The Ministry of External Affairs’ act of lashing out at the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation for being “communal minded” and “hijacked by vested interests” carries a clear and welcome signature of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pilloried by hardcore Hindus of late for the current ‘secular’ avatar of the BJP, which they say is ‘Hindu’ enough, the dispensation can be expected to not only speak this language more often but also walk the talk in the future, never mind that expected platitudes to serve the homily that ‘all religions are the same and equal’ will continue. Hoping that the comity of nations receives the Indian English coinage right — “communal”, meaning “of a community”, is not quite a bad word in standard English — one also expects that the world respects the sovereign that this country is and stops meddling in its domestic affairs. The issue of debarring Muslim women students from wearing the hijab in Karnataka schools must, however, also be looked at neutrally in a manner that behoves a modern, secular, democratic state. The OIC, while urging India to “ensure the safety, security and well being of the Muslim community while protecting their way of life”, forgot that the record of women’s safety in the territories of its member-states is pathetic, robes covering members of the fairer sex from head to toe notwithstanding. Urging students across faiths to not appear anachronistic and parochial in the premises of centres of education is neither instigation nor propagation “of violence and hate crimes” against Muslims, unlike how the OIC sees it.
The parlance of the statement that India addresses its issues “in accordance with our constitutional framework and mechanism, as well as democratic ethos and polity” is necessary diplomatese, but even diplomacy calls for naming the “vested interests”. The veiled (pun intended) reference to Pakistan was not good enough. Let alone observers such as the Central African Republic, Russia, Thailand, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the unrecognised Turkish Cypriot ‘state’, several powerful countries of OIC are subservient to the whims of the failed, bankrupt state of Pakistan, which questions the legitimacy of the umbrella organisation’s global status. Besides, the second-largest multilateral body after the UN in the world comprising 57 member-states, all of them Islamic or Muslim majority countries, may be entitled “to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world”; it cannot claim Muslim interest is superior to that of the rest of the human race, especially in cases where the injunctions of Islam via Qur’an, the Ahadith and Shari’ah ride roughshod over half the population of the community: Women.
The OIC, established by the First Islamic Summit Conference held in Morocco in September 1969, reacting to an act of arson at the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by a 28-year-old Australian that year, and called the Organisation of Islamic Conference until 2011, will do a world of good to itself by also realising that democracies, which the Middle Eastern people may be alien to, tend to bend over backwards to appease Muslims. The ferocity with which they responded to perceived and real threats from a Jewish Israel should not apply to countries beyond the area where Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all born, each claiming God sent messages to the successor that were superior to those sent to the predecessor.
On the part of India, it must stop salivating at the prospect of inclusion in the OIC almost the way it lusts after the position of a permanent member of the UNSC (albeit for an altogether different reason). The invitation to the founding conference at Rabat in 1969 and humiliating ejection at Pakistan’s behest, with then-Agriculture Minister Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed not permitted to enter the venue in Morocco, was perhaps not insult enough. In 2006, the then UPA government was grateful that, on being urged by the US, Saudi Arabia invited New Delhi to join the OIC proceedings as an observer. In the intervening period, some Nehruvian balance remained, of course. India remained wary of the religious grouping in a sanctimonious way like the first set of rulers and constitution-makers in New Delhi used to be, sparing no opportunity to genuflect before Muslim sentiments. The current regime proved hardly better when, on the request of Bangladesh in 2018, the country with more than 10% of the world’s Muslims accepted once again the observer status — only to see Pakistan opposing the proposal again. The next year, India was glad it had been invited as a “guest of honour”, with then-External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj addressing the inaugural plenary in Abu Dhabi on 1 March 2019. The attitude of India towards the OIC must be shaped keeping in view also the fact that the country has been betrayed by relatively benign members like a Shi’ah Iran and also Palestine led by Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘friend’ Yasser Arafat time and again. Pinning the whole blame on Pakistan is dishonest. Dishonesty it was to see New Delhi do it again in 2020 when it said the OIC was allowing itself to be used by a certain country “which has an abominable record on religious tolerance, radicalism and persecution of minorities”. Diplomats then opined it was untenable that the OIC’s member-states with good bilateral relations with India were happy to sign off on anti-India OIC statements, a truism that should be dawned on the class of IFS officers long ago.
The uninitiated may note that the MEA is in a league of its own. Pre-Modi, India’s foreign missions walked on a set pattern determined during Jawaharlal Nehru’s era and hardly revised thereafter. A case in point is India, even in the Modi era, voting against Israel and in favour of Palestine in faraway United Nations. These robotic diplomats have been groomed to see ‘victories’ where there is none — such as in the case of invitations above where, at least on one occasion, Pakistan’s objection was overruled. The newfound bonhomie with the UAE calls for cautious optimism — to be tested on yardsticks such as Kashmir. It is but observed that Saudi Arabia is tentatively mellowing too, the most conspicuous sign of which is its act of building bridges with Israel. If that warms the cockles of our plenipotentiaries’ hearts, they may do well to recall that within months of the warmth exuded by the OIC’s embrace of India, the body had cried foul when the parliament did away with the downright discriminatory Article 370. Even the UAE and Saudi Arabia had to issue statements of disapproval under ‘peer’ pressure. Meanwhile, close neighbours Bangladesh and the Maldives play along with the OIC begrudgingly or otherwise.
The choice of the word “communal”, implying ‘parochially discriminating on the basis of religion’ in India, is a welcome change in the communiqué to the OIC. This is still a far cry from being a China, even the most atrocious human rights violations by which see these Islamic republics and kingdoms scurrying for cover, lest they should be asked for reactions in support of fellow Muslims in Xinjiang. The economic and military giant that Beijing is does not always explain the awe. The resilience of Jews in Israel does not necessarily explain their spine either. When there is a will, a small Poland, an otherwise inconsequential nation on the globe, says a categorical no.
