More Countries Join Campaign Condemning India Over Anti-Islam Sentiments

Rabat – As more Muslim-majority countries continue to take issue with India over slanderous, anti-Islam comments by two senior members of the Asian country’s ruling party, Indonesia and Malaysia are the latest to join the chorus of condemnation targeting the Indian government.

Both the Malaysian and Indonesian governments have summoned India’s ambassadors to comment on the “derogatory” statements of two officials from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) that has ruled India since 2014.

Nupur Sharma, a spokeswoman of the Bharatiya BJP, sparked a wave of anger and outrage among the Muslim communities across the world after she insulted the Prophet Muhammad and his wife Aicha in public TV debate.
Another BJP spokesman, Naveen Kumal Jindal, also faced suspension from the party for making controversial, anti-Islam comments on social media. Jindal’s offensive comments caused outrage not only among social media users but also among governments in Muslim countries.

The governments of Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Iran, Pakistan, and Oman summoned India’s envoys in their respective countries to condemn what they characterized as blasphemous and offensive comments that incite hatred and exacerbate social divisions.

Amid the widespread backlash, leaders of the Hindu nationalist BJP have since urged other officials to be “extremely cautious” when discussing religion on public platforms.
“We don’t want party officials to speak in a way that hurts the religious sentiments of any community,” a senior BJP speaker said.

India has been facing criticism for a noted increase in Islamophobia, with many reports indicating that the country has seen notable upticks in anti-Islam sentiments and comments since the BJP’s Narendra Modi took the helm of the government in 2014.

Over the past months, researchers and activists have documented — and warned against — a marked increase in Islamophobic acts and repression against Muslims.
Around 213 million Muslims live in India, representing 15.5% of the country’s population.

Earlier this year, Hindu groups called for further restrictions on Muslim women wearing Hijab at schools.

The group’s request came after a court ruled that hijab is not “an essential principle of Islam.”

Observers have warned that such developments may further exacerbate India’s already deep socio-religious fracture.

But with the recent controversy surrounding the Sharma and Jindal cases having prompted the BJP to publicly distance itself from India’s rampant cycle of Islamophobia, it remains to be seen whether the country’s ruling party will actually commit to protecting the rights of Indian Muslims.