020
In this regard, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, a senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute, London, and Haider Abbas Rizvi, an Uttar Pradesh-based Information Commissioner, wrote an article for The Indian Express to highlight that India has lost friends due to the incumbent government’s anti-Muslim policies.
Read More: Islamophobia in India: New attacks on Indian Muslims
The authors argue that “Muslim countries with which India had increasingly good relations have become less friendly,” but, at the same time, Pakistan was able to seek diplomatic support in order to present its case for Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK).
This is, however, yet to be seen whether the OIC takes any other firm action to highlight being committed by Indian nationals and armed personal against the Muslims.