Voice of America in its article published on June 6 said India faces diplomatic backlash in Muslim countries for remarks about Islam

Claim:


India is scrambling to contain a diplomatic storm that has erupted in Islamic countries following controversial comments made about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad by two officials of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.


Counterclaim:


India is known for its diverse culture and traditions; people from different sects, faith and religion live together for centuries. Every religion in India, in its thousands of years of history, has flourished and boomed. All the minorities are enjoying their rights fully and exercising their powers as per the Constitution of India.

Under the BJP-led government, many policies and welfare schemes have been devised for the minorities. In the case of controversy surrounding a comment against the Prophet by BJP Spokesperson Nupur Sharma, the party has already expelled her along with Delhi Unit media head Naveen Jindal. The BJP has also made it clear that it is strongly against any ideology which insults or demeans any sect or religion. The party in its statement also said that it respects all religions and strongly denounces insults of religious personality.

Claim:

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said the remarks came in a “context of intensifying hatred and abuse toward Islam in India and systematic practices against Muslims”.


Counterclaim:



While rejecting the OIC's statement as "unwarranted and narrow-minded," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India accords the highest respect to all religions. Bagchi also made it a point that one person's ideology doesn't reflect the ideology of all members of the party.



However, all said and done, meddling in India’s affairs by OIC in the name of religion, has exposed its hypocrisy. There has been no occasion when OIC has spoken against China or any Islamic country--right from Turkey to Saudi Arabia to UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran or Pakistan—has passed a resolution against China for its treatment of millions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.



As per a recent leaked document, more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are held in secret network of detention centres and prisons. They are facing genocide and cultural aggression, but ironically, OIC or Islamic countries which follow the principle of ‘Ummah’---that means the global community of all Muslims bound together by the ties of religion, have chosen to remain silent.



It reached a height of callousness when OIC at the 48th Council of Foreign Ministers' meeting in Pakistan on March 22 and 23, invited Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as a ‘special guest.’ Islamophobia was the core subject of discussion at the meet, still all participants, except for a cryptic reference made by the Turkish Foreign Minister on the problem of Uyghurs, chose to remain silent on China.



In another way round, it was seen as a silent endorsement of China’s action against Uyghurs. This was not all. Grotesqueness of Islamic countries’ behaviour was before the world when Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait reportedly wrote an alternative letter to the UN Human Rights Council in response to a letter written by 22 democratic countries against China on Uyghurs problem. The Gulf countries in their letter reportedly described the Uyghur issue as an “internal matter” of China.



The GCC countries also heaped praise on China’s human rights record, calling it “excellent.” Then over the years, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt and even Afghanistan have detained or extradited Uyghurs back to China. As per an estimation, these countries have sent back more than 682 Uyghurs to China since 2017.




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