The more hardline sections of the BJP are making a case for standing up to the censure coming in from India’s allies and friends abroad.
Meanwhile, at home, the protests that erupted in several cities on Friday run the risk of leading domestic politics into the polarisation trap.
India learnt this week that its domestic politics does not exist in a silo separate and disconnected from its relations with the international community. On visits abroad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has talked up this country as a plural, diverse and democratic nation, as if the open minority-baiting by his party men and women did not exist. Not only have the remarks against the Prophet by two BJP leaders — one has been expelled and the other suspended by the party subsequently — made it difficult to sweep under the carpet the incivilities in the politics of the ruling party at the Centre, the fallout is also bringing home to Delhi that they can create problems for some of its best friends in the world, to the detriment of those friendships. What someone says in a television studio in India can fast turn into a political hot potato in another country, putting governments well disposed towards India on the defensive in their home turfs. Pakistan, of course, may need no excuse to have a go at India. But it was hoped that the United Arab Emirates, with whom India has excellent ties, would not follow its brother Islamic nations in upping the ante on the issue. That it did, one day after several other countries had expressed their condemnation, says a lot about how this incident has put pressure on governments around the world. Only in 2018, the UAE rulers had granted permission for the building of a Hindu temple in Sharjah, and its construction is proceeding apace. Iran, among the earliest to condemn the controversial remarks, did not cancel the visit by its foreign minister, Amir Abdollahian, but the differing readouts from both sides showed how important it was for the visiting functionary to signal to constituencies back home that the issue had come up in discussions, as much as Delhi tried to play it down.
If looking the other way as outrage swept the Gulf countries was not an option for authoritarian regimes in the UAE, Oman and other friendly nations, the political pressures in a democracy, even a small one like Maldives, can well be imagined. Indeed, Maldives, where protests against India are banned by presidential decree, tried at first to stave off the Opposition’s attempts to force the issue. Like the UAE, the pro-India Solih government issued a statement much after many other countries, after it became clear that not doing so would carry significant political risk. Former president Abdulla Yameen, whose pronounced tilt towards Beijing had given India cause for worry during his term in office, hopes to make a comeback in the presidential election next year on the back of an anti-India campaign.
The more hardline sections of the BJP are making a case for standing up to the censure coming in from India’s allies and friends abroad. Meanwhile, at home, the protests that erupted in several cities on Friday run the risk of leading domestic politics into the polarisation trap. After this episode, the responsibility of sobriety and restraint and course correction rests on the BJP government, of course. India is going to be watched by other countries, even and especially by its friends. But the larger imperative of keeping the calm also devolves on non-BJP groups and parties.
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