The consequences of an Israel-Iran clash could have an impact of the forthcoming election campaign in India due to a surge of anger in the Indian Muslim community.
As the date (July 22) for the vote of confidence from the Lok Sabha in the
Manmohan government nears and as the possibility of a premature election to the
Lok Sabha looms large, a question often debated is the attitude of the Indian
Muslims to the Indo-US nuclear deal: Do they regard it as anti-Muslim because of
the perceived anti-Muslim policies of the administration of President George
Bush?
That is the question which has been raised again and again by the critics of
the deal and of Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh.
In this connection, it would be pertinent to take note of the attitude of the
Muslims in the ummah as a whole since that could have an impact on the
attitude of the Indian Muslims. The strongest criticism of India's developing
relations with the US came from sections of the Muslims of the ummah
immediately after the visit of Bush to India in March, 2006.
The criticism was not specific relating to the nuclear deal. It was more in
relation to what they saw as India's co-operation with the US and Israel in the
war against jihadi terrorism. They noted with anger and surprise the reluctance
of different political formations in India--in the rulling alliance as well as
in the opposition-- to criticise the allegedly inhuman conditions in which
Muslims arrested in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the world on
suspicion of belonging to Al Qaeda were kept in the Guantanamo Bay detention
centre in Cuba and denied the basic human rights and the benefits of the due
process of the law.
Even the former Tony Blair government of the UK, which was very supportive of
the policies of the Bush Administration, expressed its discomfort over the
conditions in which the Muslim detainees were kept in the Guantanamo Bay
detention centre and in May 2006 publicly called for winding up the centre and
transferring the detainees to the custody of the American civilian authorities
from the custody of the military authorities.
A similar demand has been voiced by many other democratic countries, by the
International Committee of the Red Cross and by all human rights organisations
of the West without exception. India's silence in this matter as well as over
the repeated air strikes by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, which killed a large
number of civilians, was an important source of anger. This silence was seen as
the inevitable outcome of the growing Indo-US strategic relationship.
It was in this context that in the last week of April 2006, Osama bin Laden
projected the global jihad being waged by Al Qaeda as directed against a joint
conspiracy of the Crusaders, the Jewish people and the Hindus against Islam and
the Muslims. However, this characterisation has not been repeated by him since
then and the anger over India's silence has not found renewed expression.
However, one could not conclude from this that the anger has dissipated.
Similarly, the silence of the leftist parties--particularly of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist)-- over the renewed campaign of repression by the
Chinese authorities against the Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province
bordering Pakistan is being discussed by the various Muslim chat groups in the
Internet.
They have noted that not only the leftist parties, but even the Indian
political class as a whole and the Indian elite have maintained a silence over
the recent public execution of two Uighurs, the arrest of about 80 others and
the forcible closure of 40 mosques by the Chinese on the ground that they had
been started without permission and had become the den of terrorist elements
despite the fact that many of these details were carried by the state-controlled
media of China.
One can legitimately justify this silence on the ground that this was an
internal matter of China, but they have noted the energetic manner in which
Indian public opinion reacted to the repression of the Tibetans, but maintained
a discreet silence on the repression of the Muslims.
If the unabated concerns of Israel over Iran's nuclear programme leads to an
Israeli air strike against Iran's nuclear establishments with Iranian
retaliation against Israel, the consequences of this clash could have an impact
of the forthcoming election campaign in India due to a surge of anger in the
Indian Muslim community.
Al Qaeda and other pro-Al Qaeda Sunni organisations have kept silent over the
dangers of a US military strike against Iran. In his messages of last year,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's No.2, implied that Iran, which colluded with the
US in its invasion and occupation of Iraq, cannot expect the Sunnis to come to
its help against the US.
However, if Israel--and not the US-- attacks Iran, the Sunnis could rally to the
support of Iran. The Indian Muslim community is unlikely to remain untouched by
the anger of the ummah against Israel. India's close strategic relations
with Israel built up over the years by the previous as well as the present
governments could affect the attitude of the Muslims, upsetting the electoral
calculations of different political formations.
In this connection, one notices that the government of India has already taken a
strong stand earlier this week against any military action against Iran .
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of
India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies,
Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.