India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Sunday it had suspended BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma after facing a major international backlash due comments she made during a TV debate about Prophet Muhammad.
The BJP said in a statement on its website that the party respected all religions. "The BJP strongly denounces insults of any religious personalities of any religion."
Another BJP spokesman Naveen Jindal was expelled from the party over comments he made about Islam on social media, the BJP office said.
Sharma and Jindal's comments, according to critics, represent the country's deep religious polarization in recent years. Since the BJP took power in 2014, hate speech and assaults against Muslims have increased dramatically.
Rights groups have accused Modi’s ruling party of looking the other way and sometimes enabling hate speech against Muslims, who are 14% of India’s 1.4 billion people but still numerous enough to be the second-largest Muslim population of any nation.
The United States on Thursday said that some Indian officials have supported attacks against religious minorities, in a rare if indirect criticism of the record of its emerging ally. An accusation India denied describing it as ‘baseless.’
However, the remarks made by Sharma and Jindal was not the first time any BJP officials made against Islam. Anti-Muslim hate speech has been a key part of BJP’s election campaign in the past couple of years.
During the state election campaigns in February, several leaders of the BJP were accused of making hateful and polarizing speeches against the Muslim community. However, critics accuse India’s ruling BJP of doing little to combat hate speeches and silently endorsing Islamophobia.
What led to India’s swift action
In response to Sharma and Jindal’s remarks, some of India’s biggest trade and energy partners in the Muslim world lodged official protest accusing New Delhi of blasphemy and demanded public apology.
At least five Arab nations including Saudi Arabia condemned remarks about Prophet Muhammad describing the act as "Islamophobic."
Qatar has stated that it expects India to issue a public apology.
In their statement, Saudi Arabia used some strong words. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned and denounced the allegations made by the BJP's spokeswoman," the statement read.
To tame the fire, India's Foreign Ministry said in a statement the offensive tweets and comments did not, in any way, reflect the views of the government.
New Delhi’s swift actions regarding the Islamophobic remarks reflects India’s interest in the Gulf region.
In 2020-21, India's trade with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was around $90 billion.
Countries in the Gulf host millions of Indians who live and work in these nations, sending remittances worth billions of dollars back home. In addition, the region is India's primary source of energy imports.
Therefore, any diplomatic feud might threaten the existing trade and economic agreement between New Delhi and the Gulf states hampering India’s interest in the region.
A senior official at the Qatar Embassy in New Delhi said Modi's government must publicly distance itself from the comments.
"Hurting our religious sentiments can directly impact economic ties," the official told Reuters, adding they were checking reports about boycotts of Indian goods by some supermarket owners in Qatar.
The UAE became the latest country to voice its condemnation of the remarks, saying they were "contrary to moral and humanitarian values and principles."
Arab countries are likewise trying to take concrete steps to calm their own citizens' rage. In these nations, anti-India hashtags have been trending, and the incident has been the top story in their news outlets.
Some of these hashtags have advocated for an Indian goods boycott. Some stores in Qatar and Kuwait have also been reported to be removing Indian merchandise off their shelves.