A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.
Abu Dhabi, UAE and New Delhi, India (CNN)It took India less than 24 hours to discipline two politicians after a controversy that had been brewing at home for over a week caught the attention of its Arab trade partners.
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday suspended a spokesperson and expelled another official after derogatory comments they made about Islam’s prophet led to an outcry in Arab countries.
“India was taken aback by the response,” said Kabeer Taneja, a fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi. “Communal issues are not new in India and in previous cases, we have not had such a response [from Arab states].”
On May 26, BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma made comments on an Indian news channel about Prophet Mohammad that were deemed offensive and Islamophobic. Qatar, Kuwait and Iran summoned India’s ambassadors, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation issued statements of condemnation.
Sharma said on Twitter she had “said some things” in response to comments made about a Hindu god but it was “never my intention to hurt anyone’s religious feelings.”
“If my words have caused discomfort or hurt religious feelings of anyone whatsoever, I hereby unconditionally withdraw my statement,” she said.
Most Indian news outlets reporting on the story didn’t directly quote Sharma’s original comments.
Naveen Jindal, a BJP leader, was expelled from the party over comments he made about Islam on social media, the BJP office said.
Analysts said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has walked a tight rope between keeping his Muslim international allies happy while pushing his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda at home.
“Modi has tried very hard to prevent his party’s domestic political agenda from spilling over and poisoning India’s relations with the Gulf states,” said Hasan Alhasan, a Bahrain-based fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who researches Indian foreign policy in the Gulf. “The extent to which Sharma’s comments have clouded India’s relations with the Gulf states is unprecedented, and that’s of course because she is, or was, the spokesperson of the BJP.”
Taneja said the Indian government has realized that a lot of religious rhetoric “has been taking place for a while and has been going unnoticed, but it will not go so anymore.”
The hashtag “Anyone but the prophet, oh Modi” was trending on Twitter in all six Gulf countries, and as far away as Algeria, with residents in Muslim nations calling for a boycott of Indian products. Oman’s outspoken Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Khalili, the chief religious figure in the country, called Sharma’s comments “a war on all Muslims” and a matter that “calls for all Muslims to rise as one nation.”
Offending depictions of Islam’s prophet have in the past led to mass boycotts, diplomatic crises, riots and even terror attacks.
The controversy comes as Gulf states and India look to significantly enhance their economic partnership. India, the world’s third-biggest importer of oil, looks to the Middle East for 65% of its crude imports. On the other hand, the Asian nation sends millions of workers to the Gulf states who send home billions of dollars in remittances.
“There are over 8 million non-resident Indians across the Gulf. The Gulf states are key sources of India’s oil and gas imports, and bilateral trade is over $100 billion,” said Alhasan. “So it is a very important set of relationships from the Indian perspective.”
The UAE alone, where some 3.5 million Indians live, accounts for 33% of remittances to India, at more than $20 billion a year.
The UAE has singled out India among seven other nations as its future economic partner. India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has said the Gulf nation plans to invest $100 billion in his country, in part for manufacturing and infrastructure.
This year, India signed a free trade agreement with the UAE, its first in more than a decade, and has eyed the rest of the Gulf states for similar agreements, according to news reports. The UAE pact aims to see annual trade rise to $100 billion in five years and contribute to the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in India.
Abdulaziz Sager, chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said that nature of India-Saudi relations gives Riyadh political and economic leverage over the Indian government.
“I don’t think that will have a jeopardizing effect in terms of the economic or political relations because India is still an important country,” said Sager. “It is an important relationship but Saudi Arabia is not going to accept any sort of insult to the Prophet or undermining of religious Islamic issues,” said Sager.
There are more than 2.2 million Indians in Saudi Arabia, according to Indian officials.
Taneja said India knows the clout Gulf states have over it because of the diaspora in those countries. “That is why we saw such a brisk response from the government.”
CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed to this report
The digest
Biden’s meeting with Saudi crown prince pushed back to July
A meeting between US President Joe Biden and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), is now expected to happen next month, according to an administration official.
- Background: CNN reported earlier that Biden and the crown prince were planning to meet at the end of June as part of a broader summit of Gulf countries. Officials said the July trip would allow for more time to plan and set a schedule and agenda. Biden on Friday defended the prospect of meeting with MBS.
- Why it matters: An in-person meeting with MBS would mark the first time Biden directly engages with the de facto Saudi leader since taking office. Biden has so far opted instead to speak directly with King Salman, the crown prince’s father. The meeting would represent a turnabout for Biden, who once suggested that Saudi Arabia be made a “pariah.” Two key deals were also reached last week — OPEC announcing it would increase oil production and the extension of a truce in Yemen — that laid the groundwork for the meeting between Biden and the crown prince.
Iran’s Khamenei says unrest caused by foreign ‘enemies’ trying to overthrow Islamic Republic
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that recent protests across the country are caused by foreign “enemies” seeking to overthrow the Iranian regime.
- Background: Protests have in recent weeks erupted across Iran over skyrocketing inflation. Anti-government demonstrations also broke out last month after a 10-story commercial building located in the city of Abadan collapsed and killed at least 37. “Today, the enemies’ most important hope for striking a blow at the country is based on popular protests,” Khamenei said in a televised speech on the 33rd anniversary of the death of the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- Why it matters: Iran has suffered one economic blow after another amid a strong budget deficit, rising food prices, and uncertainties about its main oil buyer China amid looming sanctions on Russia’s oil after its invasion of Ukraine. Protesters have accused the government of negligence and have repeatedly chanted slogans against the Islamic Republic and its rulers.
Briton sentenced to 15 years in prison in Iraq for artifact smuggling
A retired British geologist was sentenced to 15 years in prison by an Iraqi court on Monday for attempting to smuggle ancient artifacts out of the country.
- Background: 66-year-old James Fitton was arrested in March by Iraqi authorities at Baghdad airport for carrying small fragments and ancient pottery in his luggage. Fitton’s lawyer said that he did not know that the fragments were artifacts, and that he will appeal the verdict on the grounds that there was no criminal intent.
- Why it matters: Iraq’s ancient heritage has been hurt by years of conflict, and many of the country’s artifacts were looted amid the fighting, especially after the US invasion of 2003. The Iraqi government has been on a quest to locate and retrieve its many lost treasures, including those previously smuggled out of the country.
Around the region
Extreme drought has wreaked havoc in Iraq, causing sandstorms that have sent thousands of people to the hospital. But for some archaeologists it has been a temporary blessing.
As water levels in the Mosul reservoir dropped late last year, an ancient city emerged, and scientists rushed to study it before it disappeared underwater again.
A team of German and Iraqi-Kurdish archeologists was in a race against time after the 3400-year-old city under the Tigris River in Iraq’s Kurdistan region was uncovered this year.
As the water levels began to rise again, scientists rushed to excavate and document what is believed to be the urban center of the Mittani Empire, which stretched from northern Iraq through Syria and into Turkey.
The researchers, who announced their findings last week, were able to map a massive fortification of walls, storage facilities and an industrial complex. The team was stunned at how well preserved the city walls were, made from sun-dried mud bricks.
“This good preservation is due to the fact that the city was destroyed in an earthquake around 1350 BC, during which the collapsing upper parts of the walls buried the buildings,” the researchers said in a statement.
To prepare for the city’s looming reflooding, excavated buildings were covered with plastic sheeting and gravel fill. The city is once again underwater, waiting to be rediscovered.
By Mohammed Abdelbary
Photo of the day
