Once again it falls on Pakistan to speak for the rights of Indian Muslims because, quite clearly, nobody else with any credibility in the international community will. That is why it was important for Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to welcome OIC’s (Organisation of Islamic Countries) statement against the horrible treatment of Muslims in India. On top of all that the Modi administration has done to vilify the Muslim community there, the latest stunt is holding Muslims responsible for the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Now all the Hindutva brigades are having a field day calling Muslims ‘human bombs’ and whipping up Islamophobia in yet more innovative ways.
By now it has become pretty clear that the international community is not going to speak out against India’s political interests in the region simply because of its large market and all the business it does with the world’s powerful countries. And all the Pakistani leadership can do, quite frankly, is make hard speeches and present compelling evidence at important forums. It would have helped no doubt if some of our Muslim friends had also joined in. They always speak of the plight of the community when it suits them, especially when it was in their interest for us to lend support for the Palestinian cause, but they are nowhere to be seen when we, and the Muslims in India and Kashmir, need them. Only two Muslim countries have supported Pakistan regarding the Kashmir cause, and they are Turkey and Iran. Sadly, we have not always been sincere with Iran in its own internal troubles with the Gulf states, yet the Islamic Republic duly stands by us and the Kashmiris.
Delhi will only turn around when there is a change from within India. Lately some pockets of the Congress Party have tried to set the record straight, but they are also quite understandably straightjacketed because of their own record when in power. Plus, it will take more than acts of political expediency on the part of a defeated party looking to come back to power for the state to start looking out for some of its minorities. Unfortunately, all the while everybody else debates just how to best protect the interests of Muslims that New Delhi is bent upon sidelining, those poor communities continue to suffer with no end in sight. And so this sad story moves round and round in circles. *